UNITED STATES оf America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LeShawn STANBRIDGE, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 15-2686.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Decided Feb. 23, 2016.
Argued Jan. 26, 2016.
813 F.3d 1032
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and POSNER, Circuit Judges.
BAUER, Circuit Judge.
LeShawn Stanbridge appeals his conviction for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute,
I. BACKGROUND
Stanbridge was walking to his car carrying a duffel bag when two Quincy police officers passed by on patrol. Stanbridge hesitated and looked surprised when he saw the officers, so they circled the block and began shadowing him with the hope of catching him in a traffic violation. After driving just a short distance, Stanbridge activated his right turn signal, pulled to the side of the street, and parked parallel with the curb. Officer Steve Bangert, who was driving, had not witnessed any traffic violation before Stanbridge pulled over, but his рartner, Officer Paul Hodges, later reported that Stanbridge had turned left at an intersection without signaling while being followed. Unaware of his partner‘s observation, Bangert stopped behind Stanbridge and activated his blue flashers, effectively seizing Stanbridge. Bangert did
Stanbridge had a valid driver‘s license, but a check for criminal history showed that he “did have priors,” prompting Officer Bangert to request a drug-sniffing dog (though Stanbridge‘s only drug conviction was for marijuana possession, 11 years earlier when he was 17). The dog arrived 10 minutes later, and its alert led to the discovery of methamphetamine, marijuana, and рills inside Stanbridge‘s duffel bag. He was arrested and confessed to acting as a “middleman” for two suppliers who had trafficked six pounds of methamphetamine in as many months.
Stanbridge was charged with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance,
At a hearing on Stanbridge‘s motion to suppress, both police officers testified, and the dashcam video was played. Officer Bangert acknowledged that he had not seen Stanbridge commit a traffic violation bеfore the alleged turn-signal violation when parking. Indeed, Bangert‘s only justification for detaining Stanbridge was that he had “started to signal after [his car] already started its turn pulling to the curb.” Officer Hodges, on the other hand, testified that he had seen Stanbridge turn left at an intersection without signaling; he didn‘t mention this violation to Bangert when it occurred, he addеd, because he had assumed that his partner also witnessed the illegal turn.
Stanbridge‘s car did not come in view of the dashcam until just before he parked. Stanbridge was on a street without lane markings, with no other traffic in sight (except for the officers’ car). But the video does confirm that Stanbridge activated his turn signal just before he pulled to the right tо park, not contemporaneously with the rightward movement as described by the police officers.
The district court denied Stanbridge‘s motion in a written order. The court assumed that Officer Hodges had seen Stanbridge make an unsignaled left turn. But that observation, the court reasoned, would have given Hodges, not Officer Bangert, probable сause to make a traffic stop:
Officer Hodges ... was not driving the police car and did not initiate the traffic stop. Officer Bangert, as the driver, did, but Officer Bangert testified that he did not see Stanbridge‘s left turn without a proper signal. Moreover, both officers testified that Officer Hodges did not tell Officer Bangert about Stanbridge‘s unsignaled left turn, and Officer Hodges testified that he had assumed that Officer Bangert saw the turn for himself.
Thus, the court concluded, the left turn was irrelevant, and only Bangert‘s explanation for detaining Stanbridge could justify the defendant‘s seizure. The court opined that the Illinois Vehicle Code is ambiguous (and noted that courts in the state had not offered guidance) concerning whether a driver must signal for 100 feet before pulling to a curb. And, the district court concluded, Bangert‘s belief “was reasonable, even if it were mistaken,” and
Stanbridge then entered a conditional guilty plea to the count charging him with possessing the methamphetamine in his duffle bag, while reserving the right to challenge on appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. See
II. DISCUSSION
In this court Stanbridge argues that Illinois law does not require a driver to signal continuously for 100 feet before parking parallel to a curb, and that Officer Bangert‘s mistake of law on this point was unreasonable and thus cannot be a basis for upholding the sеizure. The government counters that Stanbridge‘s challenge is not properly before us because, according to the government, in briefing this appeal he neglected to contest a second reason given by the district court for denying his motion to suppress. We therefore begin with the government‘s contention that Stanbridge has committed waiver.
In opposing Stanbridge‘s motion in the district court, the government asserted that his failure to signal before turning left at an intersection, as seen by Officer Hodges but not captured on the dashcam video, provided a basis for the seizure independent of Stanbridge‘s actions while parking. On appeal, the government‘s primary cоntention is that Stanbridge has waived any challenge to his initial detention by not addressing what the government characterizes as “the district court‘s unmistakable finding” of probable cause to seize him based on the unsignaled left turn. In his opening brief Stanbridge discusses only Officer Bangert‘s justification for the seizure, and thus, the government argues, Stanbridge has left unchаllenged an alternative rationale for sustaining his initial detention. This “omission,” the government insists, “is fatal to his appeal.”
To the contrary, waiver is a problem for the government, not Stanbridge. That is because the government‘s premise rests entirely on its untenable reading of the district court‘s ruling. The court‘s order, in the opening paragraph, dоes talk about improperly signaled “turns” giving the “officers” probable cause to make a traffic stop. Yet despite these plural references, the court‘s decision later makes clear that the judge did not accept the government‘s contention that it could rely on both “turns” to justify the detention of Stanbridge. The government сorrectly observes that the district court thought that Officer Hodges‘s observation of Stanbridge turning left at an intersection without signaling provided Hodges with probable cause for a traffic stop, but the government omits what the court said next:
Officer Hodges, however, was not driving the police car and did not initiate the traffic stop. Officer Bangеrt, as the driver, did, but Officer Bangert testified that he did not see Stanbridge‘s left turn without a proper signal. Moreover, both officers testified that Officer Hodges did not tell Officer Bangert about Stanbridge‘s unsignaled left turn, and Officer Hodges testified that he had assumed that Officer Bangert saw the turn for himself.
The district court thus believed that only Officer Bangert, the driver of the рatrol car, had effectuated Stanbridge‘s seizure and thus only his rationale and the facts known to him mattered. In so doing, the district court rejected the government‘s reliance on the unsignaled left turn as a justification for the initial detention.
The government may disagree with the district court‘s reasoning, but it does not argue in its brief that we should reject that reasoning and view the left turn as an
That leaves Stanbridge‘s challenge tо the sole ground on which the district court did rely: He did not signal for 100 feet before pulling to the curb to park. Section 11-804 of the Illinois Vehicle Code provides:
When signal required. (a) No person may turn a vehicle at an intersection unless the vehicle is in proper position upon the roadway as required in Section 11-801 or turn a vehicle to enter a private road or driveway, or otherwise turn a vehicle from a direct course or move right or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety. No person may so turn any vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided.
(b) A signal of intention to turn right оr left when required must be given continuously during not less than the last 100 feet traveled by the vehicle before turning within a business or residence district, and such signal must be given continuously during not less than the last 200 feet traveled by the vehicle before turning outside a business or residence district.
(c) No person may stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a vеhicle without first giving an appropriate signal in the manner provided in this Chapter to the driver of any vehicle immediately to the rear when there is opportunity to give such a signal.
(d) The electric turn signal device required in Section 12-208 of this Act must be used to indicate an intention to turn, change lanes or start from a parallel parked position but must not be flashed on one side only on a parked or disabled vehicle or flashed as a courtesy or “do pass” signal to operators of other vehicles approaching from the rear. However, such signal devices may be flashed simultaneously on both sides of a motor vehicle to indicate the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking and passing.
We agree with Stanbridge that
So the only possible relevance of
This does not end our inquiry, however, becausе a police officer‘s objectively reasonable mistake of law can provide reasonable suspicion for a seizure. See Heien v. North Carolina, — U.S. —, 135 S.Ct. 530, 534-35, 539-40, 190 L.Ed.2d 475 (2014) (concluding that police officer‘s mistaken belief that ambiguous vehicle code required more than one functional brake light was objectively reasonable). The district court сoncluded that Officer Bangert was objectively reasonable, even if mistaken, in believing that
We view the government‘s silence as an implicit concession that, as Stanbridge maintains, Officer Bangert‘s misunderstanding of
The government suggests that we disregard whether Officer Bangert acted reasonably and instead declare that Stanbridge violated
It should suffice to note that this argument wasn‘t made in the district court and is thus forfeited. See, e.g., United States v. Dachman, 743 F.3d 254, 259 (7th Cir. 2014); Fryer v. United States, 243 F.3d 1004, 1011-12 (7th Cir. 2001). Anyway, who else was on the road to warn? Once again the dashcam video upends the government‘s contention; as is plain from that video, the police officers’ distant patrol сar was the only other vehicle in sight of Stanbridge, and he already was moving slowly when he decided to pull over and park.
III. CONCLUSION
Stanbridge fully complied with