Opinion ID: 2556883
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Search and Seizure Of The PCP Vials Was Valid

Text: Loper next claims that the police lacked both a reasonable suspicion and his consent to conduct a warrantless search and seizure of his person and his car. Therefore, he urges, the seized evidence should have been suppressed.
Loper contends that his detention after Kennedy's arrest constituted a second seizure that was not independently supported. Stated differently, Loper argues that a second seizure occurred when Officer Santiago ordered him to exit his car, thereby initiating another investigation beyond the initial traffic stop. Loper claims that because only the facts existing at the time of the seizure are relevant to a reasonable suspicion analysis, the trial court should not have considered the PCP found during the second seizure in determining whether the police had a reasonable and articulable suspicion to conduct the first search and seizure. Loper relies on Jones v. State , where this Court held that Article 1, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution provided greater protection than its Fourth Amendment counterpart and that a seizure occurs only if, viewing the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to ignore police presence. [13] Loper's reliance on Jones is misplaced. In Jones, the police did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion when they limited the defendant's mobility by ordering him to stop. The police suspicions were triggered by Jones' refusal to obey their order to stop, and his repeated attempts to leave. [14] Here, however, at the time Officer Santiago ordered Loper out of the car, Loper was already lawfully detained as a consequence of the valid traffic stop. Loper's mobility having already been validly limited, he was not subject to a second seizure when the police ordered him to exit his car. As the United States Supreme Court held in Pennsylvania v. Mimms , the police may order the driver or a passenger to exit the car after a valid traffic stop, and that order is not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. [15] Loper has cited no authority, nor made any cogent legal argument, for why this Court should expand the meaning of seizure under Jones and Article 1, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution, to hold that a person already being lawfully detained as a result of a valid traffic stop is seized a second time when ordered to leave his car. [16] The constitutional claim, therefore, fails. Even assuming, arguendo, that a second seizure occurred when the police ordered Loper to leave his car, the seizure was reasonable. Loper relies on Caldwell v. State . [17] In Caldwell, the police approached the defendant, who was illegally parked in a fire lane. They ordered him to exit his car immediately after obtaining his license and registration information. [18] Rather than continue to question the passengers in Caldwell's car, the officer frisked and handcuffed Caldwell and detained him until another officer arrived. [19] In those circumstances, we concluded that a second seizure had occurred, because the officer's actions exceeded the permissible scope of the initial traffic stop, and the police lacked additional facts sufficient to justify the second seizure. [20] Here, in contrast, Officers Santiago and Cancila questioned Loper and Kennedy, and received suspicious responses, before they ordered Loper to exit the car. Loper provides no support for his claim that giving the police a false identify and age does not raise a reasonable and articulable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. [21] The Superior Court did not err in holding that, in the totality of the circumstances, there was reasonable suspicion sufficient to support a search and seizure. [22]
Loper next contests the Superior Court's conclusion that he had voluntarily told the police that he was carrying weed. Alternatively, Loper argues, even if his statement was voluntary it was not a consent to search his car. Whether consent was given to a police search is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of the circumstances. [23] Absent a reasonable and articulable suspicion that Loper was engaged in criminal activity, the consent must be voluntary to justify a warrantless search and seizure. [24] After hearing testimony and weighing the witnesses' credibility, the trial judge concluded that Loper's response-that he had weed on his person, when asked if he had anything illegal on himself,was voluntary. That factual finding is not clearly erroneous.