USA v. Johntavious Tiller

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-10613
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
JOHNTAVIOUS TILLER,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 5:20-cr-00013-MW-MJF-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10613
Before B RASHER , ABUDU, and H ULL , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Defendant Johntavious Tiller appeals his convictions for
possessing with intent to distribute crack cocaine, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), and possessing a firearm in
furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c)(1)(A)(i). On appeal, Tiller challenges the district court’s
denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized during his arrest.
After review, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND FACTS
The following facts are based on Corporal Thomas Young’s
testimony at the suppression hearing, which the district court
credited. At about 6:00 p.m. on October 29, 2019, Corporal Young
of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office was looking for Travis Shutes
based on a federal warrant. Corporal Young was in an unmarked
car in the area of a bar and liquor store called Foghorn’s that Shutes
was known to frequent. Foghorn’s was the location of past fights,
and complaints of drug use and drug sales. Shutes also was the only
suspect in a recent strong-arm robbery at Foghorn’s.
While surveilling the property, Corporal Young noticed
defendant Tiller walking around the parking lot, sitting and talking
briefly with people in their cars, and driving in and out of the
parking lot. Corporal Young did not know either Shutes or Tiller,
but had a digital picture of Shutes. From his location across the
road, a distance of about 200 feet, Corporal Young believed Tiller
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23-10613 Opinion of the Court 3
looked similar to Shutes, and notified his shift supervisor that he
had spotted Shutes in Foghorn’s parking lot.
Based on his experience observing drug deals, Corporal
Young also believed defendant Tiller’s activities in the parking lot
were consistent with drug dealing. Corporal Young explained that
these transactions are quick, with the individuals first meeting up
to negotiate a deal. The drug dealer then retrieves the product and
brings it back so the transaction can take place.
Because Corporal Young believed that defendant Tiller was
Shutes and that he was engaged in drug activity, Corporal Young
decided to make contact with him. As Tiller drove away and
returned to the parking lot once more, Corporal Young pulled in
behind Tiller’s car. As he did so, Corporal Young saw a passenger
exit Tiller’s car. Corporal Young did not try to speak to or stop the
passenger because as the sole deputy there, doing so would not
have been safe.
Corporal Young walked up to defendant Tiller’s car, and
Tiller rolled his window down “just slightly.” Corporal Young
introduced himself as an investigator with the Bay County Sheriff’s
Office and explained that he was investigating Tiller’s suspicious
activity that he believed involved drug transactions. Corporal
Young asked Tiller for his identification. Tiller appeared agitated
and refused to produce his identification several times. Corporal
Young spent several minutes attempting to calm Tiller down.
While Corporal Young talked with Tiller, a second officer
arrived and requested a K-9 unit to respond to the scene. At that
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-10613
point, Tiller produced his identification. Corporal Young entered
Tiller’s driver’s license number into his car computer and learned
that the license was valid. At that point, Corporal Young realized
Tiller was not Shutes.
Nonetheless, Corporal Young continued to investigate the
suspected drug activity by Tiller that he had witnessed. Corporal
Young ran Tiller’s identification through state and national crime
databases to research his recent criminal history and began filling
out a field interview card to document his contact with Tiller. As
he was doing so, the K-9 unit arrived and gave a positive alert on
Tiller’s car. Corporal Young estimated that the K-9 unit arrived six
minutes after being requested and that the entire encounter with
Tiller from first contact to the drug dog’s alert lasted ten minutes
at most.
Subsequently, in Tiller’s car, officers found bulk amounts of
crack and powder cocaine, smaller plastic baggies of individually
packaged drugs, a digital scale, and a firearm and ammunition.
II. DISTRICT COURT RULING
At the conclusion of the suppression hearing and in a
subsequent written order, the district court denied Tiller’s motion
to suppress the evidence seized during the October 29, 2019 stop.
The district court credited Corporal Young’s testimony and found
that Corporal Young had reasonable suspicion to stop Tiller.
Specifically, the district court found that Corporal Young’s
reasonable suspicion for the initial stop was based on: (1) Tiller’s
presence in a high crime area known for drug transactions; (2)
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23-10613 Opinion of the Court 5
Tiller’s actions in the parking lot that Corporal Young knew, based
on experience and training, were consistent with hand-to-hand
drug transactions; and (3) what appeared to Corporal Young to be
a resemblance to Shutes, a wanted robbery suspect. The district
court noted also that, when interacting with Corporal Young,
Tiller “acted nervous, anxious, and belligerent” and “refused to
turn over his driver’s license,” which “only buttressed the Officer’s
reasonable suspicion.”
The district court observed from pictures introduced at the
hearing that Tiller and Shutes do not look alike. The district court
acknowledged, however, that Corporal Young saw an African
American man with short hair and dark complexion like Shutes’s,
and who was approximately the same age and build as Shutes, and
had a hunch that Tiller was Shutes. The district court stated that
while Corporal Young’s hunch alone would not be enough, his
observations of Tiller’s activities consistent with hand-to-hand
drug dealing—walking to another car, talking to someone briefly,
getting out and driving away, then immediately coming back and
parking again—in a high crime area known for drug transactions
rose to the level of reasonable suspicion.
Ultimately, a jury convicted Tiller of possession with intent
to distribute the crack cocaine found in his car on October 29, 2019,
and of a separate drug offense committed on September 21, 2019.
Later, Tiller entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of the
firearm found in his car on October 29, 2019. The district court
imposed concurrent 60-month sentences for the two drug offenses
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6 Opinion of the Court 23-10613
and a consecutive 60-month sentence for the firearm offense, for a
total sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment.
III. DISCUSSION
On appeal, Tiller does not challenge his conviction for the
September 2019 drug offense or his sentences. Rather, Tiller
appeals only the motion to suppress as to the crack cocaine and
firearm found in his car on October 29, 2019. In that regard, Tiller
argues that the district court clearly erred in finding Corporal
Young’s hearing testimony credible and that Corporal Young did
not have reasonable suspicion to conduct the investigatory stop on
October 29.
A. Standards of Review
In reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress,
we review its fact findings “for clear error, considering all the
evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party.” United
States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 870 (11th Cir.) (en banc) (quotation
marks omitted), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95 (2022). We review de novo
the district court’s application of the law to those facts. Id.
With respect to credibility findings, we must accept the
district court’s “choice of whom to believe unless it is contrary to
the laws of nature, or is so inconsistent or improbable on its face
that no reasonable factfinder could accept it.” United States v. Holt,
777 F.3d 1234, 1255 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted). In
other words, “we defer to the district court’s factual
determinations unless the district court’s understanding of the facts
is ‘unbelievable.’” Id. at 1256.
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B. General Principles
The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches
and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Under the Fourth
Amendment, a law enforcement officer may conduct a brief
investigatory stop, known as a Terry stop,1 if the officer (1) has a
reasonable suspicion that the person detained has participated in or
is about to participate in criminal activity, and (2) the stop is
“reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified
the interference in the first place.” United States v. Jordan, 635 F.3d
1181, 1186 (11th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted); see also
United States v. Gonzalez-Zea, 995 F.3d 1297, 1302 (11th Cir. 2021).
Tiller’s appeal focuses on the first prong, arguing that the
stop was not justified at inception by reasonable suspicion. Tiller
does not argue that the officers unlawfully extended the stop. Cf.
Campbell, 26 F.4th at 881-82 (explaining that officers must diligently
conduct their investigation and “cannot unlawfully prolong a
stop”).
Reasonable suspicion “is a less demanding standard than
probable cause and requires a showing considerably less than
preponderance of the evidence.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119,
123 (2000). “Reasonable suspicion may ‘be based on commonsense
judgments and inferences about human behavior.’” Gonzalez-Zea,
995 F.3d at 1303 (quoting Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125). However,
because “at least a minimal level of objective justification for
1 See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
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making the stop” is required, the law enforcement officer “must be
able to articulate more than an inchoate and unparticularized
suspicion or hunch of criminal activity.” Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123-
24 (quotation marks omitted).
To determine whether reasonable suspicion existed, we
look to the totality of the circumstances. United States v. Bautista-
Silva, 567 F.3d 1266, 1272 (11th Cir. 2009). “We may not consider
each fact only in isolation, and reasonable suspicion may exist even
if each fact alone is susceptible of innocent explanation.” Id.
(quotation marks omitted).
Some circumstances that may support a finding of
reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop include: (1) an officer’s
observation of conduct consistent with street-level, hand-to-hand
drug transactions, even without witnessing an actual exchange;
United States v. Lopez-Garcia, 565 F.3d 1306, 1313-14 (11th Cir. 2009),
(2) a person’s presence in a “high crime area” known for drug
dealing and drug use; Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124, and (3) a person’s
nervous, evasive behavior. Id. A person’s physical resemblance to
a known felony suspect may also support reasonable suspicion. See
United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229 (1985) (“[I]f police have a
reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts,
that a person they encounter was involved in or is wanted in
connection with a completed felony, then a Terry stop may be
made to investigate that suspicion.”).
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C. Credibility Determination
At the outset, the district court did not clearly err in finding
Corporal Young’s testimony was credible. Tiller has not shown in
any way that the district court’s finding that Corporal Young was
credible was contrary to the laws of nature or improbable on its
face. See Holt, 777 F.3d at 1255.
For example, Corporal Young’s testimony—that he
understood Shutes to be at large, that he was looking for Shutes,
that from afar he believed Tiller resembled the picture of Shutes,
and that Tiller’s actions in Foghorn’s parking lot were consistent
with hand-to-hand drug transactions—was not internally
inconsistent or unbelievable. See id. at 1255-56.
Although Tiller was able later to show with pictures that he
and Shutes did not look alike, the fact remains that, as the district
court found, both were the same race, had a dark complexion,
short hair, the same build, and were approximately the same age.
The district court credited Corporal Young’s testimony that when
he initiated the stop, he believed Tiller “resembled” Shutes.
Notably too, Corporal Young did not know Shutes and first
observed Tiller across the street and from a distance of about 200
feet. Tiller has not shown the district court’s credibility finding was
contrary to the laws of nature or improbable on its face.
Defendant Tiller points out that, at trial, he presented
evidence that Shutes was arrested in Arkansas on August 15, 2019,
and was still in custody at the time of Corporal Young’s stop on
October 29, 2019. Tiller suggests this evidence contradicts
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10 Opinion of the Court 23-10613
Corporal Young’s testimony that he was actively looking for
Shutes and that Shutes had committed a “recent” strong-arm
robbery at Foghorn’s in Bay County, Florida. But at trial Corporal
Young testified that he was unaware of Shutes’s August 2019 arrest
when he was surveilling Foghorn’s in October 2019. Further, the
fact that Shutes was arrested and detained in Arkansas ten weeks
before the stop is not inconsistent with Corporal Young’s
testimony that Shutes was suspected of committing a “recent”
strong-arm robbery at Foghorn’s. In sum, Tiller’s trial evidence
about where Shutes was at the time of the stop does not render
Corporal Young’s testimony that he was looking for Shutes so
improbable that no factfinder would believe it. See id.
Similarly, contrary to defendant Tiller’s assertion, it was not
clear error to find, based on Corporal Young’s testimony, that
Tiller’s behavior in Foghorn’s parking lot was consistent with
hand-to-hand drug transactions. Tiller stresses that Foghorn’s was
open to the public when Corporal Young was conducting
surveillance and that Corporal Young did not see Tiller conduct a
hand-to-hand exchange.
But Corporal Young did not merely observe Tiller walking
in or out of Foghorn’s like a patron. Instead, he saw Tiller walk
across the parking lot, to and from his car to other people’s cars,
briefly talk with people inside their cars, and then drive away in his
own car and return a short time later. As Corporal Young
explained, in his experience investigating drug activity, Tiller’s
pattern of movement in the parking lot was consistent with street-
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23-10613 Opinion of the Court 11
level drug dealing, in which the seller first negotiates the deal with
the buyer and then retrieves the drugs to complete the transaction.
D. Reasonable Suspicion
The district court also did not err in concluding, based on
the totality of the circumstances, that Corporal Young had
reasonable suspicion to conduct the investigatory stop. While
conducting surveillance, Corporal Young believed Shutes was at
large on a federal warrant. Corporal Young knew that drug use
and drug sales occurred in the area around Foghorn’s and that
Shutes, who was involved in this kind of activity, frequented
Foghorn’s. Corporal Young observed Tiller, who he thought
looked like Shutes, walking around the Foghorn’s parking lot.
Tiller got in and out of cars to talk to people and came and went
from the parking lot in his own car, all actions Corporal Young
knew, based on his training and experience, were consistent with
negotiating drug deals and then going to get the drugs to complete
the transactions. It was not necessary for Corporal Young to see
Tiller make a hand-to-hand exchange to reasonably suspect him of
drug dealing. See Lopez-Garcia, 565 F.3d at 1313-14.
Tiller argues that his nervous and uncooperative behavior
to law enforcement should have held “very little significance.”
While we conclude Corporal Young already had reasonable
suspicion that Tiller was, or had been, engaged in criminal activity
before Corporal Young spoke with Tiller, we agree with the district
court that Tiller’s agitation and initial refusal to provide Corporal
Young with his driver’s license “only buttressed” that suspicion.
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Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
government, Tiller’s actions consistent with hand-to-hand drug
dealing in and around the Foghorn’s parking lot, an area known for
drug dealing, coupled with Corporal Young’s belief that Tiller
resembled Shutes, a known felony suspect who frequented the
area, created reasonable suspicion to briefly detain Tiller and
investigate whether he was in fact Shutes and whether he was
engaged in drug dealing.
IV. CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, we find no error in the district court’s
denial of Tiller’s motion to suppress and affirm Tiller’s convictions.
AFFIRMED.
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