# United States v. Carl Sprinkle, A/K/A Carl Sprinkler

> Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · February 11, 1997 · 106 F.3d 613

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9490003

## Case

- **Full name:** UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carl SPRINKLE, A/K/A Carl Sprinkler, Defendant-Appellee
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- **Decided:** February 11, 1997
- **Citations:** 106 F.3d 613; 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 2230; 1997 WL 53293
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Niemeyer
- **Judges:** Niemeyer, Michael, Motz
- **Cited by:** 176 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9490003

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that although police officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant, the defendant's act of pulling a gun on a police officer as the officer chased him on foot constituted a "new crime that was distinct from any crime he might have been suspected of a…
- holding that there was no reasonable articulable suspicion where a plaintiff entered the car of a person who was known to the officers as having recently completed a prison sentence for narcotics violations and made hand movements consistent with a covert exchange
- finding that a defendant's "own illegal acts after the initial [constitutional violation] trigger[s] an exception to the exclusionary rule" because the defendant's response "is itself a new, distinct crime" (citation and quotation marks omitted)
- reasoning that once the defendant pulled a gun on the police officer, the police officer "had probable cause to arrest [the defendant] because the new crime purged the taint of the prior illegal stop"
- rejecting, in an illegal possession of a firearm case, the appellant’s argument that the initial unlawful stop should result in suppression of the gun he subsequently drew on the officers because it “overlook[ed] whether his own illegal acts after the initial stop [would] trig…

## Opinion text

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I am pleased to concur in parts I and III of the opinion for the court and I concur in the judgment. Because I would conclude that experienced officers such as those involved here had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that Sprinkle was engaged in criminal activity, and therefore justified in conducting a Terry stop, see United States v. Lender, 985 F.2d 151 (4th Cir.1993), I dissent from part II.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9490003. Public record. Not legal advice.