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### STATE OF MICHIGAN

COURT OF APPEALS

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,

Plaintiff-Appellee, UNPUBLISHED December 17, 2015

v No. 320216 Wayne Circuit Court DEMAL UMAH SIMMONS, LC No. 12-008772-FH

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: J ANSEN , P.J., and C AVANAGH and G LEICHER , JJ.

P ER C URIAM

.

Defendant appeals as of right hi s bench trial convictions of p ossession with intent to deliver 450 to 999 grams of cocaine, MCL 333.7401(2)(a)( ii ), and possession with intent to deliver 50 to 449 grams of c ocaine, MCL 333.7401(2)(a)( iii ). We affirm.

On February 25, 2012, at about 4:25 p.m., Officer Mark Burke o f the Commercial Auto Theft Unit (CAT) of the Detroit Police Department observed a 20 10 silver QX56 Infinity approaching the southbound John C. Lodge freeway. Burke became suspicious upon seeing the
vehicle because a similar vehicle had been stolen in downtown D etroit a few months earlier. Burke called in the license plate number and was informed that there was no lienholder and the vehicle was titled out of Ohio. Burke knew that luxury vehicle s were often stolen in Michigan and then driven to Ohio where they were “retagged.” These cars were then driven back to Michigan where they were registe red with the Secretary of State to make it appear that they were legitimately owned.

Burke briefly followed the vehicle but then another officer, J oseph Fortier, who was in an unmarked CAT vehicle, began following the QX56 Infinity. Forti er followed the vehicle until it parked across the street from 5627 16th Street in Detroit. For tier and other officers observed defendant enter the home, stay for about a half hour, then leav e and drive to a Save-A-Lot grocery store a short distance away. At the grocery store park ing lot, the CAT unit’s sergeant, Robert Wellman, ordered another officer to make contact with de fendant. The officer ordered
defendant out of his vehicle an d handcuffed him. After the veh icle’s door was opened, Wellman immediately saw that a fake vehicle identification number (VIN) had been placed over the original VIN and it was later determined that the vehicle had b een reported stolen on July 27, 2011. While handcuffed, defendant consented to being searched and loose powder cocaine packaged in a plastic sandwich ba g was discovered in his jacket pocket. Subsequently, a search-2- warrant was issued for 5627 16th Street where police discovered large amounts of cocaine, a digital scale, and items used to package cocaine.

Thereafter, defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search of his person in the grocery store parking lot on the ground that the officers had no probable cause to stop his vehicle. The prosecution opposed the motion, arguing that the traffic stop of the vehicle was proper because (1) the vehicle matched the description of a vehicle that had been stolen in Detroit recently, (2) this veh icle had no lienholder although i t was a $60,000 vehicle and less than a year old, and (3) it was titled out of Ohio—which had be en occurring in the “re-tagging” stolen vehicles. The prosecution argued that these three facto rs combined to provide a reasonably articulable suspicion to support the decision made b y the police to stop this vehicle. The trial court agreed with the prosecution and denied defendan t’s motion, holding that the three factors relied upon by the police amounted to a sufficient basi s for a brief investigatory stop.
This decision is ch allenged on appeal.

Defendant argues that his Fourth Amendment rights were violate d because the police lacked a reasonably articulable s uspicion to conduct the invest igatory stop and, thus, his motion to suppress the cocaine found in his pocket should have been gr anted. We disagree.

“A court’s factual findings at a suppression hearing are revie wed for clear error, but the application of the underlying law . . . is reviewed de novo.” People v Slaughter , 489 Mich 302, 310; 803 NW2d 171 (2011).

The United States and Michigan Constitutions both protect agai nst unreasonable searches and seizures. “As a general rule, searches conducted without a warrant are per se unreasonable
under the Fourth Amendment unle ss the police conduct falls unde r one of the established exceptions to the warrant requirement.” People v Beuschlein , 245 Mich App 744, 749; 630 NW2d 921 (2001). One of the recognized exceptions to the Fourt h Amendment’s warrant requirement was set forth in Terry v Ohio , 392 US 1; 88 S Ct 1868; 20 L Ed 2d 889 (1968).
Police officers are free to conduc t “a valid investigatory stop if they possess ‘reasonable suspicion’ that crime is afoot.” People v Champion , 452 Mich 92, 98; 549 NW2d 849 (1996). “[I]n 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 fac ts in light of his experience.” People v LoCicero , 453 Mich 496, 502; 556 NW2d 498 (1996) (citation omitted). W hether the officer’s suspicion was reasonable is determined on a case by c ase basis while considering the totality of the circumstances. Id . at 501-502. “[F]ewer facts are needed to establish reasonabl e suspicion when a person is in a moving vehicle than in a house . . . .” Id . at 502.

In this case, the prosecution argued that three specific facts gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that defendant was driving a stolen vehicle: (1) the vehicle matched the description of a vehicle that had been stolen in Detroit recently, (2) this ve hicle had no lienholder although it was a $60,000 vehicle and was less than a year old, and (3) the vehicle was titled out of Ohio—
which was consistent with the hi gh incidence of “re-tagging” st olen vehicles. Defendant argues that, contrary to the trial court’s conclusion, these factors w ere not “sufficiently specific enough to justify” the Terry stop.-3- In support of his argument, defendant relies on the holding in Reid v Georgia , 448 US 438; 100 S Ct 2752; 65 L Ed 2d 890 (1980), w here the United Sta tes Supreme Court held that the police did not have a reasonable suspicion to stop the defendan t, who had just exited a plane, merely because he came from a location where cocaine was traffi cked heavily, arrived at a time when law enforcement activity was low, and had little luggage. Id . at 441. The Court reasoned that the rationale for the stop applied to a large number of “p resumably innocent travelers, who would be subject to virtually random seizures were the Court to conclude that as little foundation as there was in this case could justify a seizure.” Id . Defendant argues that, like in Reid

, innocent travelers who happen to drive the same make and model of a car that had been reported stolen and is titled in Ohio would be subject to random stops i f this Court finds that the police were justified in s topping defendant.

Here, however, more facts were present to suggest criminal act ivity than in Reid . In
Reid , the prosecution was relying on the fact that the defendant fi t the general description of a “drug courier profile.” Id . at 440. The police in this case were relying on multiple, sp ecific factors that were present in a n ongoing car theft investigation . A similar vehicle had been stolen in the recent past and factors that had been present in hundred s of other similar, car thefts, namely that the new, expensive vehicle had no lienholder and wa s titled out of Ohio, were present with the vehicle defenda nt was driving. Given the patt ern of luxury vehi cles being stolen in Michigan, retagged with a false VIN, and titled out of Ohio, the officers were reasonable in their suspicion that the vehicl e may have been stolen. As expl ained by the Court in United States
v Sokolow , 490 US 1, 7-8; 109 S Ct 1581; 104 L Ed 2d 1 (1989), the conce pt of “reasonable suspicion” embodied in the Fourth Amendment is relatively simpl e. “The 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 concl usions about human behavior; jurors as fact-finders are permitted to do the same—and so are law enforcement officers.”
United States v Cortez , 449 US 411, 418; 101 S Ct 690; 66 L Ed 2d 621 (1981). And, i n this case, the trial court did not err in concluding that, consideri ng the totality of the circumstances,

id . at 417, the police had a reasona bly articulable suspicion to conduct the brief investigatory stop. Thus, defendant’s motion t o suppress the cocaine found i n his pocket was properly denied.

Affirmed.

/s/ Kathleen Jansen /s/ Mark J. Cavanagh
/s/ Elizabeth L. Gleicher