COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA Present: Chief Judge Huff, Judge O’Brien, and Senior Judge Haley Argued at Norfolk, Virginia

STEPHONE AMOS FOREMAN MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY v. Record No. 0401-15-1 CH IEF JUDGE GL EN A. HUFF DECEMBER 22, 2015 COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF TH E CITY OF VI RGINIA BEACH Glenn R. Croshaw, Judge Kimberly R. Smith, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant. Kathleen B. Martin, Senior Assist ant Attorney General (Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Stephone Amos Foreman (“appellant”) ap peals his conviction of possession of a Schedule I or II controlled substance, in violati on of Code § 18.2-250. After a bench trial in the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach (“tr ial court”), appellant was sentenced to ten years in prison with eight years suspended. On appeal , appellant argues that th e “trial court erred by denying appellant’s motion to suppress inasmuch as the evidence was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that Officer Krause lacked specific and articulable facts to reasonabl y conclude that appellant was armed and dangerous.” For the following reasons, this Court affi rms the trial court’s ruling.
I. BACKGROUND On appeal, “we consider the evidence and a ll reasonable inferences flowing from that evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevaili ng party at trial.” Williams v. Commonwealth, 49 Va. App. 439, 442, 642 S.E.2d 295, 296 (2007) ( en banc )

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opin ion is not designated for publication.UNPUBLISHED- 2 - (quoting Jackson v. Commonwealth, 267 Va. 666, 672, 594 S.E.2d 595, 598 (2004)). So viewed, the evidence is as follows. Around 2:00 a.m. on November 24, 2013, Officers Chri stopher J. Mackie (“Mackie”) and Nick Krause (“Krause”) of the Virginia Beach Police Department conducted a traffic stop of a “black Ford SUV” for a “m issing tag light.” The stop occurred in “a high-crime area.” Daniel Lee Upshur (“Upshur”) was driving the vehicle, an d appellant was sittin g in the passenge r seat. Mackie approached the driver side of the vehicle while Krause approached the passenger side. The passenger window was up, an d Krause observed that appellant “was holding something in his right hand with a cl enched fist.” Krause testified that th e object “was kind of shiny” and that he believed “it could be some ty pe of weapon, po ssibly a knife, maybe ev en a small handgun.” Krause asked appellant “what was in his hand,” bu t appellant “clenched his fist even tighter and attempted to put his hand into his right pants pocket .” Krause asked appellant to exit the vehicle, but appellant “just . . . sat there continuing to try to dig his hand s into his right pants pocket.” Krause informed Mackie that appe llant had somethin g in his right hand and, “believ[ing] it was a weapon of some sort,” attempted “to open the pass enger side door.” The door was locked, however, and appellant did not respond to Krau se’s orders “to unlock the door.” Mackie testified that as he ap proached the vehicle, appellant appeared “nervous.” While speaking to Upshur regarding the traffic infraction, Mackie observed that appellant had “something in his hand clenched.” Mackie testified that he noticed this because he told appellant “to put his hands flat on his lap,” but appellant “refused to do so.” Mackie testifie d that appellant “looked directly at me” and “began to reachinto his pockets.” At this point , Mackie “reached in through the driver’s window and hit the unlock button.” Krausethen “opened the passenge r side door[] and . . . grabbed [appellant] to take him out of the vehicle.” Krause testified that as he was taking appellant out of the vehicle, appellant “d ropped the item [that hewas holding] onto the right-side floorboard- 3 - of the passenger side of the vehicle.” Krause conducted a pat-down search for weapons on appellant’s person, but fo und none. He then returned to th e vehicle where he observed, on the passenger side floorboard, a three-inch glass tube “with some white residu e in it” that was later determined to be cocaine. On April 29, 2014, the trial c ourt heard appellant’s motion to suppress the cocaine as the result of an illegal search. During this hearin g, Krause testified that he was not “one hundred percent sure” that Foreman had a we apon, and when pressed during cr oss-examination stated that he was “fifty percent sure” that it could have been a knife or firearm. He also testified that he was concerned that appellant’s efforts to put his fist into his pocket we re attempts to conceal or get a weapon. Ultimately, Krause testified that he removed appellant from the vehicle to discover whether he had a weapon in his hand and to make sure that he did not have any other weapons on his person. The trial court denied appellant’s motion to suppress, an d the matter proceeded to a bench trial on September 15, 2014. The trial court found appellant guilty of possession of a Schedule I or II controlled substance, in violation of Code § 18.2-250. This appeal followed.
II. ANALYSIS On appeal, appellant contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress. Specifically, appellant argues that Krause lackedreasonable, articulable suspicion to frisk appellant and, therefore, the evid ence found as a result of that fr isk should have been suppressed. “A defendant’s claim that evidence was seiz ed in violation of the Fourth Amendment presents a mixed question of la w and fact that we review de novo on appeal.” McCain v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 546, 551, 659 S.E .2d 512, 515 (2008) (citing Murphy v. Commonwealth, 264 Va. 568, 573, 570 S.E.2d 836, 838 (2002)); see also Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 691, 699 (1996). Under this st andard, “we give deference to the factual- 4 - findings of the circuit court, but we independently determine whether the manner in which the evidence was obtained meets the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.” McCain, 275 Va. at 551, 659 S.E.2d at 515 (citing Bolden v. Co mmonwealth, 263 Va. 465, 470, 561 S.E.2d 701, 704 (2002)). On appeal, “[t]he defendant has the bur den to show that, considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, th e trial court’s denial of his suppression motion was reversible error.” Id. “In assessing the propriety of the trial court’s ruling, we keep in mind that the [F]ourth [A]mendment does not proscribe all searches and se izures, only those that are ‘unreasonable.’” Stanley v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 873, 874-75, 433 S.E.2d 512, 513 (1993) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9 (1968)). “Whether the Fourth Amendment has been violated is a question to be determined from all the circumstan ces.” McCain, 275 Va. at 552, 659 S.E.2d at 515-16 (citing Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 848 (2006)). Additionally, “[r]eview of the existence of probable cause or re asonable suspicion involves app lication of an objective rather than subjective standard.” Id. at 552, 659 S. E.2d at 516 (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22). It is well settled that a “police officer ma y stop a person for the purpose of investigating possible criminal behavior even though no probable cause exists for an arrest.” Id. To justify such an investigatory stop, an officer must have “reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Id. (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989)). In the context of a traffic stop, an officer may “stop [a vehicle] when he has reasonable suspicion to believe a traffic or equipment violation has occurred.” McCain, 275 Va. at 553, 659 S.E.2d at 516 (citing Bass v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 470, 475, 525 S.E.2d 921, 923-24 (2000)). “The authority to conduct a pat-down search,” however, “does not follow automatically from the authority to effectuate an investigative stop.” Harris v. Commonwealth, 262 Va. 407, 412-13, 551 S.E.2d 606, 609 (2001). “Only where [an] o fficer can point to particular facts from which [the officer]- 5 - reasonably inferred that the indivi dual was armed and dangerous is he justified in searching for weapons.” Williams v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 53, 66, 354 S.E.2d 79, 86 (1987). Appellant’s assignment of erro r challenges the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress on the ground that reasonable and articulable suspicion did not exist to justify the frisk. This argument fails, however, because the contraba nd was not discovered as a result of the frisk, but rather was discovered in plai n view, after appellant was lawfu lly removed from the vehicle. In Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 111 n.6 (1977), the United States Supreme Court held that “once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment’s proscription of unreasonable sear ches or seizures.” See also Lowe v. Commonwealth, 33 Va. App. 656, 661, 536 S.E .2d 454, 457 (2000) (holding that the “generalized risk to officer safety” during a tra ffic stop “permits officers to order occupants to exit a lawfully stopped vehicle”). The evidence in the present case demonstrated that Upshur’s vehicle was lawfully detained for a “missing ta g light” and that appella nt was acting evasively and disregarding the officers’ commands during the traffic stop. Consequently, Krause first ordered appellant to exit the vehi cle and then, when appellant ignor ed this order, forced him out of the vehicle. Appellant does not challenge that it was constitu tionally reasonable in the present case for Krause to force appellant out of the ve hicle during the lawful traffic stop, but rather appellant only argues that the frisk of his pe rson was not justified. See Harris v. Commonwealth, 27 Va. App. 554, 563, 500 S.E.2d 257, 261 (1998) (“[T ]he police are permitted to use methods of restraint that are reasonab le under the circ umstances.”). As appellant was being removed from the vehi cle, but before Krause began the frisk of appellant’s person, he dropped the contraband onto the vehicle’s floorboard, in Krause’s plain view. Under “the plain view exception to the warrant requirement,” “an officer must meet two- 6 - requirements: first, he must be lawfully in a position to ‘perceive’ a suspicious object, and second, he must have probable cau se to believe it to be cont raband.” Arnold v. Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 313, 317-18, 437 S.E.2d 235, 238 (1993) (quoting Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 206, 208-09, 409 S.E.2d 177, 179 (1991)). As applied in the present case, Upshur’s ve hicle was lawfully stopped for a “missing tag light,” and appellant dropped the contraband in to plain view while Krause was removing him from the vehicle. Then, upon seei ng the object, Krause had probabl e cause to believe it was, in fact, contraband. Specifically, he testified that it was a three-inch glass tube “with some white residue in it,” which he believed to be a “cr ack pipe” based upon his “training, knowledge, and experience.” Thus, the contraband was not discov ered as a result of the frisk, as appellant’s assignment of error assumes, but rather was discove red in plain view. Therefore, the denial of appellant’s motion to suppress, which argued that the frisk was unconstitutional, was not error.
III. CONCLUSION Based on the foregoing, this Court affirms the trial court’s ruling. Affirmed.