Search and Seizure – arrest — probable cause

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Criminal

Search and Seizure – arrest — probable cause

Where a suspect made false statements to officers during a Terry stop, they had probable cause to arrest and handcuff him, even if they didn’t have reasonable suspicion that he was armed.

“We need not decide whether the use of handcuffs was consistent with an ongoing Terry stop under the rationale of Glenna and its progeny. For even if we assume that placing Beltran in handcuffs transformed the investigatory stop into arrest, we believe, contrary to Beltran’s premise, that Wood had probable cause to arrest Beltran at that point in time.”

“Making a materially false statement to a federal agent is a crime. See 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). When Wood confronted Beltran after Beltran emerged from the building and asked him what he was doing, Wood had reason to believe that Beltran told him at least two lies: (1) that he had just arrived on the premises, and (2) that he had not been inside the two-flat. Both statements were demonstrably false in light of what Wood and his colleagues knew. Beltran had been seen sneaking into the back yard from the alley some 20 to 25 minutes earlier, and Wood had heard him ‘rummaging around’ upstairs, to use the district court’s phrase. 2010 WL 379873, at *2. See United States v. Amaral-Estrada, 509 F.3d 820, 827–28 (7th Cir. 2007) (defendant’s statement to agent that he knew nothing about automobile that agent ‘had just seen him park and exit moments earlier’ supplied probable cause to arrest defendant for making false statement in violation of § 1001). Beltran’s false statements were material in the sense that they constituted an effort to cover up his evident attempt to conceal or destroy evidence, itself a federal offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1) (construed in United States v. Johnson, 655 F.3d 594, 603–05 (7th Cir. 2011)), and § 1519; see also United States v. Lupton, 620 F.3d 790, 806–07 (7th Cir. 2010) (‘When statements are aimed at misdirecting agents and their investigation, even if they miss spectacularly or stand absolutely no chance of succeeding, they satisfy the materiality requirement of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.’). In short, the facts confronting Wood warranted a reasonable person in believing that Beltran had just committed a crime. See, e.g., Gutierrez v. Kermon, 722 F.3d 1003, 1008 (7th Cir. 2013) (defining probable cause to arrest). It does not matter whether Wood had section 1001 in mind when he placed Beltran in handcuffs; what matters is that given the facts known to him at that time, he reasonably could have believed that Beltran had made a false statement to him in violation of that statute. See Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153, 125 S. Ct. 588, 593–94 (2004); see also, e.g., Maniscalco v. Simon, 712 F.3d 1139, 1143 (7th Cir. 2013); Williams v. Rodriguez, 509 F.3d 392, 399 (7th Cir. 2007).”

Affirmed.

12-2990 U.S. v. Beltran

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gottschall, J., Rovner, J.