USA v. Lewgene Meeks

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-14145
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
LEWGENE MEEKS,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 4:22-cr-00030-RH-MAF-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-14145
Before G RANT, A BUDU , and A NDERSON , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
While a police officer’s reasonable mistake of fact can
provide the basis for a valid traffic stop, the mistake must be just
that—reasonable. Members of the Tallahassee Police Department
stopped Lewgene Meeks because an officer thought that he saw
Meeks driving without a seatbelt. But the district court weighed
the evidence and found that Meeks had been properly wearing his
seatbelt before being stopped. Because the government offered no
evidence that the officer’s mistaken conclusion was objectively
reasonable, the district court’s denial of Meeks’s motion to
suppress evidence of his drug crimes arising from the stop was
erroneous. We therefore reverse, vacate the conviction, and
remand for further proceedings.
I.
A member of the Tallahassee Police Department received a
tip that Lewgene Meeks, recently released from prison, was dealing
drugs. On February 22, 2022, Tallahassee police conducting
surveillance on Meeks suspected that he was carrying drugs in his
car. Officers—both plainclothes and uniformed—began tailing
Meeks’s car, intending to perform a traffic stop so that they could
search the vehicle.
The lead investigator asked Officer Glenn Farmer to
intercept Meeks and confirm whether he was driving with his
seatbelt fastened. Farmer testified that he pulled up next to the left
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22-14145 Opinion of the Court 3
side of Meeks’s car. Looking through Meeks’s driver-side window,
Farmer says that he observed Meeks driving without a seatbelt.
Police then pulled Meeks over and discovered that he was carrying
a large amount of drugs, including powder cocaine, crack cocaine,
and alpha-PVP (Molly).
Following his arrest and indictment, Meeks moved to
suppress the evidence obtained from the traffic stop on the ground
that the police initiated the stop without reasonable suspicion of a
traffic violation, rendering all subsequently obtained evidence
inadmissible.1 Meeks argued that he did not commit the traffic
infraction for which he was stopped and that Farmer’s contrary
claim was an unreasonable mistake. Following a hearing, the
district court denied the motion to suppress. Meeks then pleaded
guilty to the charge of possession with intent to distribute,
reserving the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion
to suppress. This appeal follows.
II.
“A district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress presents a
mixed question of law and fact.” United States v. Chanthasouxat, 342
F.3d 1271, 1275 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation omitted). We review
the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its application
of the law to those facts de novo. United States v. Zapata, 180 F.3d
1237, 1240 (11th Cir. 1999). We must construe all facts in the light
1 Meeks also moved to suppress on the ground that the officers’ order to him
to exit the car during the stop was unconstitutional. He does not appeal the
district court’s denial on this ground.
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-14145
most favorable to the party that prevailed below. United States v.
Bervaldi, 226 F.3d 1256, 1262 (11th Cir. 2000). The “ultimate
determinations of reasonable suspicion and probable cause” are
reviewed de novo. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 697 (1996).
III.
Before we can review the merits of the district court’s ruling,
we need to decide what the district court actually ruled. This much
is certain: the district court denied Meeks’s motion to suppress. But
the parties disagree on the district court’s grounds for that decision,
which were given orally. Meeks says that the district court made
two findings: (1) that Meeks was wearing his seatbelt and (2) that
Farmer’s belief at the time that Meeks was not wearing his seatbelt
was a reasonable mistake. The government disagrees. It says that
the district court had only mused, without deciding, that Meeks
may have been wearing his seatbelt. Instead, the government
argues, “what the district court did find was that Farmer credibly
testified that he was certain he observed the defendant driving
without a seat belt, and thus it was reasonable for him to believe a
traffic violation had occurred.”
We side with Meeks’s interpretation. The district court
stated three times during its oral ruling that Meeks was wearing his
seatbelt. Suppression Hr’g Tr. 111:25–112:1 (“It does appear to me
in the video that Mr. Meeks had his seatbelt on.”); 112:24–25 (“And
while [the video] wasn’t definitive, it did seem pretty clear to me
that Mr. Meeks had his seatbelt on.”); 113:2–3 (“But the better view
is probably that he had his seatbelt on.”); see also Fed. R. Crim. P.
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22-14145 Opinion of the Court 5
12(d) (“When factual issues are involved in deciding a motion, the
court must state its essential findings on the record.”). The district
court’s subsequent statement that “my finding is that . . . Mr.
Farmer reasonably believed that he had observed a traffic
violation” is thus properly understood as a finding of a reasonable
mistake of fact, which provided reasonable suspicion for the stop.2
The United States’s contrary interpretation is belied by the
transcript of the suppression hearing, which demonstrates that the
district court did rule that Farmer had made a mistake of fact. But
even if the United States were correct that the district court only
decided that Farmer was credible when he testified that he was
“certain” he saw Meeks not wearing his seatbelt, we would not
then be required to defer to the district court’s finding that this
belief was objectively reasonable, as the United States argues. The
strength of Farmer’s subjective belief—or indeed, whether or not
he actually subjectively believed—that he had reasonable suspicion
for the stop is irrelevant to our inquiry. The “question we are faced
2 We characterize Farmer as having made a mistake about what he saw, rather
than as lying, because the district court credited Farmer as telling the truth
when he testified about his own beliefs. Ultimately, though, it does not matter
either way. Whether or not Farmer actually believed that he saw Meeks
wearing his seatbelt, if an officer in his position could have made an objectively
reasonable mistake to that end, then there was reasonable suspicion for the
stop. The “fact that the officer does not have the state of mind which is
hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal justification for the
officer’s action does not invalidate the action taken as long as the
circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action.” Scott v. United States,
436 U.S. 128, 138 (1978).
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-14145
with here is not whether [Farmer] actually and subjectively had the
pertinent reasonable suspicion, but whether, given the
circumstances, reasonable suspicion objectively existed to justify”
the stop. Hicks v. Moore, 422 F.3d 1246, 1252 (11th Cir. 2005). “We
do not examine the subjective understanding of the particular
officer involved.” Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 66 (2014).
Rather, the “Fourth Amendment tolerates only . . . objectively
reasonable” mistakes. Id. We review that ultimate determination
de novo.
IV.
Because the district court’s determination that Farmer had
reasonable suspicion to stop Meeks for driving without a seatbelt
presents a mixed question of law and fact, we first review for clear
error the district court’s factual finding that Farmer was in a
position to observe Meeks driving without a seatbelt. Zapata, 180
F.3d at 1240. We then review de novo whether Farmer’s mistaken
observation was objectively reasonable. See Chanthasouxat, 342
F.3d at 1275–76.
A.
Farmer testified that he pulled up to look for Meeks’s
seatbelt while they were traveling on a three-lane road. He
observed Meeks from the left side of Meeks’s car through the
driver’s side window. Body camera footage from another officer
confirms that, fifteen seconds after Farmer claims to have observed
Meeks from the left, his vehicle was seen on the other side of
Meeks’s car, to the right. Farmer explained that, following his
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22-14145 Opinion of the Court 7
observation from the left, he pulled back to give room to another
officer, then pulled up again on the right.
“Credibility determinations are typically the province of the
fact finder because” the fact finder is “in a better position than a
reviewing court to assess the credibility of witnesses.” United States
v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002). When
reviewing for clear error, we will defer to the district court’s
credibility determination unless its “understanding of the facts
appears to be unbelievable.” Id. (quotation omitted). Meeks
argues that Farmer’s version of events is factually impossible and
that the district court clearly erred by crediting it. We disagree.
Ordinary experience suggests that, in flowing traffic, two lane
changes in fifteen seconds is perfectly within the capabilities of an
ordinary driver, let alone an experienced police officer. The district
court did not clearly err by crediting Farmer’s testimony on this
point.
B.
Given the district court’s finding that Meeks was wearing his
seatbelt, however, we must next ask whether Farmer’s mistaken
assertion to the contrary was objectively reasonable. See
Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d at 1275–76. Our inquiry begins (and here,
ends) with the burden of proof. While the ultimate burden of
persuasion ordinarily rests with the movant in a suppression
hearing, “if a defendant produces evidence that he was arrested or
subjected to a search without a warrant, the burden shifts to the
government to justify the warrantless arrest or search.” United
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-14145
States v. de la Fuente, 548 F.2d 528, 533 (5th Cir. 1977).3 The
government thus bears the burden of showing that Farmer’s
mistake was objectively reasonable.
The United States presented no evidence explaining how
Farmer could have made an erroneous judgment with respect to
Meeks’s seatbelt. Just the opposite—in testimony credited by the
district court as credible, Farmer stated that he could “clearly see”
through both his passenger and Meeks’s driver-side windows, that
he had no trouble “getting up next to the car,” and that he was “100
percent” sure Meeks was not wearing his seatbelt. Body camera
video submitted into evidence confirms that the stop occurred on
a clear, sunny day and that Meeks’s car windows were not tinted.
Because there was no discussion at the suppression hearing about
how Farmer’s misidentification could have constituted an
objectively reasonable mistake under these circumstances, the
district court erred by denying the motion to suppress.
On appeal, the government argues that we should defer to
the district court’s finding of reasonableness because the evidence
shows that Farmer honestly believed that he had observed Meeks
not wearing a seatbelt. The government commits a double fault.
As already explained, this Court’s review of the ultimate
reasonability of the stop is de novo; while we defer to the district
court’s factual findings, we do not defer to its determination of
3 Decisions by the former Fifth Circuit handed down before October 1, 1981
are binding on this Court. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th
Cir. 1981) (en banc).
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22-14145 Opinion of the Court 9
whether reasonable suspicion existed based on those facts. Zapata,
180 F.3d at 1240; Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 697. And Farmer’s subjective
beliefs, no matter how genuinely held, are simply not relevant to
the question of whether the stop was objectively reasonable. Hicks,
422 F.3d at 1252.
* * *
The government bore the burden to show that its stop of
Meeks was objectively reasonable and predicated on reasonable
suspicion of a traffic violation. On the record provided, it did not.
We therefore REVERSE the district court’s denial of Meeks’s
motion to suppress, VACATE the conviction, and REMAND for
further proceedings.
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