UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee v. Cartez Lamar COOK, Defendant-Appellant
No. 15-3651
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted: October 21, 2016. Filed: November 22, 2016.
842 F.3d 597
Before MURPHY, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
Moreover, even if such a policy or failure to train did exist and even if a constitutional violation did occur, the Schaffers cannot show that the former caused the latter. Although “[c]ausation is generally a jury question,” to find that the officers here would not have detained Callissa even if they believed that they needed probable cause would be “an exercise in pure speculation.” See Ricketts v. City of Columbia, 36 F.3d 775, 779-80 (8th Cir. 1994); see also Habiger, 80 F.3d at 297 (rejecting municipal liability claim without deciding whether “actual probable cause” existed because, in any event, “inadequate training was not the proximate cause of plaintiff‘s alleged constitutional injury“) (quotation omitted). This is because the officers nevertheless had arguable probable cause to arrest Callissa. Because the officers had arguable probable cause, the Schaffers cannot show that the alleged policy or failure to train was the moving force behind or the actual cause of the alleged violation. See Escalera v. Lunn, 361 F.3d 737, 749 (2d Cir. 2004) (“[B]ecause each of the individual defendants had arguable probable cause, the County is likewise entitled to summary judgment in its favor.“). Therefore, Chief Betzen is entitled to summary judgment on both the official capacity and individual capacity claims.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court‘s grant of summary judgment on all claims.
Counsel who represented the appellant was Caroline Durham of Saint Paul, MN.
Counsel who represented the appellee was Jeffrey S. Paulsen, AUSA, of Minneapolis, MN.
MURPHY, Circuit Judge.
Cartez Lamar Cook was convicted by a jury of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
I.
In the early morning hours of November 25, 2013, police officers were on routine patrol duty when they spotted an idling car in a high crime area of south Minneapolis. The officers could not immediately determine whether the vehicle was occupied. Worried that an idling vehicle could be taken by an opportunistic thief, the officers decided to check on it by circling around the block. As the officers approached the vehicle a second time, they could tell that it was occupied by two people.
When officers looked in the vehicle Cook had been in at their first contact, they saw marijuana and crack cocaine in the back seat. They towed and impounded the car that night. Subsequently the officers obtained a warrant, searched the vehicle, and uncovered a firearm hidden in the vehicle‘s center console. Analysis revealed that DNA on that gun was consistent with Cook‘s DNA, but not that of 99.6% of the general population including the other passenger. Ballistics testing also connected the gun to the death of Derek Holt, a man killed three days before Cook‘s encounter with the police. At the time of Cook‘s arrest, he had already been identified by police as a person of interest in Holt‘s death.
Cook was indicted on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
II.
Cook argues that the district
It is well settled that not all interactions between law enforcement officers and citizens amount to seizures under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Barry, 394 F.3d 1070, 1074 (8th Cir. 2005). Even without a basis for suspecting a person of committing a crime, officers may “generally ask questions of that individual” and “ask to examine the individual‘s identification,” so long as “the police do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required.” Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434-35 (1991). For an officer‘s behavior to rise to the level of a Fourth Amendment seizure, the officer must use “physical force or [a] show of authority” to restrain a citizen‘s liberty. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n.16 (1968). The crucial question is whether an officer‘s actions would “have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437 (quoting Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 569 (1988)).
In United States v. Barry, we held that a police officer approaching a parked car does not necessarily effect a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. 394 F.3d at 1075. In Barry, an officer on patrol late at night noticed a car parked in an alley behind a shopping mall. Id. at 1072. The officer decided to investigate and parked his vehicle in front of the car. Id. The officer then approached the vehicle while shining his flashlight on his uniform and keeping a hand on his holstered gun. Id. The officer knocked on the passenger side window twice without receiving a response, but on the third knock a person inside the car rolled the window down. Id. The officer smelled marijuana inside the car, which he determined was adequate grounds to detain the car‘s occupants. Id.
We concluded in Barry that the occupants of the vehicle had not been seized until they were asked to exit their vehicle. See id. at 1075. More specifically, we determined that the officer‘s actions in approaching the parked car, shining a light on his uniform, keeping a hand on his holstered gun, and knocking on the passenger side window “did not amount to a show of authority such that a reasonable person would believe he was not at liberty to ignore [the officer‘s] presence and go about his business.” Id.
The facts in the present case are not meaningfully different from the facts in Barry, and for substantially the same reasons we conclude there was no Fourth Amendment seizure here until the officers removed Cook from the idling car. This seizure permissibly came after the officers had detected the odor of marijuana coming from Cook‘s voluntarily opened window. As in Barry, our conclusion that there was no seizure before that point is informed by the fact that (1) the car Cook was in was parked when the officers decided to inves-
We also note that the wig wag lights activated by the officers are different from the full light bar which is used to notify motorists in moving vehicles that they are required to stop. See United States v. Dockter, 58 F.3d 1284, 1287 (8th Cir. 1995) (no seizure where police officer pulled behind a parked car and “activated his amber warning lights“); cf. Barry, 394 F.3d at 1075 (suggesting that activation of full “emergency lights” could be a show of authority sufficient to be a seizure under the Fourth Amendment). Here, officers activated the wig wag lights in order to identify themselves as police for the safety of all parties involved. A reasonable person seeing the wig wag lights under these circumstances would have thought that he was still “at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437 (citation omitted).
Since Cook was not unlawfully seized, the district court did not err in denying Cook‘s motion to suppress.
III.
Cook also argues that the district court erred by admitting circumstantial evidence that connected him to the shooting death of Derek Holt. A district court‘s evidentiary rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Battle, 774 F.3d 504, 511 (8th Cir. 2014).
The district court permitted the government to introduce circumstantial evidence that tied Cook to the death of Derek Holt three days before Cook‘s arrest. The government‘s evidence included: (1) a witness who identified the gun Cook was charged with possessing as belonging to Holt; (2) cell phone records that indicated Cook had traveled to the area in which Holt lived and called him shortly before his death; (3) evidence that Holt‘s pants pocket had been turned out and $80 he had possessed the night before was missing; and (4) evidence that DNA consistent with Cook‘s was found in Holt‘s pants pocket. In sum, the government‘s circumstantial evidence was intended to paint a picture of Holt‘s death in which Cook met up with Holt, shot him with his own gun, rifled through his pockets, and then fled. The government reasoned that its ability to present this theory of Holt‘s death was essential to establish how Cook had come to possess the gun found hidden in the vehicle in which he was riding prior to his arrest.
Cook argues that evidence of his involvement in Holt‘s death should have been excluded by the district court. We disagree. Evidence of other crimes that “tends logically to prove any element of the crime charged” is “admissible as an integral part of the immediate context of the crime charged” and is therefore “not governed by Rule 404(b).” Battle, 774 F.3d at 511 (quoting United States v. Bass, 794 F.2d 1305, 1312 (8th Cir. 1986)). Cook was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
Cook argues that his case is distinguishable from other cases in which we have found evidence of prior gun possession admissible, see, e.g., Battle, 774 F.3d
IV.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.