Case Title: Whitaker v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 090175

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2010-01-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present: Hassell, C.J., Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Goodwyn, and 
Millette, JJ., and Carrico, S.J. 
 
LEONARD TERRELL WHITAKER 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 090175 
SENIOR JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO  
 
 
 
January 15, 2010 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA  
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
The primary issue in this appeal is whether the circuit 
court erred in denying a defense motion to suppress the evidence 
on charges brought against the defendant, Leonard Terrell 
Whitaker, in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond.  The 
charges consisted of possession of a firearm while in possession 
of a controlled substance (Code § 18.2-308.4(B)), possession 
with intent to distribute marijuana (Code § 18.2-248.1), 
possession of a firearm after having been convicted of a felony 
(Code § 18.2-308.2(A)), and carrying a concealed weapon (Code 
§ 18.2-308(A)). 
 
Following its denial of Whitaker’s motion to suppress, the 
circuit court in a bench trial convicted him of all the charges 
and sentenced him to serve a total term of seven years active 
incarceration in the Department of Corrections plus additional 
suspended time.  Then, based upon these convictions, the circuit 
court held that Whitaker had violated the terms of probation he 
had been under for convictions entered against him in 2005.  The 
court revoked all of Whitaker’s suspended sentences and ordered 
that they “run concurrent with each other and with [his] new 
time.” 
 
The Court of Appeals of Virginia awarded Whitaker an 
appeal.  In an unpublished opinion, the court affirmed 
Whitaker’s convictions and, accordingly, held that it “need not 
further examine whether the trial court erred in revoking [his] 
suspended sentences.”  Whitaker v. Commonwealth, Record No. 
1859-07-02 (Dec. 23, 2008).  We awarded Whitaker this appeal. 
BACKGROUND 
 
The evidence presented at the hearing on the motion to 
suppress shows that on November 17, 2006, City of Richmond 
Police Officer Clyde Lindsey and two of his partners, Officers 
Marshall Young and Thomas Gilbert, along with another officer, 
were patrolling in an unmarked police car in a “very high crime 
area, very high drug area” of the city.  Numerous shootings had 
occurred in the area.  Also, “[a] lot of drug activity goes on 
there”; it was an “open-air drug market”; the officers had made 
numerous drug arrests “right there in that particular block.” 
 
The officers were clad in street clothes and were wearing 
placards∗ with “Richmond Police” and a badge “about a foot tall” 
                     
 
∗ As described by Officer Lindsey, in these circumstances a 
“placard” is a type of vest typically worn by police officers 
when conducting traffic control.  With high visibility print and 
symbols it identifies the wearer as being a police officer and 
also specifies the particular law enforcement agency for which 
the officer works. 
 
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imprinted on the front and back.  As the officers approached the 
intersection of 27th and P Streets, they observed a group of 
men, four in number, some sitting and some standing, on a 
sidewalk bordered by a chain link fence with a house “right 
behind it.”  Whitaker was one of the group. 
 
The officers exited their vehicle and went up to the men to 
“investigate trespassing and also to speak to them about . . . 
blocking the sidewalk.”  Officer Lindsey then went to the front 
door of the house to ascertain from the occupant whether the 
four men were trespassing.  He had responded previously to the 
occupant’s complaints about people trespassing on her property.  
Officer Lindsey knocked twice, but received no response. 
 
After a period of about ninety seconds, Officer Lindsey 
returned to the sidewalk and Officer Gilbert asked him “where is 
[Whitaker] going.”  Officer Lindsey turned and saw that Whitaker 
“was on his bicycle” going away from the officers and around the 
corner of 27th and P Streets.  Officer Lindsey followed on foot 
and when he got around the corner he saw that Whitaker had 
abandoned his bicycle and was running down an alley.  Officer 
Lindsey began running after Whitaker. 
 
Officers Gilbert and Young tried to follow in their police 
car, which they found difficult, so they exited the car and 
joined Officer Lindsey in running after Whitaker.  The officers 
 
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were behind Whitaker as he ran across a field, “looped” around 
several houses and a church, and jumped over two fences. 
 
Officer Lindsey observed nothing unusual about the way 
Whitaker ran, but Officers Gilbert and Young both noticed that 
Whitaker was holding the right hand pocket of his jacket as he 
ran, leading Officer Gilbert to think “it was a firearm.” 
 
After Whitaker had run about two blocks, he slipped on some 
loose gravel in a parking lot and fell to the ground.  Officer 
Lindsey “proceeded to kneel down on top of Mr. Whitaker.”  
Officer Gilbert arrived on the scene at the same time as Officer 
Lindsey, and in a “few seconds” Officer Young “caught up.” 
 
Officer Gilbert assisted Officer Lindsey in trying to place 
handcuffs on Whitaker.  While the handcuffing effort was in 
progress, Whitaker tried to reach around to his right jacket 
pocket and Officer Lindsey told Officer Gilbert to “watch his 
right hand[; h]e’s trying to get something out of his pockets.”  
Whitaker then said:  “Sir, I’ve got a firearm in my pocket.” 
 
The firearm was retrieved from Whitaker’s pocket, and he 
was placed under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon.  
Officer Young then conducted a search of Whitaker’s person.  The 
search disclosed quantities of what later was determined to be 
marijuana and cocaine in Whitaker’s right front pants pocket.  
Cash in the total amount of $713.00 was found in his left rear 
pants pocket. 
 
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DISCUSSION 
 
 
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States provides in pertinent part that “[t]he right of the 
people to be secure in their persons . . . and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  
U.S. Const. amend. IV.  The following appellate standard of 
review is applicable in deciding a claim that evidence was 
seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment: 
 
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress 
evidence claiming a violation of a person’s Fourth 
Amendment rights, we consider the facts in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party at 
trial.  The burden is on the defendant to show that the 
trial court committed reversible error.  We are bound by 
the trial court’s factual findings unless those findings 
are plainly wrong or unsupported by the evidence.  We will 
review the trial court’s application of the law de novo. 
 
Whitehead v. Commonwealth, 278 Va. 300, 306-07, 683 S.E.2d 299, 
301 (2009) (quoting Malbrough v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 163, 168-
69, 655 S.E.2d 1, 3 (2008)). 
Two types of seizures of the person are protected by the 
Fourth Amendment – an arrest and an investigatory stop.  A 
police officer may seize a person by arrest only when the 
officer has probable cause to believe that the person 
seized has committed or is committing a crime.  In order to 
justify the brief seizure of a person by an investigatory 
stop, a police officer need not have probable cause; 
however, he must have “a reasonable suspicion, based on 
objective facts, that the [person] is involved in criminal 
activity.”  In determining whether a police officer had a 
particularized and objective basis for suspecting that the 
person stopped may be involved in criminal activity, a 
court must consider the totality of the circumstances. 
 
 
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Ewell v. Commonwealth, 254 Va. 214, 216-17, 491 S.E.2d 721, 722-
23 (1997) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 
[The] evaluation of the proper balance that has to be 
struck in this type of case [is] that there must be a 
narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for 
weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he 
has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and 
dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable 
cause to arrest the individual for a crime.  The officer 
need not be absolutely certain that the individual is 
armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the 
circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his 
safety or that of others was in danger.  And in determining 
whether the officer acted reasonably in such circumstances, 
due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and 
unparticularized suspicion or “hunch,” but to the specific 
reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the 
facts in light of his experience. 
 
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968) (citations omitted).  
 
Whitaker advances three arguments, as follows: 
 
I. 
The police did not have reasonable articulable 
suspicion to seize Whitaker. 
 
II. The seizure of the drugs was not justified as a search 
incident to a lawful arrest. 
 
III. The revocation order should be reversed because the 
new convictions at issue in this appeal were the sole 
basis for the revocation and those convictions should 
be reversed.  
 
We disagree with Whitaker on all scores. 
 
I. ARTICULABLE SUSPICION 
 
In Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000), the Supreme 
Court in a very similar case outlined what is appropriate in 
determining whether an officer had a particularized and 
 
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objective basis for suspecting that the person stopped may be 
involved in criminal activity.  The court stated as follows: 
An individual’s presence in an area of expected criminal 
activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a 
reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is 
committing a crime.  But officers are not required to 
ignore the relevant characteristics of a location in 
determining whether the circumstances are sufficiently 
suspicious to warrant further investigation.  Accordingly, 
we have previously noted the fact that the stop occurred in 
a “high crime area” [is] among the relevant contextual 
considerations in a Terry analysis. 
 
 
In this case, moreover, it was not merely respondent’s 
presence in an area of heavy narcotics trafficking that 
aroused the officers’ suspicion, but his unprovoked flight 
upon noticing the police.  Our cases have also recognized 
that nervous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in 
determining reasonable suspicion.  Headlong flight – 
wherever it occurs – is the consummate act of evasion:  It 
is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is 
certainly suggestive of such.  In reviewing the propriety 
of an officer’s conduct, courts do not have available 
empirical studies dealing with inferences drawn from 
suspicious behavior, and we cannot reasonably demand 
scientific certainty from judges or law enforcement 
officers . . . . [T]he determination of reasonable 
suspicion must be based on commonsense judgments and 
inferences about human behavior. 
 
Wardlow at 124-25 (citations omitted). 
 
In a concurring and dissenting opinion in Wardlow, Justice 
Stevens pointed out that the State of Illinois had asked the 
Court to announce a per se rule authorizing the temporary 
detention of anyone who flees at the mere sight of a police 
officer while the defendant had asked for the opposite per se 
rule, one holding that flight upon seeing police can never, by 
itself, be sufficient to justify a temporary investigatory stop.  
 
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Justice Stevens noted that the Court had “wisely endorse[d] 
neither per se rule,” but had adhered “to the view that ‘[t]he 
concept of reasonable suspicion’ . . . must be determined by 
looking to ‘the totality of the circumstances – the whole 
picture.’ ”  528 U.S. at 126-27 (Stevens, J., concurring and 
dissenting). 
 
Thus, while a suspect’s presence in a high crime area, 
standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable 
particularized suspicion, it is a relevant contextual 
consideration in a Terry analysis.  And while headlong flight is 
not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, it is a pertinent 
factor in determining reasonable suspicion. 
 
In the present case, while we have a showing of both the 
relevant contextual consideration of a high crime area and the 
pertinent factor of headlong flight, it is not necessary to 
decide whether this showing, without more, is sufficient to 
support a reasonable particularized suspicion because, in this 
case, there is more. 
 
First is Whitaker’s unusual behavior in abandoning his 
bicycle, his own personal property, at the outset of the chase.  
He must have considered that it impeded a quicker getaway, that 
he could elude the police better on foot. Added to this factor 
is Whitaker’s evasive behavior in looping around houses, running 
 
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behind a church, and jumping over two fences in his seemingly 
frantic determination to elude the police. 
 
Next is Whitaker’s holding onto his right jacket pocket as 
he ran, the same pocket from which a firearm was later 
retrieved.  He says that we should not consider this bit of 
evidence because only Officers Gilbert and Young observed 
Whitaker holding his pocket and they did not tell Officer 
Lindsey about it and he was the one who detained Whitaker.  But 
Officers Gilbert and Lindsey worked together in detaining 
Whitaker and Officer Young conducted the search of Whitaker’s 
person that disclosed the presence of drugs in his pocket, so it 
was a joint police undertaking and the testimony of both Officer 
Gilbert and Officer Young was relevant to the issues involved in 
the case.  Moreover, Whitaker did not object to the testimony  
when it was offered.  Rule 5:25. 
 
Then there is Whitaker’s admission, unusual and unexpected 
under the circumstances, that he had a firearm in his pocket.  
This admission was made while Officers Lindsey and Gilbert were 
still trying to detain Whitaker but before they were able to 
subdue him.  The statement was spontaneous on Whitaker’s part, 
made without interrogation by or coercion from the police. 
 
As noted previously, in determining whether Officer Lindsey 
had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that the 
person stopped may be involved in criminal activity, a court 
 
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must consider the totality of the circumstances.  Considering 
the totality of the circumstances involved in this case, we are 
of opinion that the evidence is sufficient to support the 
conclusion that Officer Lindsey, even before Whitaker fell and 
Officer Lindsey proceeded to detain him, had a reasonable 
particularized suspicion that Whitaker may be involved in 
criminal activity.  There is just no conceivable reason for 
Whitaker’s evasive behavior other than to evade the police and 
avoid discovery of the contraband hidden on his person.  
II. SEARCH INCIDENT TO ARREST 
 
Whitaker argues that the “seizure [of the drugs] rose ‘to 
the level of a full custodial arrest,’ ” and even if his 
detention and the removal of his firearm were justified by 
reasonable suspicion, the seizure of the drugs was not justified 
as a search incident to a lawful arrest for possession of a 
concealed weapon because that arrest was “not supported by 
probable cause.”  It is not a crime to possess a weapon, 
Whitaker says, and without verification that he did not have a 
weapons permit the police lacked probable cause to arrest him 
for violating the concealed weapons statute. 
 
Countering, the Commonwealth says that Whitaker did not 
raise this argument in the circuit court.  Whitaker claims that 
he did make the argument but states on brief that “the trial 
court does not appear to have expressly ruled on this argument.” 
 
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In any event, we will assume, without deciding, that the 
seizure of the drugs did rise to the level of a full custodial 
arrest.  We are of opinion that Whitaker’s arrest for carrying a 
concealed weapon was lawful because it was supported by probable 
cause supplied by his spontaneous statement that he had a 
firearm in his pocket.  This statement justified the search of  
his person for other weapons, during which the presence of the 
drugs was disclosed. 
 
Proof of probable cause does not require evidence 
sufficient to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Maryland v. 
Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371 (2003).  The fact that Whitaker might 
not have been convicted on the concealed weapons charge at a 
later trial on a showing he had a permit does not affect the 
viability of the probable cause to arrest in the first instance. 
III. REVERSAL OF REVOCATION OF PROBATION 
 
Since Whitaker’s argument on the propriety of the 
revocation of his probation is conditioned upon our reversal of 
his new convictions and we intend to affirm those convictions, 
we need not give further consideration to the argument.  
CONCLUSION 
 
As noted previously, in reviewing the denial of a motion to 
suppress claiming a violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment 
rights, the burden is on the defendant to show that the trial 
court committed reversible error.  Whitaker has failed to carry 
 
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this burden.  Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the 
Court of Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
 
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