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A West Virginia man sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for illegal possession of a firearm should not have been searched during a 2023 traffic stop, a unanimous Fourth Circuit panel ruled Thursday, finding that a gun found on him should have been suppressed.

In a published the three-judge panel said officers had no legitimate reason to pat down Tremayne T. Hawkins, who they discovered had a gun in his waistband. Hawkins was riding in a car pulled over for an illegal left turn, having an expired registration and a broken tail light, the panel said. To jump from a traffic stop to a search of the vehicle and its occupants required more cause for suspicion than was present, according to the panel.

"The government must identify concrete reasons to suspect criminal activity," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin for the court, explaining the government hadn't made a legitimate argument for the search.

The car was pulled over after drug task force officers surveilling an area saw driver Cornelious Johnson, who was on federal supervised release following a 2015 drug conviction, stop at an apartment complex "known to the officers from prior drug investigations," the panel said in recapping the case background. Johnson and another passenger, Deandre Williams, talked to a man named Jackie Byrd, and officers thought they saw a drug deal, according to Thursday's decision.

However, court testimony did not mention that anything had specifically been exchanged, the panel said. When Johnson and Williams were asked by the officer who pulled them over what they had discussed with Byrd, one man said Byrd had asked about a job, and the other, that he had asked for a cigarette, the court recounted. The panel pointed out these statements need not have been mutually exclusive and did not prove anyone was lying, as the officers assumed.

Officers used a dog to search the car for drugs, and though the animal "signaled for the presence of drugs" outside the vehicle, no illegal substances were found inside, the court explained. Upon conducting a pat-down of the men, Hawkins was found to have a gun that he admitted to officers he shouldn't have had, due to a prior domestic battery conviction, the court recounted.

Hawkins negotiated a plea agreement that preserved his right to challenge what he believed was an illegal search, the panel said.

He argued in court filings that any contradictory statements Williams and Johnson made about their conversation with Byrd should never have been relevant in the first place, since officers had no legitimate reason to investigate anything beyond the traffic stop.

The appellate court agreed, writing that neither Johnson's prior record, nor the fact that they were in a high-crime area, should have held enough weight to justify the investigation that took place. "Finding otherwise would be tantamount to labeling Johnson as a drug dealer and viewing the later events through that lens," Judge Benjamin wrote.

Additionally, without more evidence, the interaction with Byrd and the allegedly contradictory statements weren't persuasive anyway, the court said.

Officers admittedly saw nothing to prompt a reasonable conclusion that a drug deal had occurred, according to the court.

"The officers essentially said the interaction was a drug deal because 'I know it when I see it,'" Judge Benjamin wrote.

"Ordinary gestures, like a handshake, must be accompanied by additional observations, like drugs, money, or concealment, for an officer to reasonably conclude that a drug transaction has taken place," she added.

L. Richard Walker, the public defender representing Hawkins, said he was excited for his client, who is presently in federal custody.

"I am very appreciative of the consideration that the Fourth Circuit gave to this case," he said.

"I think it's the right decision, and I am very pleased that the Fourth Amendment has been upheld."

Walker said this case represented part of a pattern of improper searches that his office has been pushing back against, "and the Fourth circuit has been receptive."

He mentioned two other Fourth Circuit cases, , in which another traffic stop producing a weapon was found to have been illegal in 2022, and , in which a search yielding a weapon was said by the majority to have gone too far in 2023.

The government could still ask for a rehearing in Hawkins' case, but representatives declined to respond to questions about the opinion or make comments about the future of the case.

U.S. Circuit Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, Senior Circuit Judge Henry Franklin Floyd and United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia and Patricia Tolliver Giles who sat by designation sat on the panel.

Hawkins is represented by L. Richard Walker from the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

The United States is represented by Clayton John Reid of the Office of the United States Attorney in Wheeling, West Virginia.

The case is U.S. v. Tremayne T. Hawkins, case number 24-4502, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

--Editing by Amy French.