Title: City of Garden City v. Mesa
Citation: 215 Kan. 674, 527 P.2d 1036
Docket Number: 47,467
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: November 2, 1974

215 Kan. 674 (1974)
527 P.2d 1036
THE CITY OF GARDEN CITY, KANSAS, Appellee,
v.
BRIGIDO GUILLEN MESA, Appellant.
No. 47,467

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed November 2, 1974.
J. Stephen Nyswonger, of Braun &amp; Nyswonger, of Garden City, argued the cause, and Lelyn J. Braun, of the same firm, was with him on the brief for the appellant.
William B. Bolin, of Garden City, argued the cause, and was on the brief for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
SCHROEDER, J.:
This case presents a serious question concerning the application of K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402 (1) commonly referred to as our "stop and frisk" statute, and the role of the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution in the confrontation between a citizen in a public place and the policeman investigating suspicious circumstances.
Brigido Mesa (defendant-appellant) has appealed from a conviction of resisting or opposing a police officer in the discharge of his duties in violation of Garden City, Kansas, Ordinance Section 20-15. Mesa was originally found guilty in Garden City Municipal Court and sentenced to pay a $25 fine and costs. On appeal to the district court the matter was determined upon stipulation solely from the transcript taken in the municipal court proceedings and briefs filed by the parties. The district court found Mesa guilty as charged but suspended sentence due to the surrounding circumstances. Mesa has duly perfected an appeal.
On May 26, 1973, Officers James W. Phillips and Patrick Connon of the Garden City Police Department were dressed in police uniforms and working together on the night shift patrol. At 4:00 o'clock a.m. the officers were cruising down South Main Street in their marked patrol car when they observed Mesa standing in the *675 doorway of th Motor Electric Shop at 216 South Main. There were lights on in the shop, but its door was closed.
After seeing Mesa the officers circled the block and parked their patrol car in front of the shop. Both officers got out of their vehicle, walked up to Mesa, greeted him with a "Good morning" and requested some identification. Mesa responded that it was none of the officers' business who he was or what he was doing. The officers made their request a second time and Mesa answered that he was doing some work in the electric shop. The officers again asked Mesa for some identification, and Mesa turned away from them and walked inside the shop. Officer Phillips caught up with Mesa, stepped in front of him to block his path, and told him "that was as far as he was going to go, we were going down to the [police] station." At that point Mesa put his hands on Officer Phillips and attempted to push him to one side and go around him. Officer Connon grabbed one of Mesa's arms, turned him around, and handcuffed him. The officers then took Mesa to their patrol car and called for their sergeant to join them and transport Mesa to the police station.
In a short while Sergeant Broetzmann arrived at the scene. The sergeant had met Mesa on a previous occasion and knew his name. He attempted to calm Mesa. Before departing for the police station, Mesa asked that the business be locked and he provided the keys to the officers.
At the trial in municipal court, Officer Phillips testified during cross-examination that there was nothing he observed in Mesa's conduct when they first saw him standing in the shop doorway which indicated he was involved in the commission of any crime, and Mesa's behavior did not indicate anything suspicious about what he was doing there. Phillips also stated that Mesa was not under arrest until after pushing Phillips out of his way. On redirect examination Officer Phillips stated that one of an officer's duties, in relation to the security of buildings at night, was to check out any unfamiliar persons, and that when he observes someone standing around a business at 4:00 o'clock a.m. he becomes suspicious and finds out who the person is and what he is doing. Phillips had patrolled on previous occasions in the vicinity of the electric shop on the night shift, and, though he had seen lights on in the shop, he had never seen anyone working there.
Officer Connon's testimony was substantially similar to that of Phillips. Connon stated on redirect examination the purpose of *676 investigating individuals standing around buildings in the middle of the night was for the protection and security of the buildings in reference to burglars.
On cross-examination Connon had previously testified:
"A. Yes, sir.
"A. No, sir.
"A. No, sir.
The district court, after examining the municipal court transcript and the briefs submitted by the parties, found:
The district court thereupon suspended sentence and assessed the costs to the city.
The city ordinance under which the appellant was arrested is contained in the Code of Ordinances of the City of Garden City, Kansas, Section 20-15, titled, "Resisting an Officer". It reads:
*677 The parties to this action concede that whether each of the police officers on the facts heretofore related was acting "in the discharge of his duties" is controlled by K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402 (1). It pertains to the stopping of a suspect and provides:
The foregoing statute was first before this court in State v. Jackson, 213 Kan. 219, 515 P.2d 1108, where the court said:
While the United States Supreme Court in Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917, 88 S. Ct. 1889, declined to approve expressly the language of the New York statute, it found on the facts there presented that the conduct of an officer acting within the statute was not offensive to the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
It is readily apparent 22-2402 was designed by the legislature to clarify the power of the investigating officer prior to the actual arrest. The justification and limitations applicable to such powers are expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 and Sibron v. New York, supra. This is indicated by the Judicial Council Comment appended to K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402.
In resolving the issue before the court we must therefore look to Terry v. Ohio, supra, upon which both of the parties to this appeal rely.
While the facts in Terry and in State v. Jackson, supra, involve both a search and a seizure, as distinguished from a seizure of the person prior to arrest in the instant case, the basic underlying principles are the same.
*678 Terry reaffirms that the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, (Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 184 A.L.R.2d 933), "protects people, not places," and therefore applies as much to the citizen on the streets as well as at home or elsewhere. No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law. Wherever an individual may harbor a reasonable expectation of privacy, he is, as a matter of constitutional law, entitled to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion; the specific content and incidents of this right must be shaped by the context in which it is asserted. (Terry v. Ohio, supra.)
The Fourth Amendment applies to "stop and frisk" procedures. In Terry it was said whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has "seized" that person.
It was asserted in Terry that in determining whether the Fourth Amendment was violated by a police officer's seizure of a person by way of stopping him for interrogation, the notions which underlie both the warrant procedure and a requirement of probable cause remain fully relevant; in order to assess the reasonableness of a police officer's conduct as a general proposition, it is necessary first to focus upon the governmental interests which allegedly justified official intrusion upon the constitutionally protected interest of a private citizen, and in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.
The court in Terry goes on to state:
In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 32 L. Ed. 2d 612, 92 S. Ct. 1921, a police officer working in a high crime area received a tip from an informant, known personally by the officer to be reliable, that the petitioner was carrying some narcotics and a weapon. The officer approached the car petitioner was sitting in and asked him to open the door, but the petitioner instead rolled down the window. The officer then reached through the window and grabbed for the pistol exactly where the informant had said it would be. In the opinion the court said:
Our difficulty in this case stems from our prior decision in State v. Jackson, supra. There the sheriff stopped the defendant who was walking on U.S. Highway 77 a quarter of a mile north of Rock, Kansas, at about 2:50 a.m. The defendant was frisked and car keys were found on his person. After interrogation the officer arrested the defendant on a charge of vagrancy. In the opinion the court said:
The issue in Jackson concerned the trial court's suppression of evidence which consisted of the keys taken by the sheriff upon arresting the defendant. The facts in the instant case are not complicated by a search of the defendant's person for weapons.
Based upon some of the testimony in the record presented in the instant case it may be argued, as the appellant does, that the stop was made by the police officers to ascertain the defendant's identity because of custom or departmental policy of the police department. Officer Phillips, however, testified that he was suspicious when he saw a person standing around a business building at 4:00 a.m., thus indicating that his action was not based solely upon departmental policy, but also upon personal observation and evaluation of the circumstances. There is other testimony that it was the police officers' duty, by reason of instructions from their superiors, to ascertain the identity of individuals loitering in a public place near business buildings late at night on the ground that under such circumstances there is a suspicion of possible burglary.
Paraphrasing State v. Jackson, supra, the reasonableness of a "seizure" is, in the first instance, a substantial determination to be made by the trial court from the facts and circumstances of the case. In the light of all of the evidence presented by the record in the instant case it cannot be said the trial court erred in finding that under the circumstances the officers were acting reasonably and *681 with justification in approaching and requesting the defendant's identity and in making the subsequent arrest by reason of the defendant's response and resistance to the officers.
Under K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402 (1) a police officer is authorized in the discharge of his duties to stop a person loitering in a public place at 4:00 o'clock a.m., where the officer harbors a suspicion of possible burglary, and demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his actions.
The judgment of the lower court is affirmed.
PRAGER, J., dissenting:
I am compelled to dissent from the majority's reasoning and decision in this case. The "stop" made by these police officers was clearly motivated by departmental policy rather than by constitutional or statutory grounds. From their testimony it is obvious that neither officer had "reasonable suspicion" to believe a crime was being committed, had been committed, or was about to be committed. Officer Phillips testified on cross-examination that the building was well lighted outside and that lights were on inside. He further testified:
"A. No, sir.
"A. No, sir.
"A. Yes, sir."
Officer Connon also testified on cross-examination with regard to his suspicions, or lack thereof:
"A. Yes, sir.
"A. No, sir.
"A. No, sir."
The majority points out, and seems to rely heavily upon, the testimony of Officer Phillips that he became suspicious when he saw *682 someone standing around a business establishment at 4:00 a.m. This is pointed out to be an indication that he was operating on the basis of "personal observation and evaluation of the circumstances." I respectfully disagree with this interpretation of Officer Phillips' testimony which was as follows:
..............
"A. Yes, sir.
These answers were general answers to hypothetical type questions. The officer had previously testified he had no suspicion that criminal activity was afoot in this particular instance.
The Supreme Court of the United States has had several occasions to speak on the subject of investigative stops. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868; Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917, 88 S. Ct. 1889. In its most recent discussion of the issue, the Court said:
This court, only a year ago, said:
In Kansas, standards for such stops have been codified in light of Terry and its successors. Commenting on the provisions of K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402 (1), this court stated in Jackson:
*683 Clearly, a stop after some observation of a suspect "casing" a store for a robbery is allowable. (Terry v. Ohio, supra.) Also allowable is a stop after receiving a tip from a reliable informant (Adams v. Williams, supra; United States v. Unverzagt, 424 F.2d 396 [8th Cir.]; Gaines v. Craven, 448 F.2d 1236 [9th Cir.]); or seeing a man "furtively duck into an alley and hide behind a car in an area plagued with theft." (State v. Hazelwood, 209 Kan. 649, 498 P.2d 607.) However, stopping a car or a person merely because of the appearance of the person's physical make-up (United States v. Davis, 459 F.2d 458 [9th Cir.]; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 499 F.2d 1109 [9th Cir.]), or proximity to a suspicious locale (United States v. Martinez-Tapia, 499 F.2d 1244 [9th Cir.]), or a person's known criminal record, (United States v. Cupps, 503 F.2d 277 [6th Cir., Sept. 24, 1974]), cannot in and of itself be justifiable cause to make a "stop" in light of Terry and the Fourth Amendment. A stop cannot be made on the basis of "inarticulate hunches." (Terry v. Ohio, supra.) Ideally, the officer should bear in mind a combination of factors in making a "stop". Such factors should include:
1. Whether the person fits the description of someone wanted by the police.
2. The general conduct, demeanor, and gait of the person, including attempt at flight when the officer is seen or recognized.
3. The officer's personal knowledge of the person's character and background.
4. What the person is carrying.
5. How the individual is dressed, including any bulges under his clothing.
6. The time of day or night.
7. The geography of the area and the section of the city.
8. Any previous information received.
9. The nearness in place and/or time of the subject to known or reported criminal activity.
10. Any overheard conversation.
11. Whether the person is alone or in a group, or whether an entire group is involved in the suspicious activity. See Meyer, Arrest Under the New Kansas Criminal Code, 20 Kan. L. Rev. 685, 735, fn. 248, calling attention to the training manual of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.
I respectfully submit that the observations and facts known to the officers in this case fell far short of the standards set by Jackson *684 and K.S.A. 1973 Supp. 22-2402 (1). Indeed, to allow such conduct on the part of police officers effectively emasculates the safeguards set forth in Terry and utterly disregards the statutory minimum requirements of 22-2402 (1).