Opinion ID: 2630302
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Aggravated assault and battery

Text: [¶20] Cohen was convicted of aggravated assault and battery under § 6-2-502(a)(ii)  attempting to cause bodily injury to Officer Wenberg with a deadly weapon. Cohen, once again, takes issue with the sufficiency of the evidence establishing the attempt element of the crime. Cohen's argument is essentially the same as the one made concerning his attempted murder conviction  that his act of pulling the gun from his waistband was ambiguous and could not be construed as constituting a substantial step toward the commission of the intended crime. Our response is likewise essentially the same. If the facts and circumstances surrounding Cohen's drawing of a loaded gun are sufficient to sustain his conviction for the attempted murder of Officer Wenberg, they are likewise sufficient to sustain his conviction for attempting to cause bodily injury to the officer. Motion to Suppress [¶21] Cohen contends that Officer Wenberg's investigatory stop of the SUV was constitutionally infirm. Relying primarily on the discrepancy between the gray sweatshirt [5] he was reported to be wearing and the orange sweatshirt the male suspect was wearing when observed by Officer Wenberg, Cohen claims Officer Wenberg acted on a hunch and did not have a reasonable and sufficient basis for suspecting he was in the SUV before stopping it. He therefore faults the district court for not suppressing the incriminating evidence obtained following the stop. [6] [¶22] When reviewing a district court's decision on a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous. Hembree v. State, 2006 WY 127, ¶ 17, 143 P.3d 905, 907 (Wyo. 2006) (citing Campbell v. State, 2004 WY 106, ¶ 9, 97 P.3d 781, 784 (Wyo. 2004)). We consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court's determination because it is in the best position to assess the credibility of the witnesses, weigh the evidence, and make the necessary inferences, deductions, and conclusions. Id. When the district court does not make specific factual findings, we will uphold its general ruling if the ruling is supported by any reasonable view of the evidence. Innis v. State, 2003 WY 66, ¶ 13, 69 P.3d 413, 418 (Wyo. 2003). The constitutionality of a particular search or seizure, however, is a question of law that we review de novo. Id. ; see also Hembree, ¶ 7, 143 P.3d at 907, Campbell, ¶ 9, 97 P.3d at 784. [¶23] Before discussing the merits of Cohen's complaint, we must address a preliminary matter. In his motion to suppress in the district court, Cohen invoked both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 4 of the Wyoming Constitution as grounds for suppressing the evidence. [7] On appeal, Cohen bases his challenge to the legality of the stop exclusively on Fourth Amendment principles. Although he references the Wyoming Constitution, he does not provide an independent state constitutional analysis. We have consistently stated that the failure to present a proper argument supporting `adequate and independent state grounds' . . . prevents this court, as a matter of policy, from considering other than the federal constitutional principles at issue. . . . Vassar v. State, 2004 WY 125, ¶ 14, 99 P.3d 987, 993 (Wyo. 2004) (quoting Wilson v. State, 874 P.2d 215, 219 (Wyo. 1994), and Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1041, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983)). See also Rideout v. State, 2005 WY 141, ¶ 15, 122 P.3d 201, 205 (Wyo. 2005); Fender v. State, 2003 WY 96, ¶ 12, 74 P.3d 1220, 1225 (Wyo. 2003); Meek v. State, 2002 WY 1, ¶ 7 n. 2, 37 P.3d 1279, 1282 n. 2 (Wyo. 2002). Accordingly, we will confine our analysis of Cohen's complaint to federal constitutional authority. Vasser, ¶ 14, 99 P.3d at 993. [¶24] Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and its progeny establish that a law enforcement officer may stop and temporarily detain a citizen if the officer has an objectively reasonable suspicion that the person has committed or may be committing a crime. McChesney v. State, 988 P.2d 1071, 1075 (Wyo. 1999) (citing Wilson, 874 P.2d at 220). Whether reasonable suspicion exists is determined as follows: In order to establish the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify a . . . Terry or investigatory stop, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences [drawn] from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. Olson v. State, 698 P.2d 107, 109 (Wyo. 1985) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880); Wilson v. State, 874 P.2d at 220. Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependant upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factors  quantity and quality  are considered in the `totality of the circumstances  the whole picture,' United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981), that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion. Jelle v. State, 2005 WY 111, ¶ 20, 119 P.3d 403, 411 (Wyo. 2005) (quoting McChesney, 988 P.2d at 1075). [¶25] In Lopez v. State, 643 P.2d 682 (Wyo. 1982), we held that a police officer's independent observations of an automobile and a suspect driving the car which matched descriptions by eyewitnesses was adequate for an investigatory stop. Similarly, in Cook v. State, 631 P.2d 5 (Wyo. 1981), we concluded that the circumstances that occurred following a robbery, together with reasonable inferences made by an experienced police officer, furnished adequate grounds for an investigatory stop. In Parkhurst v. State, 628 P.2d 1369 (Wyo. 1981), police officers were given a description of a car used by two individuals to flee from the scene of a murder and the direction the car was traveling. We held that the officers were justified in making an investigatory stop when a car fitting that description was spotted. [¶26] After reviewing the record in this case, we have no trouble concluding that Officer Wenberg possessed reasonable suspicion justifying the investigatory stop of the SUV. The record discloses the following facts: (1) Officer Wenberg had been following the events over his police radio and knew there was a warrant out for Cohen's arrest; (2) Cohen was reported to be on foot in the area where the grid search was being conducted; (3) the radio reports indicated that Cohen ran west in the direction of McKinley Street after abandoning the Camaro; (4) Officer Wenberg saw a man cross McKinley Street heading west about twenty minutes after Cohen abandoned the Camaro; (5) the male suspect was sighted just a block away from the Camaro; (6) Officer Wenberg saw the suspect coming out from between two houses, not exiting a residence or other structure; (7) the officer knew from experience that this neighborhood normally had very little pedestrian traffic; (8) Officer Wenberg was somewhat familiar with Cohen's physical appearance from his participation in a drug investigation involving Cohen a few months earlier; (9) the suspect was the right size and shape of Cohen, although his clothing was a little different from the description transmitted earlier over the radio for Cohen; (10) the suspect matched the physical description of Cohen contained in a flier posted at the police station; and (11) Officer Wenberg observed the suspect enter the passenger door of the waiting SUV. Under the circumstances, Officer Wenberg was acting on more than a simple hunch when he stopped the SUV. The totality of these factors, along with rationale inferences, supports a reasonable suspicion that Cohen, the person police were searching for, was a passenger in the SUV. [¶27] In reaching this result, we have considered the clothing discrepancy noted by Cohen. However, we find that the discrepancy is insufficient to defeat the existence of reasonable suspicion in light of the other factors present in this case. See Medrano v. State, 914 P.2d 804, 807-08 (Wyo. 1996) (discrepancy in clothing and vehicle driven by suspect and the person stopped held to be insufficient to defeat reasonable suspicion in view of other circumstances). We hold that the investigatory stop of the SUV was constitutionally permissible under the circumstances.