United States of America v. Brandon Michael Beeson

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4884
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
BRANDON MICHAEL BEESON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of West Virginia, at Elkins. John Preston Bailey,
District Judge. (2:14-cr-00005-JPB-JSK-2)
Submitted: March 30, 2015 Decided: May 26, 2015
Before WILKINSON, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Brian J. Kornbrath, Federal Public Defender, Clarksburg, West
Virginia, for Appellant. William J. Ihlenfeld, II, United
States Attorney, Stephen D. Warner, Assistant United States
Attorney, Elkins, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Brandon Michael Beeson entered a conditional plea of guilty
to possession of materials used in the manufacture of
methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. §§ 843(a)(6), (d)(2) (2012). Beeson
reserved his right to appeal the district court’s order denying
his motion to suppress evidence seized during a traffic stop.
Beeson was sentenced to 51 months in prison. He now appeals,
claiming that the district court wrongly denied the suppression
motion. We affirm.
I
On March 11, 2013, a person called 911 to report suspicious
activity at a nearby paving company. It was 9:45 p.m., it was
dark, and the business was closed. The caller stated that there
was a truck parked on the premises and persons with flashlights
were going back and forth from the truck. Officers arrived
within three minutes of being dispatched to the location. When
they arrived, a pickup truck with three persons inside was
attempting to leave the property. The officers, who observed no
suspicious activity, stopped the truck. While one officer
engaged the driver in conversation, another officer ran a
license and registration check on the truck. As he was doing
so, he observed Beeson, a passenger, reach down several times.
Concerned that Beeson might be attempting to retrieve a weapon,
the officer approached the passenger door, opened it, and shone

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a flashlight inside. He observed items he knew to be used in
the manufacture of methamphetamine on the floorboard around
Beeson’s feet.
Beeson was charged with conspiracy to manufacture, possess
and distribute methamphetamine and multiple related offenses.
He moved to suppress items seized from the vehicle, but the
district court denied the motion. Beeson subsequently entered
his conditional guilty plea. He now appeals, claiming that the
stop of the vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment.
II
When reviewing the denial of a suppression motion, “we
review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and
its legal conclusions de novo.” United States v. Green, 740
F.3d 275, 277 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 207 (2014).
We construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the
Government, the prevailing party below. See United States v.
Black, 707 F.3d 531, 534 (4th Cir. 2013).
A temporary detention of the occupants of an automobile,
even for a limited time and purpose, constitutes a Fourth
Amendment seizure. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809-10
(1996). Because a routine traffic stop is more like an
investigative detention than a custodial arrest, we evaluate the
legality of a traffic stop by applying the two-prong test of

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Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). United States v. Green, 740
F.3d at 279 (4th Cir. 2014).
In Terry, the Court held that an officer may, consistent
with the Fourth Amendment, conduct a brief, investigatory stop
when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion based
on his experience that criminal activity is afoot. Terry, 392
U.S. at 30; see Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000).
Under this test, the police officer’s decision to stop the
vehicle must be both “justified at its inception” and
sufficiently “limited both in scope and duration.” United
States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498, 506-07 (4th Cir. 2011).
Whether there is reasonable suspicion to justify a Terry
stop depends upon the totality of the circumstances, including
the information known to the officer and any reasonable
inferences to be drawn at the time of the stop. United
States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273-74 (2002); United States v.
Foster, 634 F.3d 243, 246 (4th Cir. 2011). The reasonable
suspicion determination is a “commonsensical proposition,” and
deference is accorded police officers’ determinations based on
their practical experience and training. United States v.
Foreman, 369 F.3d 776, 782 (4th Cir. 2004). “The ‘reasonable
suspicion’ necessary to justify [a Terry] stop ‘is dependent
upon both the content of information possessed by the police and
its degree of reliability.’” Navarette v. California, 134 S.

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Ct. 1683, 1687 (2014) (quoting Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325,
330 (1990)).
In Navarette, the Court addressed the issue of an anonymous
tip giving rise to a Terry stop. Four factors were especially
significant to the Court’s determination that the stop did not
violate the Fourth Amendment: (1) the caller claimed eyewitness
knowledge of allegedly dangerous activity, lending “significant
support to the tip’s reliability,” id. at 1689; (2) the caller
made a statement about an event “soon after perceiving that
event,” rendering the statement “especially trustworthy,” id.;
(3) the caller used the 911 system, which “has some features
that allow for identifying and tracing callers, and thus provide
some safeguards against making false reports,” id.; and (4) the
caller’s report created reasonable suspicion of an ongoing and
dangerous crime—in that case, drunk driving—and was not “an
isolated episode of past recklessness,” id. at 1690. The Court
distinguished the tip in Navarette from bare-bones tips where
there is no indication that the tipster actually witnessed
potentially criminal activity and “[t]here [is] no indication
that the tip . . . was contemporaneous with the observation of
criminal activity or made under the stress of excitement caused
by a startling event.” Id. at 1689, 1692.
Applying these principles, and based on the totality of the
circumstances, we conclude that the district court correctly

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denied Beeson’s suppression motion. In this regard, we note
that the tip came from an eyewitness who reported unusual
activity at a nearby paving company. The call was placed soon
after the caller observed the suspicious activity, and officers
arrived at the scene within three minutes of being dispatched to
the area. Additionally, the caller used the 911 system to make
the report. Finally, the reported activity—a vehicle at a
paving company after hours and people with flashlights going
back and forth from the vehicle—was suspicious.
III
We accordingly affirm. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented
in the materials before this court and argument would not aid
the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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