Case Title: Ex parte T. G.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 1140122

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2015-04-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
REL:04/17/2015
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance
sheets of Southern Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334)
229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made
before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
OCTOBER TERM, 2014-2015
_________________________
1140122
_________________________
Ex parte T.G.
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
(In re:  T.G.
v.
State of Alabama)
(Jefferson Juvenile Court, JU-14-75.01;
Court of Criminal Appeals, CR-13-1068)
SHAW, Justice.
WRIT DENIED.  NO OPINION.  
Stuart, Parker, Murdock, Main, Wise, and Bryan, JJ.,
concur.  
Bolin and Shaw, JJ., concur specially.  
Moore, C.J., dissents.  
1140122
SHAW, Justice (concurring specially).  
I concur to deny the petition.  The petitioner, T.G., who
is represented by counsel, challenges whether a patdown for
weapons, which resulted in the seizure of contraband, was
permissible.   Under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), a law-
1
enforcement officer, for his or her own protection and safety,
may conduct a patdown to find weapons he or she reasonably
believes or suspects are then in the possession of a person
subject to an investigatory stop.  Ybarra v. Illinois, 444
U.S. 85, 93 (1979).  Further, "[t]he Court recognized in Terry
that the policeman making a reasonable investigatory stop
should not be denied the opportunity to protect himself from
attack by a hostile suspect."  Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S.
143, 146 (1972).
Officers stopped the vehicle T.G. was driving for
committing a traffic violation.  The stop occurred in a high
crime area at night.  The person seated next to T.G. had an
outstanding warrant for her arrest.  The Supreme Court of the
United States has recognized that "[t]raffic stops ... are
'especially fraught with danger to police officers.'" 
 
Arizona
The facts of this case are stated in the Chief Justice's
1
dissent, and I see no need to repeat them.  
2
1140122
v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 324 (2009) (quoting Michigan v.
Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1047 (1983)).  T.G.'s presence in a high
crime area, the surrounding darkness, and T.G.'s proximity to
and confederation with someone who had an outstanding warrant2
are all circumstances that allowed the officer to believe
"that the persons with whom he [was] dealing may be armed and
presently dangerous" and thus entitled him "for the 
protection
of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully
limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an
attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault
him."  Terry, 392 U.S. at 30.  Under the totality of the
circumstances, the officer was justified in conducting the
patdown search for weapons.  To hold that it is impermissible
to frisk for weapons under these facts would create a
dangerous legal precedent and, more importantly, would create
a dangerous environment for all law-enforcement officers.
The Court of Criminal Appeals in its unpublished
memorandum, T.G. v. State (No. CR-13-1068, Sept. 26, 2014),
I see nothing in the record justifying an attempt to
2
minimize the nature of the warrant for the passenger; even
T.G. states in his petition that there is no information in
the record regarding the basis for that warrant.  Further, it
is unclear whether the officers believed that the warrant was
issued by the City of Birmingham or whether the warrant simply
originated from that city.
3
1140122
___ So. 3d ___ (Ala. Crim. App. 2014) (table), noted that T.G.
challenged only the justification for the patdown; he did not
challenge the further search of the cigarette box containing
a controlled substance discovered by the officer during the
patdown.  In his certiorari petition, T.G. again does not
challenge the search of the cigarette box even though the
Court of Criminal Appeals pointed out the issue; it is his
prerogative to decline to do so.  Further, it is a well
settled principle that an appellate court will consider only
the issues raised by the parties "and will not search out
errors which have not been properly preserved or assigned." 
Ex parte Riley, 464 So. 2d 92, 94 (Ala. 1985).  In our
adversarial system, "we should rely on the parties to raise
issues they believe worthy of review."  Ex parte Conner, [Ms.
1130650, Sept. 26, 2014] ___ So. 3d ___, ___ (Ala. 2014)
(Shaw, J., concurring specially).  If T.G. does not believe
that 
the 
search 
of 
the 
cigarette 
box 
violated 
his
constitutional rights and was, as the Chief Justice
characterizes it, like those conducted by "'authoritarian
governments,'" then I believe that we should address only the
arguments he actually presents.  ___ So. 3d at ___ (Moore,
C.J., dissenting) (quoting Ex parte Warren, 783 So. 2d 86, 96
4
1140122
(Ala. 2000) (Johnstone, J., concurring specially)).   Criminal
3
cases routinely involve searches and seizures by law
enforcement; I do not believe that it is advisable or
practicable to perform a plain-error review in all such cases.
 Bolin, J., concurs.
I am not viewing T.G.'s challenge "narrowly"; I am
3
viewing it as actually stated in his petition.  Whether a
search of a container discovered during a patdown was legal
involves an analysis completely different--"separable"--from
an analysis of the issue whether the frisk was justifiable in
the first place.  The petition cites no authority for and
undertakes no analysis as to this narrower issue. 
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1140122
MOORE, Chief Justice (dissenting). 
In my estimation, the frisk of petitioner T.G. in this
case very likely violated the Fourth Amendment to the United
States Constitution. I would therefore grant his petition for
a writ of certiorari to review the unpublished memorandum of
the Court of Criminal Appeals affirming his conviction. State
v. T.G. (No. CR-13-1068, Sept. 26, 2014), ___ So. 3d ___ (Ala.
Crim. App. 2014) (table). 
Background
In January 2014, two Birmingham police officers,
patrolling a  "high crime area," pulled over a car for failing
to yield the right-of-way. T.G., the 17-year-old driver,
produced a driver's license, as did the two passengers. On
checking the licenses, the officers discovered that the 
female
passenger had an active warrant with the City of Birmingham.
The officers ordered all the passengers out of the car and
frisked the two male passengers. According to the unpublished
memorandum issued by the Court of Criminal Appeals, Officer
Josh Phillips, when patting down T.G., "discovered 
a 
cigarette
box in the top of his jacket and one in his pocket." Officer
Phillips opened the cigarette boxes and in one of them found
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1140122
pills that were later determined to be a Schedule IV
controlled substance. 
During the criminal proceedings, T.G. filed a motion to
suppress the pills on the basis that the initial patdown was
illegal. 
At 
the 
suppression 
hearing, 
Officer 
Demarcus 
Blanding
stated that T.G. had done nothing to prompt the frisk.
Verified Statement of Facts, at 2. Reserving the right to
appeal the denial of his motion to suppress, T.G. pleaded true
to a delinquency petition. The trial court sentenced T.G. to
probation. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. T.G. now
seeks certiorari review, arguing that the frisk of his person
violated the Fourth Amendment.
Discussion 
I believe T.G. has stated a sufficient conflict with
precedent to warrant review of the constitutionality of the
frisk at its inception. To stop a citizen and perform a frisk
for weapons on less than probable cause that a crime has been
committed, a police officer must have reasonable suspicion
that the suspect is armed and dangerous. Terry v. Ohio, 392
U.S. 1, 24, 27 (1968). Reasonable suspicion 
requires 
"specific
and 
articulable 
facts," 
not 
a 
mere 
"inchoate 
and
unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch.'" Terry, 392 U.S. at 
21,
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1140122
27. "The 'narrow scope' of the Terry exception does not permit
a frisk for weapons on less than reasonable belief or
suspicion directed at the person to be frisked ...." Ybarra v.
Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 94 (1979) (emphasis added).
Nonetheless, even if I were to concede that the frisk was
constitutional at its inception, the opening of the cigarette
boxes discovered during the frisk violated the Fourth
Amendment by exceeding the permissible scope of a Terry-stop
search for weapons. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however,
noted that T.G. had not presented this specific sub-issue for
review and thus had waived it: "T.G. challenges only the
justification for the initial patdown; he does not challenge
Officer Phillips's further search of the cigarette box
recovered from T.G.'s person, and we do not address it."
Although "it is this Court's practice not to address issues
not presented on appeal," Travelers Indem. Co. of Connecticut
v. Miller, 86 So. 3d 338, 347 (Ala. 2011), I believe that the
search of the cigarette boxes is a subsidiary issue fairly
included within the issue T.G. raised regarding the legality
of the search of his person under the Terry exception to the
Fourth Amendment. Once the patdown revealed no weapons, the
justification for the Terry search dissipated, rendering
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1140122
illegal any further search of T.G.'s person without probable
cause of criminal activity.
I would not view T.G.'s challenge to the search of his
person under a Terry rationale so narrowly as to exclude from
its ambit the continuation of that search once the rationale
for it no longer existed. The requirement that a police
officer must have reasonable suspicion to initiate a Terry
search is inseparable from the parallel requirement that the
search must cease once that suspicion is determined to be
groundless. The search was one event, and T.G., in my view, by
challenging the 
constitutionality 
of 
the search, 
has
reasonably brought before the appellate courts for review not
only the initiation of the search but also its continuation.
T.G. was adjudicated delinquent for possessing pills, the
discovery of which was outside the scope of a permissible
frisk of his person. A patdown search for weapons for the
purpose of "neutraliz[ing] the threat of physical harm,"
Terry, 392 U.S. at 24, "must ... be confined in scope to an
intrusion 
reasonably 
designed 
to 
discover 
guns, 
knives, 
clubs,
or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police
officer." 392 U.S. at 29. Because a Terry stop is "a carefully
limited search of the outer clothing ... in an attempt to
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1140122
discover weapons which might be used to assault" the officer,
id. at 30, that search is "not justified by any need to
prevent the disappearance or destruction of evidence of
crime." Id. at 29. "Nothing in Terry can be understood to
allow ... any search whatever for anything but weapons."
Ybarra, 444 U.S. at 93-94. See Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S.
143, 146 (1972) (noting that "[t]he purpose of this limited
search is not to discover evidence of crime").
Once the absence of weapons has been confirmed, a further
search of the person in the absence of probable cause of
criminal activity violates the Fourth Amendment. In Minnesota
v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366 (1993), the Court held that
contraband incidentally detected during "a protective patdown
search," id. at 368, may be seized only if the "contour or
mass" of the object "makes its identity 
immediately 
apparent."
Id. at 375. This "plain-feel" doctrine does not permit the
officer to continue to manipulate or to examine the object to
determine its illegal character once the officer is assured
that it is not a potential weapon. Otherwise the "'strictly
circumscribed'" search for weapons allowed under Terry,
Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 26),
could be converted into "'the equivalent of a general warrant
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1140122
to rummage and seize at will.'" Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378
(quoting Texas v Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 748 (1983) (Stevens, J.,
concurring in the judgment)).
In Ex parte Warren, 783 So. 2d 86 (Ala. 2000), this Court
applied Dickerson to exclude from evidence a plastic box an
officer detected during a patdown search for weapons. Upon
removing the plastic box from Warren's pocket, the officer
identified it as a Tic Tac brand breath-mint container. The
officer opened the box and discovered small rocks of crack
cocaine. Warren, 783 So. 2d at 88. This Court framed the legal
question as follows: "Can an officer's tactile perception of
an object such as a Tic Tac box, a matchbox, a pill bottle, or
a film canister give the officer probable cause to believe,
before seizing it, that the object is contraband?" 783 So. 2d
at 91. In other words, does the mere tactile perception of a
container automatically create probable cause to seize the
object as contraband under the "plain-feel" doctrine?
After surveying cases from other jurisdictions, this
Court held "that if the object detected by the officer's touch
during a Terry search is a hard-shell, closed container, then
the incriminating nature of any contents of that container
cannot be immediately apparent to the officer until he seizes
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1140122
it and opens it." 783 So. 2d at 94. Consequently, "the officer
cannot satisfy the Dickerson requirement that the 
officer 
have
probable cause to believe, before seizing it, that the object
is contraband." Id. The leading treatise agrees: "If during 
a lawful pat-down an officer feels an object that obviously is
not a weapon, further 'patting' of it is not permissible." 4
Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth
Amendment § 9.6(b) (5th ed. 2012). 
Other states apply Dickerson as this Court did in Warren.
See Harford v. State, 816 So. 2d 789, 792 & n.2 (Fla. Dist.
Ct. App. 2002) (holding that a police officer who removed a
Newport brand cigarette box from a person in the course of a
patdown for weapons was not justified in opening the box for
further examination of the contents); Barfield v. State, 776
N.E.2d 404, 407 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004) (holding that a police
officer's action in removing a Marlboro brand cigarette box
from a person stopped for  a traffic infraction and looking
inside the box -- in the absence of an immediate perception
that it was a weapon or contraband -- "was a search that
'exceeded the permissible bounds of a legitimate patdown'"
(quoting Johnson v. State, 710 N.E.2d 925, 930 (Ind. Ct. App.
1999))); Commonwealth v. Jones, 217 S.W.3d 190, 197 (Ky. 2006)
12
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(holding that it was error to remove a pill bottle detected
during a patdown search for weapons, because "the criminal
nature of the item ... was not readily apparent until the item
was moved or manipulated by the officer"); State v. Lagarde,
778 So. 2d 585, 585 (La. 2001) (holding that the search of a
"cigarette pack ... leading to the discovery of a crack-pipe,
exceeded the permissible scope of the pat-down frisk
sanctioned by" Terry); and Commonwealth v. Stewart, 469 Mass.
257, 261, 13 N.E.3d 981, 986 (2014) (holding that "reasonable
suspicion alone was not sufficient to allow [a police officer]
lawfully to open [a] hard cigarette box, where there was
nothing to suggest that a weapon was inside").
Officer Phillips's action in removing and opening the
cigarette boxes he detected during his patdown of T.G. seems
to contradict the holding of Warren. I would therefore grant
T.G.'s petition for a writ of certiorari and order
supplemental briefing on the application of Warren to the
record facts of this case. As Justice Johnstone noted in his
special concurrence in Warren:
"Allowing searches beyond constitutional limits
would solve or detect some more crimes, as a number
of authoritarian governments around the world have
proved. Allowing searches beyond constitutional
limits, however, would convert the authorities
themselves from the solution into the problem, as
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the same authoritarian governments have likewise
proved.
"The founders of our country opted for the
balance of limited government, which has become a
blessing to our citizens and a tradition revered at
home 
and 
famous 
abroad. 
Limited 
government
necessarily entails some limits on the government."
783 So. 2d at 96.4
Conclusion
For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent from the
denial of T.G.'s petition for a writ of certiorari.
Justice Shaw's special concurrence argues, contrary to
4
the above analysis, that the legality of the search of the
cigarette box is a separate and distinct issue from the
legality of the patdown. Should T.G. decide that his counsel
was at fault in not expressly raising the cigarette-box issue
as a stand-alone legal argument, T.G. may potentially seek
relief under Rule 32.2(d), Ala. R. Crim. P. 
14