Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Mark BRUSER
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1995-09-15
Citations: 661 So. 2d 152
Docket Number: No. 95-K-0907
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Mark BRUSER.
Judges: Before BARRY, BYRNES and LANDRIEU, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 661
Pages: 152–158

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Mark BRUSER.
No. 95-K-0907.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Sept. 15, 1995.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 25, 1995.
Harry F. Connick, District Attorney for Orleans Parish, Mike Futrell, David Weil-baecher, Jr., Assistant District Attorneys for Orleans Parish, New Orleans, for Relator.
Salvatore Panzeca, Panzeca & D’Angelo, Metairie, for Respondent.
Before BARRY, BYRNES and LANDRIEU, JJ.

Opinion:
hBYRNES, Judge.
The state requests a review of the trial court's ruling granting the defendant's motion to suppress the evidence. We reverse and remand.
FACTS
On April 20, 1994, Detective William Marks spoke to a credible, but untested, informant who said that Donald Celestin was selling marijuana and cocaine to dancers employed at the Crescent Cabaret and the Maiden Voyage, two French Quarter establishments. The informant said that Celestin drove a late model blue four-door Lumina to the French Quarter nightly and met with prospective buyers to conduct business. The informer also stated that Mark Bruser is Celestin's supplier of marijuana and cocaine and that Celestin stored large amounts of cash in his residence at 4616 Cleveland Street.
Beginning the next day, Detective Marks and other officers established surveillance of Donald Celestin's residence at 4616 Cleveland Street. The license plate of a 1990 Chevy Lumina, parked in front of the residence, revealed that it belonged to Celestin. Officers watched Celestin leave the residence, retrieve a-blue box from the front seat of the Lumina, and place an object into the box. Celestin took the box with him and drove off in a red Chevy Camaro which was parked in front of the Lumina. Officers followed Celestin into the French Quarter where he entered the Crescent 12Cabaret and handed the blue box to a bartender, who then placed the box under the bar. This activity was repeated by Celestin on April 22, 25 & 26. Also on April 26, an anonymous woman called the narcotics hot line and said that she had personal knowledge that Celestin was selling marijuana and cocaine to French Quarter dancers from his house located at 4616 Cleveland Street.
Police continued surveillance of Celestin's residence and the next day saw Mark McClellan enter the house for ten minutes, walk to his ear, kneel and smoke a hand rolled cigarette. McClellan extinguished the cigarette, placed it under the front floor mat and drove away. Police stopped McClellan and found a marijuana cigarette under the front floor mat. McClellan told police he got the marijuana from Celestin, and the police took McClellan to headquarters for booking.
That evening, under continued surveillance of the Cleveland Street residence, police saw a black Jeep driven by a white male with blond hair arrive. That information was radioed to the detective at headquarters who was booking McClellan. Hearing the radio broadcast, McClellan told the officer the driver of the Jeep was the defendant, Mark Bruser, whom he heard was Celestin's supplier. Police watched the defendant leave the Cleveland Street residence after a short time.
The testimony conflicts as to what happened next. Police witnesses stated that they followed the defendant in an unmarked ear, turned on the red and blue lights and the siren and stopped the defendant. Police testified that the defendant voluntarily exited his vehicle and walked toward the police. After the police read the defendant his Miranda rights, and told him |3he was under investigation for narcotics violation, the police testified that the defendant claimed that he did not have drugs and consented to a search of the vehicle. Several other officers arrived at the scene. A narcotics dog found the cocaine in the Jeep's folded down top, and the police arrested the defendant.
The defendant testified that three or four police cars surrounded his Jeep, forcing him to stop and that an officer approached the Jeep with his gun drawn. The defendant stated that he stopped and exited the vehicle. The defendant did not claim that the police forced him from the ear. He denied that he consented to the search, and he testified that the police rather than the dog found the cocaine after 20 or 30 minutes.
The defendant was charged with possession of more than 28 grams but less than 200 grams of cocaine under La.R.S. 40:967.
INVESTIGATORY STOP
The initial inquiry is whether the stop and detention of the defendant was an investigatory stop under La.C.Cr.P. art. 215.1 or an arrest under La.C.Cr.P. art. 201. The state asserts it was an investigatory stop justified by reasonable suspicion based on information from the two informants. The defendant argues that the officers arrested the defendant without probable cause.
Under La.C.Cr.P. art. 215.1, a police officer may stop a person in a public place whom the officer:
reasonably suspects is committing, has committed, or is about to commit an offense and may demand of him his name, address, and an explanation of his actions.
An arrest occurs when there is an actual restraint of the person. LaRC.Cr.P. art. 201. Circumstances must indicate an intent by police to effect an extended restraint on the liberty of the accused. State v. Simms, 571 So.2d 145, 148 (La.1990).
Louisiana courts have found an arrest where officers stopped a vehicle, drew their weapons, ordered the defendant from the car and had the defendant place his hands on the vehicle. State v. Raheem, 464 So.2d 293 (La.1985); State v. Francise, 597 So.2d 28 (La.App. 1 Cir.), writ denied 604 So.2d 970 (La.1992). The present case is distinguishable because the police did not order the defendant from the Jeep, frisk for weapons, handcuff, or place the defendant in a police vehicle, and the defendant was not informed that he was under arrest until after the cocaine was found. The facts do not establish that the officers intended to exercise extended restraint on the defendant's liberty.
The police officer had reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity in order to make an investigatory stop. "Reasonable suspicion" is something less than the probable cause required for an arrest. State v. Vance, 93-1389 (La.App. 4th Cir. 2/25/94) 633 So.2d 819. The defendant was named by two independent informants as the wholesale drug supplier to Donald Celestin whom the officers believed, through the informants' information independently corroborated by police surveillance, was selling the drugs to several establishments in the French Quarter. The officers had stopped Mark McClellan, who was seen going into Celestin's house, and then was seen smoking and disposing in his vehicle what later was found to be marijuana within a very short period of time before the defendant was seen visiting Celestin's residence. The 15identified informant, Mark McClellan, confirmed information from the first confidential informant that the defendant Mark Bruser was the drug supplier for Celestin. McClellan also related that if the male had blond hair and was driving a black Jeep, the subject probably was Mark Bruser. Based on the totality of circumstances of the two informants' independent information, the female's anonymous tip, and police corroboration of drug activity in the present case, the detaining officer had sufficient facts within his knowledge to justify an infringement of the suspect's rights. See State v. Matthews, 94-2112 (La.App. 4th Cir. 4/26/95), 654 So.2d 868; State v. Hall, 94-2051 (La.App. 4th Cir. 3/16/95), 652 So.2d 1086, The officer had a reasonable belief that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity so as to justify a brief investigatory stop. Because the detection by the narcotics dog does not constitute a search [see State v. Bose, 607 So.2d 974 (La.App. 4th Cir.1992), writ denied, 612 So.2d 97 (La.1993), and State v. Philippoff, 688 So.2d 778 (La.App. 4th Cir.1991)], the officers had probable cause to arrest the defendant and seize the cocaine after the dog "alerted" on the two bags of cocaine found in the folds of the vinyl top of the Jeep. Also, according to Officer Glasser's testimony, the defendant consented to the search of the Jeep.
Nothing in the record indicates that the trial court made a credibility determination in defendant's favor. At the conclusion of the motion to suppress hearing, the trial court requested memoranda on the legal issue of the expectation of privacy of a vehicle and the ease law involving automobile searches.
Automobiles are accorded less protection against warrantless searches | sdue to their inherent mobility and a citizen's lesser expectation of privacy. State v. Harmon, 594 So.2d 1054 (La.App. 3 Cir.1992), writ denied, 609 So.2d 222 (La.1992), & writ denied, State ex rel. Harmon v. Lyons, 623 So.2d 1326 (La.1993). There is no expectation of privacy on the outside of a vehicle. In New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986), on remand, People v. Class, 67 N.Y.2d 431, 494 N.E.2d 444, 503 N.Y.S.2d 313 (N.Y.1986), the fact that papers on the dashboard of the defendant's automobile obstructed the vehicle identification number (VIN) from plain view of a police officer who stopped the defendant for traffic offenses, did not create a reasonable expectation of privacy in the VIN, which normally can be seen through the windshield. The officer's reaching into the vehicle to remove the papers was a reasonable search, and a gun that was observed protruding underneath the driver's seat was properly seized, notwithstanding that the defendant had voluntarily exited the vehicle. The United States Supreme Court stated:
[I]t is unreasonable to have an expectation of privacy in an object required by law to be located in a place ordinarily in plain view from the exterior of the automobile. The VIN's mandated visibility makes it more similar to the exterior of the car than the trunk or glove compartment. The exterior of a car, of course, is thrust into the public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a 'search'....

. We have recently emphasized that efforts to restrict access to an area do not generate a reasonable expectation of privacy where none would otherwise exist.
New York v. Class, id. [475 U.S. at 114], 106 S.Ct. at 966. [Emphasis added.]
In State v. Taylor, 623 So.2d 952, 953 (La.App. 4th Cir.1993), the deputy found a sock containing contraband when he shined his flashlight on 17the front "grill of the truck, an area where there is no expectation of privacy." The defendant had been stopped for traffic violations, but the police had no information that the defendant was in possession of contraband. Although it was not immediately apparent that the sock contained contraband, the search was proper where the defendant had no expectation of privacy in the area where it was found.
In the present case the two plastic bags (described as ziplock baggies) containing cocaine were found on the exterior part of the Jeep in the folded-back vinyl top where there was no expectation of privacy just as there was no expectation of privacy in the grill of the truck (Taylor; id.) or on the front windshield which was obscured by papers on the dashboard (New York v. Class, supra.) Whether or not the narcotics dog alerted on the cocaine or the officers recovered the contraband without the aid of the canine, in the present case the defendant had no expectation of privacy on the exterior area of his vehicle, and thus to examine that area did not constitute a "search".
The seizure of the cocaine was justified. The ruling of the trial court is reversed. Defendant's motion to suppress is denied, and the case is remanded to the trial court.
WRIT GRANTED; REVERSED & REMANDED.
LANDRIEU, J., concurs in result.
BARRY, J., dissents with reasons.