USCA1 Opinion
May 3, 1996 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 95-2276
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
FARRELL SUTHERLAND,
Defendant, Appellant.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Gene Carter, U.S. District Judge] ___________________
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Before
Cyr, Boudin and Lynch,
Circuit Judges. ______________
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Robert A. Levine, with whom Law Offices of Robert A. Levine was ________________ ________________________________
on brief for appellant.
F. Mark Terison, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Jay _______________ ___
P. McCloskey, United States Attorney, was on brief for appellee. ____________
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Per Curiam. Defendant Farrell Sutherland, who entered Per Curiam. ___ ______
conditional guilty pleas to two bank robbery charges, see 18 ___
U.S.C. 2113(a), appeals the adverse suppression rulings upon
which his pleas were conditioned. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). ___
We affirm.
Sutherland claims that the police did not have probable
cause to arrest him on March 18, 1995, after stopping the taxi in
which he and a female companion were traveling to Massachusetts
following a bank robbery in Portland, Maine. The district court
made supportable findings that: (i) the bank robbery investiga-
tion had focused on the passengers in this particular taxi
because bank surveillance photographs, and an eyewitness report,
revealed that Sutherland had committed two bank robberies in
Portland, the most recent having been at 9:00 a.m. the same
morning; (ii) an ABC taxi had been dispatched to Sutherland's
Portland residence around 11:00 a.m. to transport Sutherland
and a female companion suspected of assisting him in an earlier
Portland bank robbery to Lynn, Massachusetts; and (iii) the
Portland police had notified the Massachusetts State Police
("MSP") to stop the taxi, and provided a specific physical
description of Sutherland, including items of his clothing (grey
or white sweatshirt and black leather jacket), together with the
information that he had obtained $2,460 in $20 bills from the
bank robbery earlier that day.
Upon stopping the taxi, which contained two passengers,
a male and a female, the MSP observed a black leather jacket and
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a grey sweatshirt inside the vehicle. The male passenger matched
the physical description provided by the Portland police.1
We review the district court's factual findings for
clear error, see United States v. Martinez-Molina, 64 F.3d 719, ___ _____________ _______________
726 (1st Cir. 1995), whereas its ultimate legal determination as
to whether a given set of facts established probable cause is
subject to plenary review, see United States v. Zapata, 18 F.3d ___ _____________ ______
971, 975 (1st Cir. 1994). There is probable cause for a warrant-
less arrest if "the facts and circumstances within [the offi-
cer[s']] knowledge and of which [they] had reasonably trustworthy
information were sufficient to warrant a prudent [person] in
believing that the [defendant] had committed . . . an offense."
Alexis v. McDonald's Restaurants of Mass., Inc., 67 F.3d 341, 349 ______ _____________________________________
(1st Cir. 1995) (some brackets in original). These findings were
sufficient to support the district court's "probable cause"
ruling.2
Sutherland next claims that his post-Miranda confession _______
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1Furthermore, after the two passengers were removed from the
vehicle, the female immediately consented to a search of her
purse, which was found to contain $2,300 in $20 bills. As the
district court considered the evidence seized from the purse in
arriving at its probable cause determination, it implicitly found
that the consensual search preceded Sutherland's arrest. We find
no clear error. See United States v. Martinez-Molina, 64 F.3d ___ _____________ _______________
719, 726 (1st Cir. 1995).
2Appellant vigorously insists that the search of his person
which occurred at roadside, after the police pulled down his
trousers to inhibit his movement, invalidated his warrantless
arrest. We have been presented with no reasoned basis for
concluding that a brief roadside protective search for weapons,
see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 26 (1968), undermined the arrest ___ _____ ____ __________ ___ ______
itself, particularly since the roadside search disclosed no ______
evidence.
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was involuntary, since he was undergoing heroin withdrawal at the
time, such that a promise the police made to provide him with
methadone treatment was tantamount to coercion. An unimpeachable
district court finding conclusively undermines the involuntari-
ness claim. After hearing conflicting testimony as to whether
Sutherland had been promised methadone treatments, the court
accepted the version provided by the police. Thus, there can
have been no clear error. United States v. Valle, 72 F.3d 210, _____________ _____
214 (1st Cir. 1995) (trial judge's credibility choice between two
plausible versions of the events cannot be clearly erroneous).
Affirmed. Affirmed ________
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