NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.

UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL

AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee,

v.

RODNEY WAYNE ARNOLD, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 15-0705

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. CR2015-105867-001

The Honorable Virginia L. Richter, Judge Pro Tempore

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix

By Christopher M. DeRose

Counsel for Appellee

Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, Phoenix

By Paul J. Prato

Counsel for Appellant
STATE v. ARNOLD

Decision of the Court

2

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Maurice Portley delivered the decision of the Court, in which 

Presiding Judge Samuel A. Thumma and Judge John C. Gemmill joined.

P O R T L E Y, Judge:

¶1 Rodney Arnold (“Arnold”) appeals the superior court’s 

denial of his motion to suppress. For the following reasons, we affirm.

FACTS1 AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 Early one morning in February 2015, a Mesa police officer was 

dispatched to a house after the police received a phone call reporting there 

was “a suspicious person looking around the [caller’s] house and looking 

over the fence into their backyard.” The caller described the man as a 

middle-aged “black male wearing blue jeans and a dark colored shirt with 

a baseball cap and a wood[en] cane,” and reported the man kept coming up

to his front door and saying that he “was looking for his girlfriend and 

getting some clothes for her.” Because the caller did not know the man or 

his girlfriend, he repeatedly asked the man to leave. 

¶3 After arriving, the officer saw a man, who was later identified 

as Arnold and matched the reported description, walking with a cane 

through an adjacent dirt lot back toward the caller’s house. The officer

parked his patrol car, and accompanied by his field training officer

(“FTO”),

2 approached Arnold and asked him, “what [is] going on today[?]” 

Arnold said he “was trying to find his girlfriend’s house because he had to 

pick up clothes for her.” The officer then asked Arnold some additional

questions, including whether he had any identification. Arnold provided 

his identification, and a “warrants and driver’s license check[]” revealed

that Arnold “had a warrant out of Maricopa County for marijuana.” The 

officer placed Arnold under arrest, searched him, and found a “small 

crystal like substance,” as well as a “glass pipe [with] with white and black

 

1 “In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we view the 

facts in the light most favorable to upholding the trial court’s ruling.” State 

v. Wyman, 197 Ariz. 10, 12, ¶ 2, 3 P.3d 392, 394 (App. 2000) (citation omitted).

2 The FTO was present because the officer had only recently graduated from 

the police academy. 
STATE v. ARNOLD

Decision of the Court

3

residue,” in Arnold’s pockets. The substance was later identified to be 

methamphetamine. 

¶4 The State charged Arnold with possession or use of 

dangerous drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The State also 

alleged aggravating circumstances. Arnold filed a motion to suppress the

evidence, but, after an evidentiary suppression hearing, the superior court 

denied the motion.

¶5 The case proceeded to trial and a jury found Arnold guilty as 

charged. The superior court, after finding that the State had proven beyond 

a reasonable doubt that Arnold had seven prior felony convictions, 

sentenced him to prison for eight years for drug possession and a 

concurrent term of three years for paraphernalia possession, mitigated 

terms. Arnold appealed, and we have jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, 

Section 9, of the Arizona Constitution, and Arizona Revised Statutes 

(“A.R.S.”) sections 12-120.21(A)(1), 13-4031, and -4033(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

¶6 In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence 

based on an alleged Fourth-Amendment violation, “we defer to the trial 

court’s factual findings, but we review de novo mixed questions of law and 

fact and the trial court’s ultimate legal conclusion.” State v. Wyman, 197 

Ariz. 10, 13, ¶ 5, 3 P.3d 392, 395 (App. 2000) (citations omitted). “[W]e 

consider only the evidence presented at the suppression hearing,” State v. 

Hummons, 227 Ariz. 78, 79, ¶ 2, 253 P.3d 275, 276 (2011) (internal quotation 

marks and citation omitted), and we will affirm the ruling if it was correct 

for any legal reason, see State v. Aguilar, 228 Ariz. 401, 403, ¶ 12, 267 P.3d 

1193, 1195 (App. 2001) (citation omitted). 

¶7 The Constitution provides that “the right of the people to be 

secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 

searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. v. Mendenhall, 466 U.S. 

544, 550 (1980) (quoting U.S. Const. amend. IV). “A person is seized by the 

police and thus entitled to challenge the government’s action under the 

Fourth Amendment when the officer, by means of physical force or show 

of authority, terminates or restrains his freedom of movement.” Brendlin v. 

California, 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007) (citations and internal quotation marks 

omitted). Not all interactions, however, between police officers and citizens 

implicate the Fourth Amendment, State v. Canales, 222 Ariz. 493, 494, ¶ 6, 

217 P.3d 836, 837 (App. 2009) (citations omitted), and, “[o]bviously, not all 

personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of 
STATE v. ARNOLD

Decision of the Court

4

persons,” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 n.16 (1968). Moreover, “[i]n the 

ordinary course a police officer is free to ask a person for identification 

without implicating the Fourth Amendment.” Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. 

Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty., 542 U.S. 177, 185 (2004).

Denial of the Motion to Suppress

¶8 Arnold argues “[t]he evidence does not support the implicit 

finding by the trial court that [his] interaction” with the police officers 

constituted a consensual encounter. As a result, he claims the investigatory 

stop violated his Fourth-Amendment rights “because [the] officers did not 

have the reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot” 

to justify the stop.

¶9 An arrest, “the quintessential ‘seizure of the person’ under 

our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 

624 (1991), requires either physical force or submission to the assertion of 

authority, id. at 626. The test to determine whether there was a show of 

authority is objective; it does not ask “whether the citizen perceived that he 

was being ordered to restrict his movement,” but, rather, “whether the 

officer’s words and actions would have conveyed that to a reasonable 

person.” Id. at 628. Moreover, “no seizure occurs when police ask questions 

of an individual, ask to examine the individual’s identification, and request 

consent to [conduct a] search . . . so long as the officers do not convey a 

message that compliance with their requests is required.” Florida v. Bostick, 

501 U.S. 429, 437 (1991). And as long as a reasonable person “would feel 

free to disregard the police and go about his business, the encounter is 

consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required.” Id. at 434 (internal 

quotation marks and citation omitted).

¶10 Here, after the officer saw Arnold walking through the lot, he 

pulled over, walked up to Arnold, and “asked him if he could talk.” Arnold 

stopped and, in the presence of the FTO, the officer asked Arnold some 

“initial questions.” After two other officers arrived, the officer asked

Arnold “if he had ID on him,” and Arnold said “yeah.” The time between 

the initial contact with Arnold and the discovery of the warrant was no 

more than five minutes. 

¶11 The officer did not command Arnold to stop and talk to him,

apply force to get him to stop, place handcuffs on him, or draw his weapon. 

Nor did he activate his vehicle lights or sirens before exiting his vehicle and 

approaching Arnold. In sum, there is no evidence that the officer talking 

with Arnold, the FTO, or any of the other officers who arrived, indicated to 
STATE v. ARNOLD

Decision of the Court

5

Arnold either through a showing of authority or by physical force, that he 

had to comply with the officer’s request to speak to him or that he had to 

produce his identification. Arnold was free to ignore their requests, but did 

not. 

¶12 Police officers “have wide latitude to approach people and 

engage them in consensual conversation,” Hummons, 227 Ariz. at 80, ¶ 7, 

253 P.3d at 277, and they “are also free to request identification,” id. As a 

result, there was no seizure. And because “[i]f an officer engaging in a 

consensual encounter with a citizen discovers an arrest warrant, the arrest 

is valid and any evidence discovered during a search incident to arrest is 

admissible,” the court properly denied the motion to suppress. Id. 

Consequently, Arnold has shown no error.3 

CONCLUSION

¶13 Based on the foregoing, we affirm the court’s denial of 

Arnold’s motion to suppress.

 

3 Because we find the encounter was consensual, we need not address the 

State’s alternative arguments.