Gun in fallen pants pocket after police confrontation admissible

A man whose 9-mm handgun was discovered after his loose-fitting pants fell while in custody after a police confrontation lost Friday his appeal in which he claimed the evidence should have been suppressed.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Bruce Eaton’s 10-year executed sentence and his convictions of Level 4 felony possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement.

Eaton was convicted after Fort Wayne Police Det. Marc DeShaies had been staking out a home suspected as the site of criminal gang activity, collecting probable cause evidence to obtain a search warrant. As he watched the house, he saw a group of people leave, get in a black vehicle and drive away.

Following, the detective noticed the car’s turn signals were malfunctioning, its windows were so heavily tinted that its occupants could not be seen and the vehicle was speeding. He chirped his siren and activated his vehicle’s safety lights, and the car pulled to the curb.  

“Immediately after the black vehicle came to a stop and before Detective DeShaies had radioed in the traffic stop, Eaton opened the rear passenger door and started to exit,” Judge Patricia Riley wrote for the court. “Given the immediacy of Eaton’s attempt to exit the car, Detective DeShaies believed that he was about to be attacked or that Eaton would flee.”

The detective moved quickly to confront Eaton and ordered him to get back in the car before he could fully exit. The two then briefly struggled, leading the detective to draw his gun. DeShaies observed other passengers, some of whom he knew to be gang members involved in recent shootings, make furtive movements, causing him to fear for his safety. He ordered them to be still and called urgently for backup, which quickly arrived.

As Eaton was cuffed and led away from the vehicle, his loose-fitting athletic pants fell, and when he stood to be transported, police found a fully loaded Smith & Wesson pistol in his pocket. He challenged the admission of the evidence at the trial court and before the COA, losing his argument both times. 

“ … Eaton’s argument is unpersuasive given that, by pushing against Detective DeShaies and struggling to get out of the car while being lawfully detained during the execution of the traffic stop, Eaton had supplied Detective DeShaies with probable cause to arrest him for resisting law enforcement before Detective DeShaies drew his weapon,” Riley wrote. “His arguments pertaining to why Detective DeShaies’ actions exceeded the authority of an investigative stop are also unpersuasive given that we have determined that Eaton’s initial detainment was valid and that the subsequent search of his person was done incident to a valid warrantless arrest for resisting law enforcement.”

“The brief detainment and subsequent search incident to arrest yielding the gun did not run afoul of Eaton’s Fourth Amendment rights,” Riley said, nor his rights under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution.

“We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted evidence garnered from a traffic stop that did not violate Eaton’s federal or state constitutional rights,” she wrote in Bruce T. Eaton v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-1248.