United States v. Thomas, 2025 WL 3442562 (11th Cir. 2025)
A McDonald’s worker in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, called police to complain of littering in the restaurant’s parking lot. An officer responded and encountered John Thomas sitting in a gray Acura matching the reported description. Thomas admitted to littering, exited his car to pick up the trash, and then returned to the driver’s seat and closed the door. When the officer asked for identification, Thomas showed a Louisiana driver’s license for someone born in 1947. Since it was clear that Thomas did not appear to be in his mid-70s, this raised the officer’s suspicions.
Just then, a female (who had been Thomas’s passenger) approached the officer. Suspecting the woman might be engaging in some criminal activity, the officer asked her to step toward his police car. As they were talking, Thomas again exited his vehicle, walked to an adjacent parking lot, and returned a minute later.
After a computer check of the vehicle registration and confirming the driver’s license did not belong to Thomas, the officer opened the Acura’s door and took Thomas’s arm. Thomas refused to get out of the car, and the officer told him he was being detained for providing false information. The officer went back to the patrol car to get his conducted energy weapon (which he shouldn’t have left there in the first place).
“The officer had probable cause to arrest Thomas for possession of a fraudulent driver’s license.”
As the officer approached Thomas, he pepper-sprayed the officer through a partially open car window and drove away. The officer fired two shots at Thomas’s car. Thomas abandoned his car nearby and was subsequently apprehended after being tracked by a police service dog team. Officers obtained a search warrant for the car and discovered methamphetamine, counterfeit bills, and numerous fraudulent identification documents.
Thomas asked the trial court to suppress the evidence recovered from his car. Thomas argued the stop that led to the search warrant was unlawful, asserting state law did not allow officers to detain someone for a noncriminal littering violation. The trial court disagreed, ruling that the initial stop was lawful, based on the littering complaint, and the officer had the right to request identification.
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The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling. The three-judge panel held the initial encounter was consensual and did not implicate the Fourth Amendment, and the officer had probable cause to arrest Thomas for possession of a fraudulent driver’s license. Thomas’s seizure was based on probable cause and the evidence obtained from the car search was admissible.
Keep America beautiful and maybe you’ll keep out of jail — don’t be a litterbug.
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