Title: State v. Hollister

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

State v. Hollister  (95-006); 165 Vt 553; 679 A.2d 883

[Opinion Filed 22-Mar-1996]


                               ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 95-006

                             OCTOBER TERM, 1995


State of Vermont                     }     APPEALED FROM:
                                     }
                                     }
     v.                              }     District Court of Vermont,
                                     }     Unit No. 1, Bennington Circuit
David L. Hollister                   }
                                     }     DOCKET NO. 669-7-94Bncr


       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Defendant, David Hollister, was charged with possession of marijuana
  as a result of an encounter with a uniformed police officer in Bennington. 
  Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the encounter
  alleging that the encounter was an unlawful seizure.  The Bennington
  District Court agreed, and the State appeals.  We reverse and remand.

       On June 26, 1994, at approximately 8:30 p.m., a uniformed police
  officer arrived at the Bennington Free Library to clean up broken glass
  from the ignition of a cherry bomb in a telephone booth nearby.  The
  library, a known location for young people to use alcohol or drugs and to
  commit vandalism, was closed.  The officer noticed two young males, one of
  whom was defendant, then nineteen years of age, walking down the library's
  handicap access ramp.  As he testified, he "didn't know what they were
  doing . . . [but t]hey may have been [doing something illegal]."  He walked
  up the ramp, approached the youths and asked them what they were doing at
  the library.  During the conversation, he noticed the smell of alcohol on
  defendant's breath, and defendant admitted he had been drinking.  The
  officer asked defendant if he could look in defendant's knapsack. Defendant
  opened the knapsack, but it contained no alcohol or contraband.

       The officer then asked both youths "if they had anything in their
  pockets that they should not have and I asked if I could see that." 
  Defendant partially pulled out his front pocket, implying it was empty, but
  the officer notice there still was a bulge in the pocket.  He asked again
  if anything was in the pocket.  Defendant answered that he had something
  the officer might want and produced two "baggies" of marijuana and a
  marijuana pipe.  The other youth produced a "baggie" of marijuana.

       Defendant was arrested for possession of marijuana.  His motion to
  suppress the evidence, granted by the court, is now before us.

       The trial court held that defendant was seized, as that term is used
  in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, when the officer
  approached him and asked him questions.  Since the officer had no grounds
  for a seizure at that time, the court held that the seizure violated the
  Fourth Amendment and required that the evidence be suppressed.

       We cannot agree that a seizure occurred at the commencement of
  questioning.  The United States Supreme Court has addressed this question
  directly and held that "mere police

 

  questioning does not constitute a seizure."  Florida v. Bostick,