United States v. Drake Banks, Sr., No. 21-2781 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant was convicted of a firearms offense after police seized evidence during a traffic stop. The district court sentenced Defendant to a term of forty-eight months’ imprisonment. Defendant appealed the conviction and sentence on several grounds. The Eighth Circuit affirmed discerning no reversible error.
The court explained that an officer’s observance of a traffic violation, no matter how minor, gives the officer probable cause to initiate a stop. Here, the officer reasonably concluded that the driver’s following distance was not reasonable and prudent. He thus had probable cause for a traffic stop, and the district court properly denied the motion to suppress. Further, the court wrote that the district court abuse its discretion in concluding that a jury reasonably could infer that Defendant sought to flee the patrol car because he recognized that officers were on the brink of discovering his unlawful possession of firearms in the trunk of the rental car. Defendant’s efforts to escape coincided with the officer’s search of the Altima’s trunk and with Defendant’s anxious statements about that search. Thus, the evidence was properly admitted.
Further, Defendant objects that much of the evidence is “merely circumstantial,” but circumstantial evidence can support a conviction, and the combination of direct and circumstantial evidence here was sufficient to support a finding that Defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, the district court’s finding that he constructively possessed the guns is not clearly erroneous in light of the record as a whole.
Court Description: [Colloton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Shepherd, Circuit Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Observance of a traffic violation gave the police probable cause to stop the vehicle in which defendant was a passenger; videos from cell phones found in the vehicle which showed defendant handling the firearms at issue in the case were admissible because they made it more probable that defendant possessed firearms at the time of the traffic stop; photos of marijuana were also admissible as they showed it was more probable that defendant was engaged in a pattern of ongoing marijuana use at the time he allegedly possessed the firearms; the exhibits did not lack foundation and they were not overly prejudicial; video of defendant trying to escape from the police car was admissible as flight shows consciousness of guilt; evidence was sufficient to sustain defendant's firearm conviction; no error in applying an enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2K2.1(b)(1)(A) based on the number of weapons seized as the evidence established defendant's constructive possession of all of the guns in the car's trunk.
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