United States v. Christopher Brian Grant

2 Opinion of the Court 25-12590 court's denial of his motion to suppress. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

I.

Early one morning in January 2024, Lee County Sheriff's Of- fice Deputy Michael Knapp was surveilling two hotels. According to Knapp, these two hotels were "high-crime hotels," known to be used for drug-trafficking and other crimes. At around 3:20 a.m., Deputy Knapp saw a car leaving one of the hotels and stopped it because the car's license plate was not visible and the driver had failed to stop when he turned onto the road from the hotel. After the car stopped in a parking lot, Deputy Knapp got out of his police car and saw the driver, Grant, flicking the burned end of a cigarette out of his car into the parking lot.

Deputy Knapp talked to the driver and identified him as Grant. According to Deputy Knapp, Grant appeared "very nerv- ous" and was "shaking and making furtive movements," such as shifting in his seat and putting his hands between the seats. Deputy Knapp then ordered Grant out of the car, but Grant did not imme- diately comply and had to be ordered out of the car several times. Once Grant was out of the car, Deputy Knapp saw multiple bulges in Grant's pockets, including a fist-sized bulge in Grant's back left pants pocket. Believing that Grant was armed, Deputy Knapp frisked Grant. As he patted Grant's back left pocket, he felt an item that was "consistent with a bag of marijuana." He then removed the bag—which was marijuana—from Grant's pocket and arrested Grant. The bag and marijuana weighed 5.86 grams in

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25-12590 Opinion of the Court 3 total. Deputy Knapp searched Grant further and found several more illicit substances on him, including oxycodone, cocaine, and a rock-like substance believed to be MDMA. Deputy Knapp then searched the car and found a gun and several rounds of ammuni- tion.

In February 2024, a federal grand jury charged Grant with possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, in vio- lation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8) (Count 1). Thereafter, Grant moved the district court to suppress evidence authorities gained from searching him and a car he drove, specifically several narcotics, a gun, and statements he made concerning those items. Grant asserted that Deputy Knapp conducted an impermissible search by opening his pockets after feeling an item "consistent with a bag of marijuana" during a pat down because the incriminating nature of the item was not immediately apparent. Grant also con- tended that Deputy Knapp's subsequent discovery of the gun when they searched his car had to be suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree."

The district court conducted a suppression hearing, at which Deputy Knapp testified. Deputy Knapp testified that he patted down Grant's back-left pocket with an open hand for about a sec- ond and that he did not "squeeze" or "manipulate" it, but his "bot- tom fingers came around the bottom side of the bulge just based on the force." Deputy Knapp felt the texture of the item inside the bulge in Grant's back-left pocket, which had the "the spongy feel that marijuana has." Deputy Knapp also heard the crunch of a

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"plastic-type exterior bag." Based on how the bulge felt, Deputy Knapp believed that Grant had marijuana in his back-left pocket. Deputy Knapp testified that he did not believe the bulge was a weapon and did not "continue to squeeze or pat down the bulge"

after he determined it was not a weapon.

Following the hearing, the district court issued an order denying Grant's motion to suppress. The district court found Dep- uty Knapp to be "highly credible" and noted that Grant did not pre- sent any other evidence or testimony to contradict Deputy Knapp's testimony. The district court also found that Deputy Knapp rea- sonably suspected that Grant was armed before he patted Grant down and that Deputy Knapp's protective search "involved no ex- tensive squeezing or manipulation of any part of Defendant's cloth- ing." The district court credited Deputy Knapp's nine years in law enforcement, explaining that, "[b]ased on Deputy Knapp's exten- sive . . . experience, Deputy Knapp easily concluded that the bulge in [Grant]'s pocket felt like marijuana based on the plain feel of the bag." The district court concluded that probable cause existed be- cause "[a]bsolute certainty that a defendant possesses contraband is not required."

Thereafter, Grant stipulated to a bench trial and the district court found him guilty of Count 1. The district court sentenced Grant to an 18-month term of imprisonment.

II.

A district court's denial of a defendant's motion to suppress evidence presents a mixed question of law and fact. United States v.

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25-12590 Opinion of the Court 5 Perez, 661 F.3d 568, 581 (11th Cir. 2011). We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the party that prevailed below. United States v. Vergara, 884 F.3d 1309, 1312 (11th Cir. 2018). We will accept the district court's credibility de- termination unless the credited testimony is (1) contrary to the laws of nature or (2) so inconsistent or improbable on its face that no reasonable factfinder could accept it. United States v. Maddox,

803 F.3d 1215, 1220 (11th Cir. 2015).

III.

We turn to Grant's first challenge to the district court's de- nial of his motion to suppress. Grant argues that Deputy Knapp exceeded the lawful scope of a Terry frisk to the extent Deputy Knapp squeezed or manipulated the contents of his back-left pocket.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. Amend. IV. A warrantless search is un- reasonable unless the search falls within an exception. Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 372 (1993). Under one of these exceptions, sometimes called a Terry stop, an officer may stop an individual whose conduct reasonably leads the officer to believe that criminal activity is occurring. Id. at 372-73. During a Terry stop, an officer may "patdown" the stopped individual to determine if the individ- ual has a weapon, but only if the officer has a justifiable belief that the individual is armed and presently dangerous. Id. at 373. An

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6 Opinion of the Court 25-12590 officer's Terry frisk must be "carefully limited" to a search of a sus- pect's "outer clothing . . . to discover weapons which might be used to assault" the officer. United States v. Johnson, 921 F.3d 991, 997 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc) (quotation omitted). The scope of a Terry frisk must remain "related" to protecting the officer and anyone else nearby. Id. at 998-99 (quotation omitted). In Dickerson, an officer conducting a lawful Terry frisk felt a small lump in the suspect's jacket pocket. 508 U.S. at 377-78. After determining that the lump was not a weapon, the officer continued to examine it by "squeezing, sliding and otherwise manipulating"

the contents of the pocket, thereby ascertaining that the lump was crack cocaine. Id. at 378. The Supreme Court held that the contin- ued manipulation exceeded the bounds of a protective frisk and that the incriminating character of the object was not immediately apparent. Id. at 378-79.

Here, the district court found that Deputy Knapp's protec- tive search "involved no extensive squeezing or manipulation of any part of the Defendant's clothing." Grant contends that this finding is clearly erroneous because Deputy Knapp's own descrip- tion of the frisk—his "bottom fingers came around the bottom side of the bulge just based on the force"—necessarily constitutes squeezing. We disagree.

Deputy Knapp consistently testified that he patted the pocket once, for approximately one second, and with an open hand; that he did not squeeze or otherwise manipulate the bulge;

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25-12590 Opinion of the Court 7 and that he did not continue to pat or squeeze the bulge after de- termining it was not a weapon. His statement that his bottom fin- gers "came around the bottom side of the bulge just based on the force" is readily reconciled with a single open-hand pat where the objects in a person's pocket are pressed against their body without constituting the kind of deliberate squeezing or sliding forbidden by Dickerson.

The district court having observed Deputy Knapp's de- meanor and having noted the absence of any contradictory evi- dence, found him "highly credible." That credibility determination is entitled to deference because Deputy Knapp's testimony was nei- ther contrary to the laws or nature or so improbable that no rea- sonable factfinder could accept it. Maddox, 803 F.3d at 1220. We thus conclude that the district court did not clearly err by crediting Deputy Knapp's testimony that he patted, rather than squeezed or manipulated, Grant's back-left pocket during the Terry frisk. The district court therefore did not clearly err in concluding that the manner of the touch did not exceed the permissible scope of a Terry frisk.

IV.

Next, Grant argues that Deputy Knapp lacked probable cause to search his pocket. During a Terry frisk, if an officer discov- ers an object "whose contour or mass" makes the object's identity as contraband "immediately apparent," the officer has probable cause to seize the object without a warrant ("the plain feel excep- tion"). Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 375-76. In the plain view context, we

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if "the facts available to the officer would warrant a man of reason- able caution in the belief that certain items may be contraband."

United States v. Folk, 754 F.3d 905, 912 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted).

Probable cause exists if a reasonable police officer in his po- sition with the same knowledge would believe that evidence of a crime is present in the location he intends to search based on the totality of the circumstances. See United States v. Braddy, 11 F.4th 1298, 1312 (11th Cir. 2021). Though probable cause requires more than mere suspicion, it does not require conclusive proof. Rankin

v. Evans, 133 F.3d 1425, 1435 (11th Cir. 1998). What the officer him- self subjectively believes about the existence or nonexistence of probable cause is irrelevant. United States v. Lindsey, 482 F.3d 1285, 1292 n.5 (2007). However, "the observations and experiences of the law enforcement officers working a case must be weighed as a part of the totality of the circumstances that might create probable cause." United States v. Gonzalez, 969 F.2d 999, 1003 (11th Cir.

1992).

Here, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err by crediting Deputy Knapp's testimony that he felt marijuana through Grant's clothing because one could reasonably infer that Deputy Knapp could identify marijuana, a common drug, based on his testimony that he had experience identifying drugs through clothing. See Folk, 754 U.S. F.3d at 912. Accordingly, Deputy

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25-12590 Opinion of the Court 9 Knapp had probable cause to search Grant's back-left pocket be- cause any reasonable officer who was confident that he felt mariju- ana in a suspect's pocket would believe that the pocket contained evidence of a crime. Thus, we conclude that the district court did not err in denying Grant's motion to suppress.

V.

For these reasons, we affirm Grant's conviction and sen- tence.

AFFIRMED.

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