N.D.Ga.: Ordering def to ground at gunpoint and a full search of his pockets was an arrest and not a frisk; it was still, however, justified

Police arrived at defendant’s house to search, and he came out the front door. At gunpoint, he laid on the ground and he was handcuffed and his pockets searched. It was not a patdown for weapons, but an emptying of the pockets and search incident to arrest. This was, therefore, an arrest. jpegs from the bodycams showed it. Still, the seizure of a gun from the bag and his cell phone from his person was inevitable discovery. United States v. Carranza-Ontiveros, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150931 (N.D. Ga. July 13, 2020):

As noted above, when Defendant came out the front door of the Residence, marked and unmarked law enforcement vehicles descended upon the Residence, and at least two agents approached Defendant with their guns drawn. Defendant dropped the bag he was carrying and lay face-first on the ground with his hands behind his back. Trooper Ennis arrived on Defendant’s person seconds later and handcuffed him. Despite this impressive show of force and Defendant’s handcuffing, these steps were justified and, if that were the extent of the encounter, the Court would find that Defendant had been merely detained and not arrested. See Acosta, 363 F.3d at 1147 (“[A]n investigatory stop does not necessarily ripen into an arrest because an officer draws his weapon, handcuffs a suspect, [or] orders a suspect to lie face down on the ground.”).

But what happened next—Trooper Ennis’s search of Defendant’s pockets— tips the balance in favor of finding that Defendant’s seizure was an arrest for two reasons. First, the testimonial record is wholly undeveloped of evidence to suggest that Trooper Ennis conducted a frisk or pat down before placing his hands inside Defendant’s pockets. Specifically, at the evidentiary hearing, Trooper Ennis neither described conducting an initial frisk or pat-down, nor stated that he felt something that could be a weapon at any point during the search. Rather, he testified on direct examination that after he handcuffed Defendant, he simply “check[ed] his pockets and remov[ed] the contents” in order “to clear and make sure [Defendant] didn’t have any weapons on him.” (Tr. 53.)