Opinion ID: 1788650
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: whether all evidence derived from the detention of the defendants for the purpose of obtaining a search warrant should have been suppressed.

Text: The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 3, Section 23 of the Mississippi Constitution contain almost identical language expressing the people's right to be secure from unreasonable searches or seizures. In order for an officer to have legal authority for an investigative stop, he need not have probable cause to make an arrest. He need only have a reasonable suspicion that the accused is involved in a felony. Floyd v. State, 500 So.2d 989, 993 (Miss. 1986). Terry v. State, 252 Miss. 479, 173 So.2d 889 (1965), involved a pursuit and pullover by a police car. The court stated that the search begins when the pursuit to make the arrest begins. An arrest begins when an officer begins his pursuit for the purpose of making an arrest. Smith v. State, 240 Miss. 738, 128 So.2d 857 (1961). Here, the pursuit at issue was not initiated for the purpose of making an arrest, but to make an investigative stop. Therefore, it is readily apparent, based on his confirmation of much of the informant's story, that Deputy Vasillion had the authority to make an investigative stop. Floyd v. State, 500 So.2d 989, 992 (Miss. 1986). The issue of first impression is whether Deputy Vasillion had the authority to detain Scotti and Terry for the purpose of obtaining a search warrant. Scotti and Terry argue that the officers did not have probable cause to detain them for the purpose of obtaining a warrant: the detention amounted to an arrest, for which probable cause did not exist at that time. If the detention was an unlawful exercise of the officer's authority, and since the evidence of marijuana, guns, and money was derived from that detention, as fruit of the poisonous tree, it must be suppressed. See Rooks v. State, 529 So.2d 546, 551 (Miss. 1988); Pollard v. State, 233 So.2d 792 (Miss. 1970) (defendant's acts in resisting unlawful arrest held inadmissible). An arrest is not consummated until there has been a taking of possession of a person by manual caption, or submission on demand; and although a manual touching is unnecessary unless there is resistance to an arrest, there must be restraint of a person to establish an arrest. Fondren v. State, 253 Miss. 241, 175 So.2d 628 (1965), quoted in Bayse v. State, 420 So.2d 1050, 1053 (Miss. 1982). Smith v. State, 229 So.2d 551 (Miss. 1970) states: An arrest within the meaning of the criminal law is the taking into custody of another person by an officer or a private person for the purpose of holding him to answer an alleged or suspected crime. 229 So.2d at 556. Other cases hold that a person is effectively under arrest when he or she is not free to leave. Magee v. State, 542 So.2d 228, 233 (Miss. 1989). But in Estes v. State, 533 So.2d 437 (Miss. 1988), the court concluded that a suspect placed in the backseat of a police car was not necessarily under arrest, because of the circumstances. Cole, the suspect argued that formal words need not be present to constitute an arrest when it can be shown by the circumstances. Estes, 533 So.2d at 441, citing Reed v. State, 199 So.2d 803 (Miss. 1967). The Estes court responded that the police had asked Cole to get into the car without ordering him to do so, and that he voluntarily did so. The Court further reaffirmed the principle that an officer may stop and detain a person in reasonable circumstances in order to resolve an ambiguous situation without having probable cause to arrest. Estes, 533 So.2d at 441. It must be recognized that during certain investigative stops, the detainee is not free to leave, and thus is temporarily arrested; however, he cannot be said to be under arrest, in the more permanent sense of the term. In Floyd v. State, 500 So.2d 989, 992 (Miss. 1986), this Court stated that officers had the authority to detain a person without actually arresting him for investigatory purposes. Floyd, 500 So.2d at 992, citing McCray v. State, 486 So.2d 1247 (Miss. 1986). McCray held that a brief detention of one's luggage to be sniffed by a dog fell within the scope of an investigative stop. McCray, 486 So.2d at 1250, citing United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). Vehicles also may be the subject of an investigative stop. Floyd, 500 So.2d at 992, citing United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985); United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985); United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). An investigative stop is permissible even where no probable cause to arrest is present, but the officers must have some objective manifestation or reasonable suspicion grounded in articulable facts that the detainee was involved in a felony. However, the scope of an investigative stop must be limited, and where officers go beyond this scope, the detention tends toward an actual arrest, or seizure requiring the probable cause for arrest. Floyd, 500 So.2d at 992. We need not delineate our view of the dividing line between detention and arrest, for as a practical matter it is clear Floyd was arrested, at the latest, when Trooper Graddy handcuffed him. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). Floyd, 500 So.2d at 992. Applying these cases to the instant case, we find that the defendants Haddox and Powell were not free to leave the scene, as they were told that they would have to wait on a search warrant to search their car. Officers may make arrests without warrants in certain situations, such as where a felony is committed in their presence. See Pollard v. State, 233 So.2d 792, 793 (Miss. 1970). Because the officers here had not witnessed any evidence of marijuana at the time of the detainment, it is not clear that they had probable cause to arrest. Nevertheless, probable cause to arrest was not required for the limited detainment which occurred in the instant case, because it did not amount to a full arrest. In Bevill v. State, 556 So.2d 699, 712 (Miss. 1990), the Mississippi Supreme Court defined probable cause to search as facts and circumstances within an officer's knowledge, or of which he has reasonable trustworthy information, are sufficient within themselves to justify a man of average caution in the belief that a crime has been committed... . Bevill, 556 So.2d at 712. But probable cause is less than evidence necessary for condemnation. Id. The test for probable cause in Mississippi is the totality of the circumstances test of Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). We have followed Gates consistently at least since 1983. Williams v. State, 583 So.2d 620, 622 (Miss. 1991). The old Aguillar  Spenelli test for judging probable cause was abandoned and replaced by Gates. Id. at 623. The probable cause inquiry is an objective and practical one; the information presented to the magistrate must be such that would lead him or her to reasonably believe that evidence will be found. Id. at 622. The Williams opinion affirmed a magistrate's finding of probable cause, objectively supported by detailed and lengthy affidavits, including statements by the officers that they had personally observed marijuana in the house to be searched. Id. at 622-623. Rooks v. State, 529 So.2d 546 (Miss. 1988), involved an observer's information about two white males. The observer saw the two men in a car, and noticed them make a complete turn-around on an airport apron. The car stopped, and one of the two men got out, looked around, walked to a grassy area, retrieved two black garbage bags, carried them to the car, and placed them in the trunk. Based on the observer's information, the sheriff's department had a deputy stop the car and detain the two men until the sheriff could arrive at the scene of the pullover. Id. at 552. Deputy Farmer stopped the car, viewed the men's identification, and requested consent to search. They refused to consent. Farmer smelled marijuana about one of the men, Rooks, who made a forward step toward Deputy Farmer. Because of this, and his recent back surgery, Deputy Farmer arrested the two men. Upon the sheriff's arrival with a search warrant, the officers retrieved the black garbage bags containing marijuana. Id. at 552. This Court was faced with the issue of whether the search warrant was supported by probable cause, and concluded that probable cause did exist to stop and search the car. 529 So.2d at 555. This Court discussed in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), the totality of the circumstances test for probable cause. The Mississippi Supreme Court stated that it had adhered to this test also. This Court stated that probable cause to search was information reasonably leading an officer to believe that then and there contraband or evidence material to a criminal investigation would be found. Rooks, 529 So.2d at 555. It is noteworthy that at one point in Rooks, Justice Hawkins, writing for the Court, stated: Montee and Rooks do not question the authority of law enforcement officers  when they do in fact have probable cause to do so  to stop a motor vehicle and search it, or as in this case, stop and detain the vehicle until a search warrant can be issued by a magistrate. Rooks, 529 So.2d at 552. Chapman v. State, 284 So.2d 525 (Miss. 1973), involved a pullover of a car for speeding. Upon stopping the car, an officer noticed that the car's occupants fit a description of persons who had just robbed a grocery store. Witnesses at the store had previously given the sheriff some descriptions, and the sheriff had given the information to all officers via radio. At the scene of the stopped car, the officers waited with the suspects for the arrival of a witness who had been summoned to identify the suspects. This witness, who had been in the grocery store during the robbery, arrived and identified the car's occupants as the robbers. At that point, they were arrested and searched, producing incriminating evidence. The defendants moved to suppress the evidence, claiming that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest them. The Court stated: A crime had been committed. The persons who committed the crime were fleeing from the scene of the crime in an automobile. [citations omitted] They were apprehended because of a traffic violation, and when it appeared that they were apparently the persons who were said to have committed the crime, it became the duty of the officer to detain them. Section 2470, Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated (Supp. 1972). When they were identified, it became the duty of the sheriff to arrest them. [citations omitted.] Chapman, 284 So.2d at 527. Apparently the Chapman court did not find the detainment and wait for the witness' identification to have been a unreasonable seizure or a fullfledged arrest requiring probable cause to arrest. Parks v. State, 180 Miss. 763, 178 So. 473 (Miss. 1938), involved a relay of information based on an unknown informant's statement that a white man and a black man were traveling into Union County in a new Plymouth coach with a load of illegal whisky. The Union County sheriff drove to the highway and waited on the car. When he noticed a new Plymouth coach occupied by a white man and a black man, he chased the car. During the chase, the suspects ran a red light and then began to throw whisky out of the car. Upon pulling them over, the sheriff noticed broken bottles and whisky in the car. The defendants argued that the sheriff had lacked probable cause to chase the car, based solely upon it being a new Plymouth coach being driven by a white and a black man. But the court responded that the informant's description of the persons, their car, and the time and place of their travels was sufficient to meet the standard of probable cause. There were too many coincidences for us to hold that the sheriff did not act upon probable cause. Parks v. State, 180 Miss. 763, 178 So. 473, 474 (1938). According to Parks the informant's detail in the instant case was so self-proving that probable cause to search the car existed. It must be remembered that the trial judge in the instant case concluded that probable cause to search existed at the time of the detainment. This is supported by the evidence: Deputy Vasillion's decision to stake out the highway on the night of January 15 was based on a few phone calls made that same day from a confidential informant who had given Vasillion reliable information in the past, but upon which no arrests had been made. Vasillion knew the informant, but did not disclose his name. Vasillion had also been familiar with Scotti and Terry, and the informant gave him their names. The fact that they were traveling from Texas, their identity as two females, their car make, their license plate, the ownership of the car under Scotti's name, were all confirmed by Vasillion before he pulled them over. Upon pulling them over, he confirmed that the two females were, in fact, Scotti and Terry, whom he had known previously. He made a cursory view of the passenger compartment of the car from the outside, without seeing any contraband. Without formally placing them under arrest, i.e., handcuffing and taking them downtown, he then told them that they would have to wait until a search warrant was obtained. Smith v. State, 229 So.2d 551 (Miss. 1970), states that an arrest, involves not only custody, but the idea that the detainee is held to answer for a crime. Here, Scotti and Terry were not held to answer for a crime, but held only for the purpose of a pending search or search warrant. They were not yet held to answer for a crime. Also, Floyd stated, We need not delineate our view of the dividing line between detention and arrest... . Floyd, 500 So.2d at 992. We are now faced with such a delineation, and affirm that there are degrees of arrests, or detainments, which fall short of an arrest which requires probable cause. Consider the situation where officers have probable cause to search a vehicle, and believe so, without seeking a warrant. The car's owner would have to wait on the officers to search the car; is this temporary detainment, pending the outcome of the search, an arrest requiring probable cause for arrest? Practicality requires that detainments which would become an arrest depending on the outcome of a pending investigation, are permissible. Thus, what is an unreasonable seizure should be determined on a balancing of the scope of the intrusion upon the person's liberty with the governmental interest. Since an automobile was involved here, the mobility of the suspected contraband yields a high governmental interest. In comparison, the scope of the intrusion was minimal, especially considering that the officers did not formally arrest the suspects, and that their detainment was potentially temporary. At the time of the detention, there was no reasonable belief that it would turn into a more permanent detainment, i.e., a full arrest, in which they would be held to answer for crime. We note that in such detainment situations, the police officers do not have unlimited authority, and may not be clothed with the authority to detain where they are not diligently investigating in such a way which will resolve the matter. Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 69 L.Ed.2d 340 (1982); U.S. v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985). But here, the short lapse of time, 5 or 10 minutes, did not necessarily give the police a reasonable chance to be judged as to their diligence or lack thereof in their investigation. This assignment of error is without merit.