United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 04-1053
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
EDWARD COFIELD,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Robert E. Keeton, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Circuit Judge, Leval,* Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
John F. Palmer, for appellant.
James F. Lang, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Michael J. Sullivan, United States Attorney, and Frank M.
Gaziano, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for
appellee.
December 10, 2004
*
Of the Second Circuit, sitting by designation.
LEVAL, Senior Circuit Judge. The defendant Edward Cofield
brings this appeal from his conviction in the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts for possession of
heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a), and being a convicted
felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 922(g). The defendant moved to suppress evidence seized
from him by the Boston police following his arrest. The district
court conducted a hearing and denied the motion. The defendant
then entered a conditional plea of guilty, preserving his right to
appeal from the denial of the suppression motion. Defendant was
sentenced to 180 months imprisonment, followed by three years of
supervised release on the firearms count, and to concurrent terms
of 12 months imprisonment and a year of supervised release on the
heroin count. He brought this appeal. We affirm.
Background
On the afternoon of June 15, 2001, Officer Kenneth Hearns of
the Boston Police Department, a plainclothes narcotics
investigator, saw the defendant Cofield on Washington Street in
Roxbury. Hearns recognized Cofield, from having arrested him on
January 10, 2000 after seeing him chase and attempt to stab another
man. When the police officers had overtaken and apprehended
Cofield on that prior occasion, they had found a knife on his
person and a bundle of thirteen bags of heroin on the ground next
to him. Cofield had been charged with heroin possession and armed
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assault. Hearns knew that Cofield had failed to make a court
appearance on that charge and was wanted as a fugitive. He
confirmed by police radio that there was a warrant outstanding for
Cofield’s arrest and made contact with backup. He was joined by
Officers Jay Broderick and Michael Ross to assist in the arrest.
The officers approached Cofield and told him he was under arrest.
Cofield struggled to free himself from the officers’ grasp, but was
soon handcuffed. Officer Broderick quickly frisked Cofield’s
pockets and found a glassine bag containing heroin.
While they waited for a police car to transport Cofield to the
nearby precinct, the officers noticed that Cofield was acting
nervous and “high-strung.” Cofield said to Hearns, “If I ran right
now, would you be mad at me?” The officers decided to search
Cofield once he had been transported to the station house. Among
their reasons for not searching him more fully on the street was
the desire to avoid calling attention to themselves and
compromising their undercover roles. Approximately ten minutes
after arrival at the station house, Hearns undertook to search
Cofield. The search was conducted in a hallway near the booking
desk. There were no other people under arrest there at the time.
Hearns began to search Cofield’s hat and shoes without finding
anything. He then asked Cofield to open his denim shorts. Cofield
turned to face the wall and dropped his shorts. Hearns then told
him to take his underwear down. Cofield took his underwear down
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slowly and carefully, using two hands. Hearns, observing from
behind, saw a dark object sticking out from the underpants. As
Cofield lowered his underpants slowly, a .32 caliber Beretta pistol
fell out. Cofield kicked it under his denim shorts. The police
quickly recovered it. The present prosecution was based on
Cofield’s possession of the heroin, the pistol, and the ammunition.
Cofield’s motion to suppress was based on the argument that
the officers lacked the necessary degree of probable cause,
reasonable suspicion or concern for their safety that would justify
a strip search. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the district
court denied the motion on the grounds that (1) the circumstances
supported a reasonable suspicion that Cofield was in possession of
weapons and/or narcotics, and (2) the officers had good reason to
fear for their safety. The court may also have relied on
inevitable discovery. This doctrine was discussed during argument,
but was not expressly relied on in the court’s final summary of its
ruling.
Discussion
The lawfulness of a strip search depends on whether the
circumstances reasonably justify such an intrusive invasion of
privacy. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979); Swain v.
Spinney, 117 F.3d 1, 5-6 (1st Cir. 1997). Appellate review is de
novo. See, e.g., United States v. Sargent, 319 F.3d 4, 8 (1st Cir.
2003). In considering the question of reasonableness, a court must
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assess the totality of the circumstances, including “the scope of
the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the
justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is
conducted.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 559. The inquiry is of a practical
nature, calling for a sensible assessment of the circumstances.
Well-justified concern for the safety of police officers can of
course furnish important justification.
The police officers had excellent reason to believe that
Cofield might be in possession of both weapons and narcotics, and
that he might pose a threat to their safety.1 There was also good
reason to believe such things might be hidden in his underwear.
Among the circumstances which supported such a concern were the
following: Officer Hearns knew Cofield to be a narcotics dealer;
1
Without suggesting that there were not reasonable grounds
to search based on possible possession of narcotics, we also
consider the threat to officer safety. We recognize that Officer
Hearns testified that the motivation of his search was to find
narcotics. Nonetheless, if an objective assessment of the
circumstances would have justified a concern about a concealed
weapon, a court properly takes that concern into account in
determining the reasonableness of the search, even though it was
not the searching officer’s motivation. See, e.g., Whren v. United
States, 517 U.S. 806, 813-14 (1996) (finding that the Supreme
Court’s “cases foreclose any argument that the constitutional
reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations
of the individual officers involved” and stating that “the Fourth
Amendment’s concern with ‘reasonableness’ allows certain actions to
be taken in certain circumstances, whatever the subjective
intent”); United States v. Weems, 322 F.3d 18, 23-24 (1st Cir.
2003) (“[T]he subjective intent of the police plays no role in the
analysis of a motion to suppress under the Fourth Amendment. . . .
Rather, the question is whether [the search was] objectively
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”).
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officers had found a glassine baggie of heroin in Cofield’s
exterior pocket, suggesting a likelihood that he may have more
heroin on his person; from his own personal experience, as well as
his professional familiarity with narcotics traffic, Officer Hearns
knew that narcotics dealers often carry narcotics and weapons
concealed in their undershorts;2 and Cofield had appeared tense and
nervous and had struggled to avoid arrest. Furthermore, the
previous year Hearns had seen Cofield try to stab a man and had
found Cofield to be in possession of thirteen bags of heroin. All
these circumstances supported a reasonable inference that Cofield
might well be concealing a weapon, posing a danger to the police
and others, as well as contraband narcotics evidence, which Cofield
might find a way to hide or dispose of if it was not promptly
secured.
Bell also requires consideration of the manner in which the
search is conducted, with attention to whether it exceeds
reasonable bounds or is done in a needlessly humiliating fashion or
with improper motivation. See Roberts v. Rhode Island, 239 F.3d
107, 113 (1st Cir. 2001); Swain, 117 F.3d at 8. In the present
case, the strip search was conducted in a professional manner with
no more intrusion than necessary to accomplish the proper law
2
This court has observed in discussing the reasonableness of
a strip search that “[i]t is common knowledge that controlled
substances often are concealed on the person of users and dealers
alike.” Burns v. Loranger, 907 F.2d 233, 238-39 (1st Cir. 1990).
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enforcement purpose. The officers did not require Cofield to
assume humiliating poses, expose himself in an unnecessarily public
place or to members of the opposite sex, remain exposed for
unreasonable durations, or endure degradation or ridicule. Nor was
there any suggestion of any abusive or unprofessional motivation on
the part of the officers. Compare Swain, 117 F.3d at 8 (“distinct
possibility” that strip search was ordered to “impos[e] sexual
humiliation . . . as a punishment for . . . non-cooperation”), with
Wood v. Hancock County Sheriff’s Dep’t, 354 F.3d 57, 69 (1st Cir.
2003) (noting appellant did not challenge manner of search where
“done in a private area, by a single officer of the same gender,
and without physical contact”); Roberts, 239 F.3d at 113 (manner of
search reasonable where conducted in private, search was entirely
visual, and no accusations of abuse); Burns v. Loranger, 907 F.2d
233, 235 & n.6 (1st Cir. 1990) (noting plaintiff did not challenge
manner of strip search, where visual search only, performed by
officer of same gender, and in a private location).
Nor was the strip search unreasonable in relation to the
nature and seriousness of the offenses in which Cofield was
believed to be involved. Cofield was a fugitive on the serious
charges on which Hearns had first arrested him in January 2000. He
was now subject to prosecution for the earlier assault and heroin
offenses, his flight to avoid that prosecution, and the new heroin
discovered through the Washington Street pat-down. See Roberts,
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239 F.3d at 112 (more latitude to strip search prisoners charged
with offenses “generally associated with weapons or contraband”);
see also Miller v. Kennebec County, 219 F.3d 8, 12 (1st Cir. 2000)
(agreeing with district court that there was ample evidence to find
strip searches unjustified, “particularly” because offense for
which plaintiff was detained gave rise to no suspicion of
concealment of weapons or contraband).
Considering all these circumstances, we believe that the
district court was eminently justified in concluding that the
search was reasonably conducted and well within the standards of
Bell.3
Affirmed.
3
Because we affirm on the basis of the reasonableness of the
search, we have no need to rule on the alternate ground of the
inevitability of the gun’s discovery. See, e.g., Nix v. Williams,
467 U.S. 431 (1984) (applying the doctrine of inevitable discovery
to admit evidence); United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 30, 42-45 (1st
Cir. 2001) (same); United States v. Ford, 22 F.3d 374, 377-81 (1st
Cir. 1994) (same); United States v. Silvestri, 787 F.2d 736 (1st
Cir. 1986) (same).
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