Title: STATE OF LOUISIANA v. ANTONIO JOHNSON

State: louisiana

Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court

Document:

04/26/02 “See News Release 035 for any concurrences and/or dissents.” SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA No. 01-KK-2081 STATE OF LOUISIANA v. ANTONIO JOHNSON On Writ of Certiorari to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal PER CURIAM: The order of the court of appeal denying the state's application for supervisory review is reversed, the ruling of the district court granting respondent's motion to suppress is vacated, and this case is remanded for further proceedings. Testimony at the hearing conducted on respondent's motion to suppress revealed that just after midnight On December 11, 2001, Officer Bryant Louis and his partner spotted respondent and a companion walking in the 2500 block of Thalia Street through one of the courtyards of the Melpomene Housing Development in New Orleans. The officers were conducting a routine patrol of an area known to them as a hot spot of narcotics activity by trespassers coming into the housing development. According to Louis, as the officers approached in their marked unit to one side of respondent and his companion, the two men "significantly picked up their pace," heading towards a crossover which led to another courtyard. They were "nearly running" and looked over their shoulders 2 repeatedly at the officers. Louis concluded that the two men were attempting to elude the officers by crossing over into a courtyard to which the police lacked access in their patrol unit. The officers stopped respondent and his companion before they reached the crossover and ordered them to place their hands on the hood of the patrol unit. As Louis began pulling on gloves to conduct a pat down search, respondent removed his left hand from the hood of the patrol unit and dropped a shiny object to the pavement. Louis heard the sound of glass hitting a hard surface and retrieved the object, a glass tube commonly used as a "straight shooter" crack cocaine pipe. He then placed respondent under arrest for possession of cocaine in violation of La.R.S. 40:967(C). In affirming the trial court's grant of the motion to suppress, the court of appeal observed that Louis "plainly testified that neither Mr. Johnson nor his companion fled from the officers, or even changed their direction of travel; they just began walking more quickly." State v. Johnson, 01-0640, p. 1 (La. App. 4th Cir. 7/3/01), ___ So.2d ____ (unpub'd). The court of appeal thereby distinguished the decision in Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125, 120 S.Ct. 673, 676, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000), which recognized that flight of an individual through a high crime area may provide the police with reasonable grounds for an investigatory stop because "[h]eadlong 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 determining whether the police possessed the requisite "'minimal level of objective justification'" for an investigatory stop based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989)(quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 3 1763, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984)), reviewing courts "must look at the 'totality of the circumstances' of each case," a process which "allows officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that 'might well elude an untrained person.'" United States v. Arvizu, ___ U.S. ____, ____, 122 S.Ct. 745, 750-51 (2002)(quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)). The assessment by a reviewing court of the cumulative information known to the officers avoids a "divide-and-conquer analysis" by which the whole becomes less than the sum of its parts because each circumstance examined individually may appear "readily susceptible to an innocent explanation." Arvizu, ___ U.S. at ____, 122 S.Ct. at 751. In the present case, as the court of appeal observed, Officer Louis's testimony did not describe "headlong" flight by the defendant and his companion. However, Louis did testify that respondent had quickened his pace to a "near run" and that he and his companion had looked repeatedly over their shoulders in the officers' direction as they headed to the crossover leading into another courtyard. In Louis's opinion, the two men were attempting to cut off the officers by taking the crossover into a courtyard where the patrol unit could not follow. Giving due deference to that deduction by a trained police officer, we conclude that in the context of the other circumstances known to the officer, including the lateness of the hour, the high crime character of the area, and the nervous demeanor of the two men reflected in their repeated glances over their shoulders, respondent's evasive conduct provided the minimal objective justification for an investigatory stop. Louis then lawfully retrieved the crack cocaine pipe dropped by respondent before the officer could pull on his gloves to conduct a pat down search. State v. Tucker, 4 626 So.2d 707, 710 (La. 1993)("If . . . a citizen abandons or otherwise disposes of property prior to any unlawful intrusion into the citizen's right to be free from governmental interference, then such property may be lawfully seized and used against the citizen in a resulting prosecution."). The trial court therefore erred in granting respondent's motion to suppress the evidence. Accordingly, that order is set aside and this case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the views herein. REVERSED AND REMANDED.