United States of America v. Jonathan Goerig

PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 23-1582
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
JONATHAN GOERIG,
Appellant
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On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 2:20-cr-00137-001)
District Judge: Honorable John R. Padova
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Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
on March 15, 2024
Before: BIBAS, MONTGOMERY-REEVES, and ROTH,
Circuit Judges
(Filed: August 6, 2024)

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Keith M. Donoghue
FEDERAL COMMUNITY DEFENDER OFFICE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
601 Walnut Street
The Curtis Center, Suite 540 West
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Counsel for Appellant
Michelle Rotella
U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
615 Chestnut Street, Suite 1250
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Counsel for Appellee
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OPINION OF THE COURT
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BIBAS, Circuit Judge.
A person is not seized when he voluntarily answers ques-
tions. Jonathan Goerig was parked in a high-school parking lot.
Acting on a tip, a police officer approached him, started ques-
tioning him, and saw that his shorts were pulled down. When
he gave suspicious answers, the officer ordered him to get out
of his truck. Evidence found in the truck revealed that Goerig
planned to meet up with a minor for sex. Because those
searches and seizures were constitutional, the District Court
properly denied his motion to suppress.

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I. GOERIG LOITERS AT A HIGH SCHOOL
One Friday morning, police in Ridley Township, Pennsyl-
vania, got a 911 call. The caller had seen a man in a black
pickup truck with Connecticut plates parked in the high-school
parking lot. The man, who appeared roughly thirty years old,
“look[ed] out of place” and “[s]eemed very nervous.” JA 189.
A few minutes later, Corporal Leo Doyle, who specializes
in investigating crimes against children, checked out the tip.
He saw the pickup truck, pulled up next to it, got out, and
walked over to it. Goerig was in the driver’s seat with the
window rolled down. As Doyle approached, he saw Goerig
lean over the console as if he were hiding something, then
straighten up. Doyle asked why he was there; Goerig replied
that he was meeting a friend. Doyle then asked for his driver’s
license. When Goerig turned to get it, Doyle could see that his
shorts were down, exposing his buttock. He also saw a towel
spread out over the truck’s back seat. As Doyle kept question-
ing him, Goerig started sweating and grew increasingly nerv-
ous and annoyed. Soon, a second officer arrived, parking
nearby but not boxing the truck in.
Doyle asked Goerig to step out of the truck. When he did,
Doyle noticed a “penis pump” sticking out of a gym bag on the
driver’s seat. JA 7. He saw condensation in the pump, suggest-
ing that it had been used recently. But Goerig denied that it was
his. Next, Doyle briefly searched the truck. Though he found
Goerig’s cellphone and two tiny bottles of whiskey, he left
them alone.
When Doyle again asked Goerig why he was in the parking
lot, he repeated that he was meeting a friend. But this time, he

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also said she was eighteen, gave her name, and claimed that
she was not a student at the school. Then Doyle called his
supervisor, who told him that there was an open criminal case
against Goerig for sexting a fifteen-year-old girl with the same
first name. (Though police had probable cause to arrest him for
that crime, they had instead referred the case to the FBI.)
Doyle arrested Goerig and put him in the back of his patrol
car. Doyle asked him if he wanted his keys, phone, and wallet.
When he said yes, Doyle got them from the truck before driv-
ing him down to the police station.
Police towed the truck, impounded and inventoried it, then
got a warrant to search it. They also got a search warrant for
Goerig’s phone and iCloud account; those searches revealed
sexually explicit photos and videos of Goerig and the girl,
including ones of Goerig using the pump.
Goerig was charged with possessing, receiving, and making
child pornography as well as traveling in interstate commerce
with the intent to have sexual contact with a minor. He moved
to suppress the evidence from the truck, his statements to the
arresting officers, and all evidence recovered from his phone
and iCloud account.
After a hearing, the District Court denied the motion. It held
that Doyle had not seized Goerig until he told him to get out of
the truck. By then, he had reasonable suspicion. It also ruled
that police had validly seized all the evidence: the penis pump
had been in plain view; the keys, cellphone, and wallet were
seized incident to arrest; the towel, whiskey bottles, and digital
evidence were seized under the search warrants; and police
would inevitably have discovered it all.

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Goerig pleaded guilty but reserved his right to appeal the
denial of the motion to suppress. He now appeals. We review
the District Court’s findings of fact for clear error and how it
applied the law to those facts de novo. United States v. Wilson,
960 F.3d 136, 144 (3d Cir. 2020).
II. THE DISTRICT COURT CORRECTLY DENIED
THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS
A. The police seized Goerig lawfully
Goerig first argues that Doyle seized him unlawfully. The
Fourth Amendment forbids “unreasonable searches and sei-
zures.” Precedent requires a warrant for a search or seizure.
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 356–57 (1967). But sev-
eral exceptions apply.
One such exception is a Terry stop. See Terry v. Ohio, 392
U.S. 1, 30 (1968). Under Terry and its progeny, an officer may
“conduct a brief, investigatory stop when [he] has a reasonable,
articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v.
Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000). We look at the totality of
the circumstances, asking if “a reasonable, trained officer
standing in the officer’s shoes could articulate specific rea-
sons” to justify the seizure. United States v. McCants, 952 F.3d
416, 422 (3d Cir. 2020) (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted).
We gauge reasonable suspicion as of the time of the seizure.
Terry, 392 U.S. at 21–22. To be seized, a defendant must either
“submi[t] to [an officer’s] assertion of authority” or be restrained
by an officer “apply[ing] … physical force.” California v. Hodari
D., 499 U.S. 621, 626 (1991) (emphasis omitted). Thus, it is not

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a seizure if an officer just asks questions or asks to see a driver’s
license so long as “a reasonable person would understand that
he or she is free to refuse” to answer questions or be searched.
United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 197 (2002); see Florida
v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434–35 (1991).
Doyle did not seize Goerig until he ordered him to step out
of the truck. Until then, Doyle was just asking him questions.
He did not touch Goerig, order him around, or stop him from
leaving. And a reasonable person in Goerig’s shoes would have
felt free to refuse to answer.
Resisting this conclusion, Goerig cites Johnson v. Campbell,
332 F.3d 199 (3d Cir. 2003). There, an officer had approached
a man sitting in a car, ordered him to roll down his window,
and told him that he “was being detained.” Id. at 203. When
the man refused to roll his window down, the officer kept
ordering him to do so until he complied. Id.
Here, by contrast, Doyle never “convey[ed] a message that
compliance with [his] requests [wa]s required.” Bostick, 501
U.S. at 435. He never told Goerig to roll down his window nor
said he was detaining him. Though Goerig answered Doyle’s
questions, he could have refused to do so and gone on his way.
And Doyle gave no orders until he told Goerig to get out of the
truck.
By then, Doyle had reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop.
He was an experienced investigator of crimes against children,
responding to a 911 call about a nervous man with out-of-state
plates parked at a high school. When he approached, he saw
that Goerig was nervous and seemed to be hiding something.
He could also see Goerig’s exposed buttock and a towel across

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the back seat. Taken together, these facts cleared the “low
threshold of reasonable suspicion” by suggesting that Goerig
was there for illicit reasons. United States v. Graves, 877 F.3d
494, 499 (3d Cir. 2017). Thus, Doyle could lawfully order him
out of the truck.
The arrest was proper too. Once Goerig opened the truck
door, Doyle saw the penis pump, which looked like it had just
been used, and heard Goerig implausibly deny that it was his.
He also learned that the police had evidence that Goerig had
sexted a minor with the same first name as the one he claimed
to be meeting. Based on all these facts, Doyle had probable
cause to arrest him for attempting to have sex with a minor.
B. The police validly searched and seized all the evidence
Next, Goerig asks us to suppress all the evidence as the fruit
of illegal searches. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S.
471, 484 (1963). Because police seized the pump without a
warrant, the government bears the burden of showing that the
“seizure was reasonable.” United States v. Johnson, 63 F.3d
242, 245 (3d Cir. 1995). It has shown that here.
Doyle properly seized the pump. When Goerig opened the
door, Doyle saw in plain view a sex device that looked like it
had just been used. Doyle testified that it was sticking out of a
gym bag, he saw condensation in it, and he recognized it as a
penis pump immediately. Given that Doyle had just caught
Goerig with his pants down in a high-school parking lot, it was
“immediately apparent” that the pump was incriminating. Hor-
ton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 136 (1990) (internal quotation
marks omitted).

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Doyle properly checked the inside of the truck too. Once he
saw the pump, he had probable cause to believe that searching
the truck might reveal further evidence of a crime—attempted
sexual intercourse with a minor. See Maryland v. Dyson, 527
U.S. 465, 467 (1999) (per curiam). When he did not find that
evidence, he left everything where he found it until Goerig
asked for his keys, wallet, and phone. The Terry stop, search
for evidence, and arrest were constitutional, so they do not
taint the later search incident to arrest or search warrants.
* * * * *
Though police need a reason to physically restrain someone
or induce his submission, they do not need a reason to ask him
questions or ask for ID. By the time Corporal Doyle asserted
his authority, Goerig’s demeanor, his location in a school park-
ing lot, and his answers to questions provided reasonable sus-
picion. And once Doyle learned about the sexting investigation
and saw the penis pump in plain view, he had probable cause
to arrest Goerig and get search warrants. Because the Terry
stop, arrest, and searches and seizures were proper, we will
affirm the District Court’s judgment.

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