6th Cir. “automatic companion” rule rejected again

Sixth Circuit again declines to apply the “automatic companion” rule to affirm suppression of evidence obtained by a patdown of a passenger when the driver was in possession after his patdown. There was no independent justification for the passenger’s search. The driver admitted to having a prior firearms conviction before his patdown. United States v. Wilson, 506 F.3d 488, 2007 FED App. 0434P (6th Cir. 2007):

Although this court ultimately held that the search of Bell [in United States v. Bell, 762 F.2d 495 (6th Cir. 1985)] was not in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, it expressly declined to adopt a so-called “automatic companion” rule whereby any companion of an arrestee would be subject to a “cursory ‘pat-down’ reasonably necessary to give assurance that they are unarmed.” Id. at 498 (citation omitted). “As to the propriety of the ‘automatic companion’ rule, we do not believe that the Terry requirement of reasonable suspicion under the circumstances … has been eroded to the point that an individual may be frisked based upon nothing more than an unfortunate choice of associates.” Id. at 499 (citation omitted). It further concluded that an “automatic companion” rule would be inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s stated policy of carefully maintaining the “narrow scope of Terry’s exception to the warrant requirement.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted).

This court instead upheld the search in Bell on the basis that there were “specific articulable facts known to Agent Snyder at the time he approached the passenger side of the Cadillac, as well as rational inferences therefrom, which might reasonably support the perception that Bell posed a risk to the security of the officers.” Id. at 500. These facts included Agent Snyder’s knowledge that Cherry, the target of the arrest warrant, was suspected of being armed and dangerous because narcotics transactions often involve weapons. Id. Moreover, the agents were advised in advance of the execution of the warrant that Cherry had been seen with an accomplice. Id. at 501. The court thus noted that Bell’s presence as a passenger, “while not itself justifying a frisk, was permissibly considered in analyzing whether there was reasonable cause to believe that Bell was potentially armed and dangerous.” Id. For these and other reasons not relevant to the present case, the court concluded that, under the “totality of the circumstances test,” the pat-down search of Bell did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 502.

Contrary to the government’s argument, the facts in the present case are not analogous to the totality of the circumstances that existed in Bell. The driver of the vehicle in Bell was known to be potentially armed and dangerous because he was a drug dealer, and the very purpose of the stop was to arrest that driver. Moreover, the driver was known to have been traveling with an accomplice. This is a totally different fact pattern from that in the present case, where Jones and Wilson were pulled over simply because they were not wearing their seat belts, a minor traffic violation. Jones’s spontaneous admission that he had served time on a federal gun charge does not suggest that “Jones was potentially armed.” If anything, the admission at that point in the traffic stop suggests cooperation with authorities, not resistance. Had Jones intended to draw a gun on the officers, it is unlikely that he would have been so forthcoming about his prior conviction.