United States v. Rumley

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 08-5269

CLINTON LEE RUMLEY,

Defendant-Appellant.



Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Virginia, at Danville.

Jackson L. Kiser, Senior District Judge.

(4:08-cr-00005-jlk-1)

Argued: October 29, 2009

Decided: December 7, 2009

Before MOTZ and KING, Circuit Judges, and

Anthony J. TRENGA, United States District Judge for the

Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opin-

ion, in which Judge King and Judge Trenga joined.

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Allegra Mathilde Catha Black, OFFICE OF THE

FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Roanoke, Virginia, for

Appellant. Jean Barrett Hudson, OFFICE OF THE UNITED

2 UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY

STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appel-

lee. ON BRIEF: Larry W. Shelton, Federal Public Defender,

Christine Madeleine Lee, Research and Writing Attorney,

OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Roa-

noke, Virginia, for Appellant. Julia C. Dudley, United States

Attorney, R. Andrew Bassford, Assistant United States Attor-

ney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,

Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee.

OPINION

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

A jury found Clinton Lee Rumley guilty of possession of

a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e)

(2006). On appeal, Rumley challenges the court’s denial of

his motion to suppress a firearm the police seized from his

vehicle during a traffic stop. We affirm.

I.

On December 12, 2007, Deputy Michael Wagner initiated

a traffic stop of a Chevrolet pickup truck owned and driven

by Rumley. Deputy Wagner believed that the truck lacked

working taillights, in violation of Virginia law. The deputy

approached the truck and asked Rumley for his license and

registration; Rumley responded that his license was sus-

pended. After learning that Rumley had two prior convictions

for driving with a suspended license, Deputy Wagner arrested

Rumley, handcuffed him, and placed him in the backseat of

the deputy’s patrol car.

Deputy Wagner then returned to the passenger side of

Rumley’s truck and requested that the front seat passenger,

Fletcher Ross, step out of the truck. At that time, Deputy

Wagner intended to search the truck incident to Rumley’s

UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY 3

arrest. When Ross moved his right leg to step out, Deputy

Wagner noticed a silver pistol lying on the floorboard in front

of the passenger-side seat.

After conducting a pat-down search of Ross and securing

him in the backseat of a second patrol car, Deputy Wagner

seized the pistol from Rumley’s truck. The deputy then

returned to his own patrol car, read Rumley his Miranda

rights, and questioned him about the pistol. Rumley admitted

that the gun was his and that he had placed it on the floor-

board when Deputy Wagner stopped him. The record suggests

that, at some point after seizing the pistol, Deputy Wagner

searched Rumley’s truck.

The Government charged Rumley with possession of a fire-

arm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e). In the district court, Rumley moved

to suppress the pistol on the ground that Deputy Wagner vio-

lated the Fourth Amendment by stopping Rumley’s truck.

Specifically, Rumley contended that Deputy Wagner lacked a

reasonable, articulable suspicion that Rumley had violated the

Virginia taillight statute, which requires that every motor

vehicle "carry at the rear two red lights plainly visible in clear

weather from a distance of 500 feet to the rear of such vehi-

cle." Va. Code Ann. § 46.2-1013 (2009). The district court

found that any mistake that Deputy Wagner made in assessing

whether Rumley’s taillights were visible was an "honest" one,

and denied Rumley’s motion to suppress. Rumley appealed.

II.

On appeal, Rumley no longer challenges the constitutional-

ity of the stop of his vehicle. Rather, for the first time, Rum-

ley challenges the constitutionality of Deputy Wagner’s

asserted search of the truck and ultimate seizure of the pistol.

The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people

to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,

4 UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY

against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const.

amend. IV. This guarantee contemplates distinct protections

against unreasonable searches and unreasonable seizures. See

Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 133 (1990) ("A search

compromises the individual interest in privacy; a seizure

deprives the individual of dominion over his or her person or

property.").

The "plain-view" exception to the requirement that police

obtain a warrant before seizing property "does not involve an

invasion of privacy and, consequently, does not constitute a

search implicating the Fourth Amendment." United States v.

Jackson, 131 F.3d 1105, 1108 (4th Cir. 1997); see also Hor-

ton, 496 U.S. at 133-34. Pursuant to this plain-view doctrine,

an officer may, without a warrant, seize "incriminating evi-

dence when (1) the officer is lawfully in a place from which

the object may be plainly viewed; (2) the officer has a lawful

right of access to the object itself; and (3) the object’s incrimi-

nating character is immediately apparent." Jackson, 131 F.3d

at 1109 (citing Horton, 496 U.S. at 136-37).

Rumley contends that the plain-view doctrine does not

apply in his case because Deputy Wagner, by approaching the

truck with intent to search it and requesting that Ross exit the

vehicle, engaged in the "first step" of an assertedly unconsti-

tutional search that led to his spotting the pistol. Rumley

relies on the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Arizona v.

Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009), which establishes that a search

of a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest is justified

"only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching dis-

tance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search"

or when "it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the

crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle." Id. at 1719

(internal quotation marks omitted). Rumley maintains that

because Deputy Wagner arrested him for a minor offense and

at all relevant times had him handcuffed in the back of a

patrol car, the deputy had no justification under Gant for any

search of, or seizure from, Rumley’s truck.

UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY 5

For the reasons that follow, we hold that Deputy Wagner

lawfully seized Rumley’s pistol when it came into plain view

before any search of Rumley’s vehicle, and so Gant does not

apply to the present facts. Accordingly, the district court did

not commit plain error, or any error at all, in refusing to sup-

press the pistol.1

III.

Deputy Wagner discovered Rumley’s pistol while standing

beside the truck after asking Ross to step out of it. Rumley

argues that the deputy’s request that Ross leave the truck con-

stituted the first step of an impermissible search. Rumley

maintains that this "search," not the pistol’s presence in plain

view, occasioned the deputy’s seizure of the pistol. This argu-

ment fails.

Long before its holding in Gant or the events giving rise to

this appeal, the Supreme Court held that an officer conducting

a lawful traffic stop may, as a safety measure, order any pas-

senger to exit the vehicle as a matter of course. Maryland v.

Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 414-15 (1997); see also United States

1

Because Rumley did not challenge the constitutionality of Deputy

Wagner’s asserted search in the district court, we review only for plain

error. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). Under plain error analysis, we must first

identify an error. See United States v. Carter, 300 F.3d 415, 429 (4th Cir.

2002) (citing United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993)). To war-

rant reversal, such error must be plain; must affect substantial rights; and

must seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial

proceedings. Id. We apply plain error review even though the Supreme

Court had not yet decided Gant at the time of Rumley’s suppression hear-

ing. See United States v. David, 83 F.3d 638, 640-41 (4th Cir. 1996). We

note, moreover, that our plain-error review works no harshness here

because the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Gant on February 25,

2008, more than six months prior to Rumley’s September 5, 2008 sup-

pression hearing. See Arizona v. Gant, 128 S. Ct. 1443 (2008). This cer-

tainly put interested persons on notice that the Court would soon consider

the confines of a lawful search of an automobile incident to arrest. See

also United States v. Thornton, 541 U.S. 615, 624 n.4, 625-32 (2004).

6 UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY

v. Sakyi, 160 F.3d 164, 168 (4th Cir. 1998). Nothing in Gant,

which limits permissible searches incident to arrest, under-

mines the bright-line rule established in Wilson. Thus, Deputy

Wagner acted lawfully in requesting that Ross step out of the

truck.

Moreover, Deputy Wagner’s intent to search the truck does

not transform his lawful request of Ross into the "first step"

of an improper search. Rather, Deputy Wagner’s request was

a "discrete" act that brought the pistol into plain view. Cf.

United States v. Moses, 540 F.3d 263, 272 (4th Cir. 2008)

(concluding that separate acts of lawfully inserting a key in a

lock and unlawfully entering a house without a warrant, while

part of a "continuous activity," constituted discrete acts yield-

ing discrete information, "because the use of the key in the

lock need not have led to entry of the residence at all").

Rumley makes no other argument as to why the plain-view

doctrine does not apply here, nor could he. Deputy Wagner

required no further inspection of the truck and its contents to

observe the previously concealed pistol, which the deputy

immediately recognized as potential evidence of a crime. See

Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 740 (1983) (upholding a police

officer’s right to "peer into the interior of [an] automobile");

Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-308 (2009) (outlawing the concealed

carrying of weapons about one’s person, subject to certain

exceptions not applicable here).2

2

Rumley does challenge Deputy Wagner’s authority to order Ross out

of the truck given the deputy’s lack of particularized safety concerns at the

scene. Notwithstanding the bright-line rule of Wilson, Rumley cannot rely

on the Fourth Amendment rights of his passenger, Ross; such rights are

personal in nature and "may not be vicariously asserted." Rakas v. Illinois,

439 U.S. 128, 133-34 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also

United States v. Taylor, 857 F.2d 210, 214 (4th Cir. 1988). Rumley offers

no rationale for how Deputy Wagner’s order that Ross exit the truck

intruded on Rumley’s Fourth Amendment rights.

UNITED STATES v. RUMLEY 7

IV.

In summary, Deputy Wagner lawfully seized the pistol

when it came into plain view. Therefore, we reject Rumley’s

challenge to the district court’s refusal to suppress the pistol.

The judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.