## Facts

- An officer stopped Brown for traffic violations, including failing to wear a seatbelt and running a stop sign.
- The officer asked for consent to search the car; Brown refused, and the officer stated he would call for a drug-sniffing dog.
- A second officer arrived and observed Brown reach into his jacket pocket, warning the first officer.
- Brown fled, pushing the first officer, and the officers pursued, wrestled him to the ground, and used pepper spray to subdue him.
- During the struggle, the first officer saw Brown pull a small brown paper bag from his shirt and keep his right hand concealed beneath his body while resisting.
- After Brown was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, officers conducted an initial cursory search that found nothing.
- The first officer then performed a more thorough search of Brown’s person in the patrol car and found a small brown paper bag containing crack cocaine in the crotch area of Brown’s pants.
- Brown moved to suppress the drugs; the district court denied the motion, and Brown entered a conditional guilty plea preserving the suppression issue for appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether the warrantless search of Brown’s person after his arrest—conducted while he was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car—was a valid search incident to arrest under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether the district court clearly erred by inferring that the brown paper bag found during the patrol-car search was the same bag observed during the struggle, supporting the search and seizure.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the judgment of conviction and the denial of Brown’s motion to suppress.
- The court held the officers had probable cause to arrest Brown based on the traffic violations, flight, and physical resistance.
- The court held the subsequent thorough search of Brown’s person, including the crotch area, was lawful as a search incident to arrest and sufficiently contemporaneous with the arrest.
- The court rejected Brown’s challenge to the connection between the observed bag and the recovered bag, concluding the district court’s inference was reasonable and not clearly erroneous.

## Legal Principles

- Probable cause to arrest can arise from observed offenses and a suspect’s conduct during a traffic stop, including flight and physical resistance.
- A search incident to a lawful arrest permits a full search of the arrestee’s person, including concealed areas of clothing, for officer safety and preservation of evidence.
- A search incident to arrest may remain valid even if performed shortly after the arrest and after the arrestee is handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, so long as it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest.
- On appeal from a suppression ruling, factual findings are reviewed for clear error and legal conclusions regarding Fourth Amendment reasonableness are reviewed de novo; credibility determinations and reasonable inferences by the district court receive deference.

## Conclusion

The court upheld admission of crack cocaine discovered during a thorough patrol-car search of Brown’s person because officers had probable cause to arrest him and the search was a permissible search incident to arrest; the district court’s factual inference tying the recovered bag to the one seen during the struggle was not clearly erroneous.


United States v. Brown, 233 F. App’x 564 (7th Cir. 2007)