7th Circuit blasts US case, cites turn signal seen on police dashcam in reversal of drug conviction
Reversing a trial court and criticizing government lawyers, a federal appeals court Tuesday nixed the drug conspiracy conviction of a man initially pulled over in a traffic stop.
A police dashcam video helped save defendant LeShawn Stanbridge by showing that he activated a turn signal just before pulling to the side of the road and parking his vehicle. (This was contrary to what the government claimed, contending the signal went on only after Stanbridge began to move toward the curb.) The arresting officer thought the law required the defendant to signal for 100 feet beforehand. But the applicable statute unambiguously didn’t, held the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Court of Appeals, reversing the trial judge, who found the statute ambiguous.
However, a failure by the government to make critical arguments on behalf of the officers, both at the trial and appellate level, required the reversal of Stanbridge’s conviction, the 7th Circuit says in its written opinion.
For instance, despite the arresting officer’s mistaken interpretation of traffic law, it might still have been argued that his interpretation was objectively reasonable and hence provided a valid basis for the stop. And indeed language in the district court opinion indicates the trial judge thought so, the 7th Circuit panel says.
But the feds implicitly conceded this reasonableness argument by failing to defend the trial court’s ruling on appeal, the 7th Circuit wrote. Instead, as Stanbridge contended that the district judge erred in finding the stop justified due to the arresting officer’s mistaken belief that the defendant didn’t adequately signal his intent to park, the United States dismissed Stanbridge’s position on this point as an “academic proposition.”
One other possible basis for the stop—that Stanbridge signaled his intention to park too late to comply with the statutory requirement of giving warning to other drivers—was waived because it wasn’t raised by the government at the trial court level, the opinion notes. However, the opinion also notes that the only nearby traffic on the road shown on the dashcam footage was the police vehicle.
Meanwhile, the position the feds took in the appeal—that the traffic stop was justified because Stanbridge earlier had allegedly failed to signal a left turn (the dashcam didn’t capture this)—was also fruitless, the 7th Circuit said.
That’s because the feds’ position conflicted with the trial court’s actual ruling—that the arresting officer behind the wheel of the police vehicle couldn’t use the claimed lack of a left-turn signal as a basis for the stop, since the officer admitted in testimony he hadn’t noticed the omission. (The officer’s partner said the left-turn signal was lacking, but he didn’t bring it up with the driver before the stop because he assumed the driver had noticed the omission.)
Ironically, appellate counsel for the government had pointed the finger at Stanbridge, contending that he waived the crucial argument on appeal by failing to dispute the district court’s claimed ruling that his failure to signal a left turn provided a basis for the traffic stop.
In fact, it was the U.S. that muffed the appeal, because it failed to dispute the actual district court ruling, in Stanbridge’s favor, that the alleged left-turn signal issue did not justify the traffic stop, the 7th Circuit wrote:
“To the contrary, waiver is a problem for the government, not Stanbridge. That is because the government’s premise rests entirely on its untenable reading of the district court’s ruling.”
A Courthouse News article provides additional details and says the parties did not respond to emailed requests for comment Wednesday.
