RENDERED: NOVEMBER 19, 2021; 10:00 A.M.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Commonwealth of Kentucky

Court of Appeals

NO. 2020-CA-0234-MR

REBECCA LUKEN APPELLANT 

v. 

APPEAL FROM CAMPBELL CIRCUIT COURT

HONORABLE JULIE REINHARDT WARD, JUDGE

ACTION NO. 18-CR-00322 

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE 

OPINION

AFFIRMING

**   **  **

BEFORE: CALDWELL, McNEILL, AND TAYLOR, JUDGES.

McNEILL, JUDGE: At approximately 6:00 p.m. on February 28, 2018, an 

employee at the home department store, Lowe’s, in Highland Heights, Kentucky, 

observed a red van with a trailer at the store’s location. Based on a notification by 

another Lowe’s store in Ohio concerning a recent attempted theft involving a red 

van pulling a trailer, the police were contacted. Highland Heights Police Officer 

Blank responded to the scene later that evening. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., when the 
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store was closed, Officer Blank positioned his patrol car behind an elevated 

location overlooking the store. While there, Officer Blank observed a black 

flatbed pickup truck with an attached trailer drive behind the Lowe’s building. 

There was no indication that the vehicle was performing business for Lowe’s or its 

customers. Believing that this was suspicious based on his experience with the 

Highland Heights Police Department, Officer Blank stopped the vehicle while it 

was exiting the Lowe’s parking lot. Rebecca Luken (hereafter, “Appellant”), was a 

passenger in the vehicle. During the stop, Officer Blank searched the vehicle and 

discovered a pill bottle labeled with Appellant’s name. The bottle contained 

suspected methamphetamine.1

Appellant was subsequently indicted on one count of first-degree 

possession of a controlled substance. She filed a motion to suppress the evidence 

based on lack of reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop, which was denied by the 

trial court. Thereafter, Appellant entered a guilty plea upon the condition that her 

suppression motion may be appealed. She now appeals as a matter of right and 

specifically argues that the stop was not based on reasonable and articulable 

suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. 

 

1 Appellant does not contest that the substance was illegal or anything that occurred after the 

initial investigatory stop. 
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I. ANALYSIS

Our standard of review of the trial court’s denial of a suppression 

motion is twofold. First, the trial court’s findings of fact are conclusive if they are 

supported by substantial evidence; and second, the trial court’s legal conclusions 

are reviewed de novo. Commonwealth v. Marr, 250 S.W.3d 624, 626 (Ky. 2008). 

We summarized the relevant Fourth Amendment law in Dunn v. Commonwealth:

All warrantless searches are presumed to be unreasonable 

and unlawful, requiring the Commonwealth to bear the 

burden of justifying the search and seizure under one of 

the exceptions to the warrant requirement. Here, the 

circuit court upheld the search . . . based on the 

automobile exception, which allows police to search a 

legitimately stopped automobile where probable cause 

exists that contraband or evidence of a crime is in the

vehicle. This exception is premised upon the ready 

mobility of automobiles as well as the reduced 

expectation of privacy [one has] in an automobile, owing 

to its pervasive regulation.

199 S.W.3d 775, 776 (Ky. App. 2006) (internal quotation marks and footnotes

omitted). See also United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S. Ct. 690, 695, 

66 L. Ed. 2d 621 (1981) (footnote omitted) (an investigatory stop must “be 

justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to 

be, engaged in criminal activity.”). In ruling on a motion to suppress resulting 

from such a stop, courts must consider the totality of the circumstances. Id. 
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Cortez provides additional guidance that is particularly instructive in the present 

case:

The [search and seizure] process does not deal with hard 

certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of 

probabilities was articulated as such, practical people 

formulated certain common sense conclusions about 

human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do 

the same–and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, 

the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not 

in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood 

by those versed in the field of law enforcement.

Id. at 418, 101 S. Ct. at 695. With these standards in mind, we conclude that the 

record demonstrates that the Commonwealth presented sufficient evidence that 

would justify the warrantless search and seizure at issue here. More precisely, 

having considered the record and the law, including the non-binding case law cited 

by Appellant, we are convinced that Officer Blank possessed reasonable and 

articulable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot, thus justifying the 

investigatory stop at issue. 

The suppression hearing lasted less than half of an hour and the only 

testimonial evidence presented was Officer Blank’s. Particularly relevant portions 

of his testimony include, without limitation: 1) he was informed that someone in a 

red van with a trailer recently attempted a theft at an Ohio Lowe’s, and that a 

vehicle and trailer matching that description was reported being seen at the 

Highland Heights Lowe’s on February 28, 2018; 2) in response to these 
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complaints, Officer Blank observed from a position overlooking the store–after the 

store had closed–a black truck pulling a trailer enter the parking lot and then 

proceed behind the store where merchandise and materials were located. Some of 

these materials, like cinder blocks, could be removed and placed inside of a 

vehicle; 3) Officer Blank frequently patrolled that Lowe’s location and never 

witnessed any vehicle enter the rear of the store that was not involved in the store’s 

operation; and 4) there was no exit behind the store. 

We recognize, however, that some of Officer Blank’s testimony 

weighs at least somewhat in Appellant’s favor. For example, the black truck at 

issue here did not match the description of the red van that was the subject of the 

previous reports from Lowe’s employees. Officer Blank also testified that the 

vehicle was only behind the store for between two and three minutes and that he 

did not see anything on the trailer when the vehicle entered the Lowe’s parking lot 

or when it attempted to exit the scene. Yet, based on this totality of the 

circumstances, we believe that Officer Blank had reasonable and articulable 

suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. Therefore, the trial court did not err in 

denying Appellant’s motion to suppress. 

II. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we hereby affirm the judgment of the 

Campbell Circuit Court. 
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ALL CONCUR.

BRIEFS FOR APPELLANT:

Julia K. Pearson

Frankfort, Kentucky

BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:

Daniel Cameron

Attorney General of Kentucky 

Courtney J. Hightower

Assistant Attorney General

Frankfort, Kentucky