United States v. Glen Cook, 670 F. App'x 326

Cook was charged with methamphetamine distribution, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and aiding and abetting, and waived a jury trial.
Officers stopped Cook after he left a .38 revolver in a stranger’s car and then returned to the scene; officer conducted a Terry stop and pat-down.
During the pat-down the officer felt a hard cylindrical canister in Cook’s pocket, opened it, and found 32 distribution packets of methamphetamine.
Cook moved to suppress evidence obtained during the warrantless stop and search; the district court denied the motion, found him guilty, and sentenced him to 123 months’ imprisonment plus supervised release.
On appeal Cook challenged (1) the legality of the Terry stop and pat-down and (2) whether the pat-down exceeded its permissible scope by opening the canister; he also raised a sentencing form error about concurrency.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of suppression, held Cook waived contesting voluntariness of consent, and modified the written judgment to make the federal sentence concurrent with related state sentences.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Lawfulness of Terry stop	Stop lacked reasonable suspicion because Cook lawfully possessed a firearm	Officer had reasonable suspicion based on Cook leaving a revolver in a stranger’s car and surrounding circumstances	Stop was supported by reasonable suspicion; Terry stop valid
Voluntariness of consent to pat-down	Consent to pat-down was involuntary or not an independent act	Consent was voluntary; Cook conceded voluntariness below	Waived on appeal; district court’s factual finding of voluntary consent stands
Scope of pat-down (opening canister)	Opening exceeded weapon-frisk scope because canister could not reasonably hold a weapon	Officer reasonably believed canister could contain a weapon (knife or explosive)	Officer’s belief was not unreasonable; opening was within permissible Terry scope
Sentence concurrency in written judgment	Written judgment improperly ordered consecutive federal sentence	Oral pronouncement at sentencing announced concurrent sentence	Modified: written judgment corrected to reflect concurrency

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (authorizes brief investigatory stops and limited weapon frisks)
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690 (1996) (reasonable-suspicion and probable-cause determinations reviewed de novo with factual findings for clear error)
United States v. Pope, 467 F.3d 912 (5th Cir. 2006) (failure to raise suppression arguments pretrial waives them on appeal)
United States v. Maldonado, 42 F.3d 906 (5th Cir. 1995) (Terry pat-down may continue while officer investigates an object that reasonably may be a weapon)
United States v. Campbell, 178 F.3d 345 (5th Cir. 1999) (court defers to reasonable inferences supporting scope of pat-down)
United States v. Torres-Aguilar, 352 F.3d 934 (5th Cir. 2003) (oral sentence controls over conflicting written judgment)