UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________
No. 98-60243
_______________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
BILLY LEON CAMPBELL,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Mississippi
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June 10, 1999
Before JONES and STEWART, Circuit Judges, and DUPLANTIER,* District
Judge.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:
Campbell pled guilty to armed bank robbery, use of a
firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and two
counts of obstruction of commerce by robbery, on the condition that
he could challenge the district court’s denial of his motion to
suppress evidence. On appeal, he argues that there were
insufficient grounds for an investigatory detention and its
successive steps: being told to lie prone, being handcuffed, being
frisked, and having several objects removed from his pocket.
Alternatively, he argues that his detention constituted an arrest
*
District Judge of the Eastern District of Louisiana, sitting
by designation.
unsupported by probable cause. We conclude that, under the
circumstances, the officers’ conduct was reasonable.
I.
On the morning of July 31, 1997, a lone black male robbed
a bank in Olive Branch, Mississippi. In the course of the robbery,
he pointed a handgun at the teller whom he asked for money. The
robber was described as being in his twenties or early thirties,
about 6'1" tall, 155 pounds, with long hair and a dark complexion.
He escaped with $3,365 in what witnesses described as a late 1980s,
black Chevrolet Cavalier with Tennessee license plate 600TTP.
The next day, FBI agent Lent Rice learned from Memphis
police that the license plate had expired, and that the person to
whom it had last been registered said it was now in the possession
of Michael Campbell (the defendant’s brother), who lived at 4544
Fontaine Place, in Olive Branch. At about 5:00 P.M., Agent Rice
went to that address with Detective Cleates Oliver of the Olive
Branch Police Department. When they arrived, they saw the Cavalier
with the same Tennessee license plate parked in the carport next to
the house. They set up surveillance a block away and called for
backup. Sergeant Scott Gentry arrived to assist in the
surveillance. He was told that they were surveilling a possible
armed robbery suspect who was armed, given the description of the
robber, told that the car in the carport was the getaway vehicle,
and told that Michael Campbell was the suspect.
Within minutes, three black males emerged from the house
and appeared to be getting into the car. The surveilling officers
moved in to stop their departure. Sergeant Gentry got to the
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driveway first. By then, Michael Campbell and another man were
already in the car. Billy Campbell was still walking towards the
driver’s side of the car. With his gun drawn, Gentry ordered all
three men to put their hands up. Moving towards Billy Campbell,
Gentry told him to get on the ground. As Campbell did this, Gentry
looked to the two men in the car and told them to keep their hands
visible. When Agent Rice and Detective Oliver approached the men
in the car, Gentry turned his attention back to Billy Campbell, who
had complied with his order to lie down on the concrete surface of
the carport.
Billy Campbell matched the description of the bank
robber: he was 24 years old, 6'1" tall, 160 pounds, with a dark
complexion and shoulder-length hair. Gentry considered this a
high-crime neighborhood and noted that there were people in nearby
yards, as well as two women and a small child under the carport.
Gentry holstered his weapon, handcuffed Campbell behind his back,
and frisked him. Gentry ran his hands along Campbell’s body, and
around the waistband, rolling Campbell to the left and right side
to frisk his pockets. In Campbell’s right front pants pocket,
Gentry felt a large bulge. Fearing that it might be “some type of
weapon,” Gentry called Detective Oliver over. Gentry then reached
into the pocket, pulled its contents out, and laid them on the
ground. The contents comprised a large wad of money (more than
$1,400), a gold cardboard jewelry box containing a gold chain, and
some change.
Meanwhile, Agent Rice had been dealing with Michael
Campbell. Rice asked Michael Campbell to get out of the car and
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immediately handcuffed him, placed him on the ground, and frisked
him. (Detective Oliver asked the third man, who was too short to
meet the bank robber’s description, to get out of the car and sit
down on the carport’s concrete surface.) Michael Campbell told
Rice that he had been in jail the previous day. Someone contacted
the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department, which confirmed within 10
to 25 minutes that Michael Campbell had been in their custody at
the time of the bank robbery. Michael Campbell’s handcuffs were
removed.
During the time that Michael Campbell’s alibi was being
checked, Detective Oliver took the items from Billy Campbell’s
pocket to his car. Within a few minutes, Assistant Police Chief
Hal Pino arrived. Pino checked the $20 bills and found that three
of them matched the serial numbers on the list of “bait bills” that
the bank teller had given the robber. During the time it took to
check the bills, Billy Campbell was left handcuffed.1 After the
bait bills had been identified and Michael Campbell’s alibi was
confirmed, Billy Campbell was told he was being held on suspicion
of bank robbery, taken to a squad car, and advised of his rights.
Billy Campbell later confessed to the bank robbery as
well as several other armed robberies in the area in the weeks
before the bank robbery. A consent search of the house on Fontaine
Place (which was owned by the Campbells’ mother) revealed a
hardhat, goggles, and plastic hair net matching those worn by the
1
It is unclear from the record and the briefs whether Campbell
was lying down or standing up while the bills were checked.
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bank robber. Mrs. Campbell later located the handgun that had been
used in the string of robberies and turned it over to the police.
Before trial, Campbell moved to suppress the physical
evidence obtained from the stop. After a hearing where three of
the officers testified, the district court denied the motion to
suppress, finding that the officers had reasonable suspicion to
detain the men getting into the car, that their conduct was
reasonable under the circumstances, and that it did not exceed the
bounds of an investigative detention.
II.
The “reasonableness of an investigatory stop and frisk”
is reviewed de novo. United States v. Michelletti, 13 F.3d 838,
841 (5th Cir. 1994) (en banc). Yet the evidence is reviewed “in
the light most favorable to the government as the prevailing
party,” and the denial of the motion to suppress will be upheld “if
there is any reasonable view of the evidence to support it.” Id.
(internal quotation omitted).
III.
There is no doubt that the officers had reasonable
suspicion to make an investigatory stop of Campbell. “[I]f police
have a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable
facts, that a person they encounter was involved in or is wanted in
connection with a completed felony, then a Terry stop may be made
to investigate that suspicion.” United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S.
221, 229, 105 S. Ct. 675, 680 (1985). Campbell matched the
physical description of the bank robber from the day before and was
approaching a car that matched a detailed description of the
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getaway vehicle and bore the same license plate. These facts were
sufficient to warrant further investigation.
In the course of that investigation, the officers had two
goals: to investigate and to protect themselves during their
investigation. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 23, 88 S. Ct. 1868,
1881 (1968) (“[I]n addition [to the governmental interest in
investigating crime], there is the more immediate interest of the
police officer in taking steps to assure himself that the person
with whom he is dealing is not armed with a weapon that could
unexpectedly and fatally be used against him.”). The officers were
authorized to “take such steps as were reasonably necessary to
protect their personal safety and to maintain the status quo during
the course of the stop.” Hensley, 469 U.S. at 235, 105 S. Ct. at
684. This court asks case-by-case “whether the police were
unreasonable in failing to use less intrusive procedures to conduct
their investigation safely.” United States v. Sanders, 994 F.2d
200, 206-07 (5th Cir. 1993).
In Sanders, this court observed that “using some force on
a suspect, pointing a weapon at a suspect, ordering a suspect to
lie on the ground, and handcuffing a suspect -- whether singly or
in combination -- do not automatically convert an investigatory
detention into an arrest requiring probable cause.” Id. at 206.
Although there are some differences between this case and the facts
of Sanders -- here there was no sign of non-cooperation and the
stop happened about 30 hours after the bank robbery -- that does
not mean that the use of drawn guns and handcuffs was unreasonable.
As the Seventh Circuit has noted: “When a suspect is considered
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dangerous, requiring him to lie face down on the ground is the
safest way for police officers to approach him, handcuff him and
finally determine whether he carries any weapons.” United States
v. Tilmon, 19 F.3d 1221, 1228 (7th Cir. 1994).
This is precisely what Sergeant Gentry did. Given that
Billy Campbell matched the description of the armed bank robber and
was walking towards the driver’s side of what almost certainly had
been the getaway vehicle, there were good reasons to assume that
Campbell was armed. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 24, 88 S. Ct. at 1883
(“An officer need not be certain that an individual is armed....”);
Tilmon, 19 F.3d at 1227 (citing six cases finding it reasonable to
assume armed bank robbery suspects are dangerous). Although
Campbell had complied with Gentry’s order to lie down, this would
not have precluded his reaching for a weapon. There were other
people in the area and only three officers to control all three
suspects. Under the circumstances, it was not unreasonable for
Gentry to take the precaution of handcuffing Campbell and frisking
him. Nor was it unreasonable, as Campbell alleges, to handcuff him
before frisking him. See Sanders, 994 F.2d at 208-09.
Campbell argues that the removal of his pocket’s contents
was unreasonable because the frisk revealed nothing that could “be
taken for a weapon by an experienced officer under any stretch of
the imagination.” This ipse dixit is inadequate to reverse the
district court. Gentry testified that he thought the large bulge
in Campbell’s pocket “was some type of weapon.” The combination of
change, over $1,400 of currency, and a cardboard box containing a
gold chain was no mere “bump.” Cf. United States v. Ponce, 8 F.3d
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989, 999 (5th Cir. 1994) (“a police officer’s protective search
might properly include seizure of an object that feels like a wad
of folded bills concealing a weapon”). In the light most favorable
to the government, Gentry had not ruled out the possibility that
the large bulge was a weapon, and his removal of the pocket’s
contents was not beyond the scope of a permissible Terry frisk.
Finally, Campbell argues that the totality of the
officers’ conduct constituted an arrest, rather than an
investigatory stop, and was unsupported by probable cause. As
discussed above, drawn guns and handcuffs do not necessarily
convert a detention into an arrest. Nor did it convert the
detention into an arrest to leave Billy Campbell handcuffed during
the time it took to investigate Michael Campbell’s alibi and the
serial numbers on the $20 bills. As the Supreme Court has
explained:
In assessing whether a detention is too long in
duration to be justified as an investigative stop,
we consider it appropriate to examine whether the
police diligently pursued a means of investigation
that was likely to confirm or dispel their
suspicions quickly, during which time it was
necessary to detain the defendant.
United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686, 105 S. Ct. 1568, 1575
(1985). There were substantial reasons to suspect Billy Campbell
had been the bank robber, and he was detained for no longer than
necessary to conduct a cursory check that could provide more
conclusory evidence.2 The entire detention took between 10 and 25
2
Michael Campbell’s handcuffs were removed as soon as his
alibi was confirmed. The third man present was never handcuffed
because he was too short to match the description of the bank
robber.
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minutes -- not an unreasonable amount of time under the
circumstances. See id. at 688, 105 S. Ct. at 1576 (20-minute stop
not an arrest); Allen v. City of Los Angeles, 66 F.3d 1052 (9th
Cir. 1995) (detention of suspect in police car for 24 minutes,
while police contacted car owner to determine if it had been
stolen, did not amount to an arrest); Courson v. McMillian, 939
F.2d 1479, 1492 (11th Cir. 1991) (30-minute detention not
unreasonable for an investigative stop).
The facts of this case demonstrate neither an arrest nor
unreasonably excessive steps for an investigatory detention.
IV.
Because the district court did not err in denying
Campbell’s motion to suppress, Campbell’s convictions on all counts
are AFFIRMED.
AFFIRMED.
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