Opinion ID: 2074048
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Scope of the Terry Stop

Text: We will next consider whether the officers' conduct exceeded the scope of a proper Terry detention. During a Terry stop, an officer may conduct a limited protective search for concealed weapons. [29] So long as the officer is entitled to make a forcible stop, and has reason to believe that the suspect is armed and dangerous, he may conduct a weapons search limited in scope to this protective purpose. [30] This search for weapons is limited, and if the search goes beyond what is necessary to determine if the suspect is armed, it is no longer valid under Terry and its fruits will be suppressed. [31] In Purnell v. State , officers stopped Purnell because he fit the description of a suspect. [32] As Purnell walked out of a restaurant, three officers approached him, identified themselves, escorted him to their unmarked car, and told him they were investigating a complaint regarding handguns and narcotics. [33] The detectives asked Purnell if they could speak with him, and he agreed. The police then asked if they could pat him down for weapons, and he again agreed. [34] One of the officers conducted the pat down but found no weapons. [35] The officer did, however, detect a large bulge in Purnell's right pants pocket. [36] When asked what the bulge was, Purnell stated it was approximately $300 in cash that he had earned from a temporary job. [37] Purnell then gave consent for the detective to remove the money from his pocket. [38] After the search, the officers asked Purnell to provide identification and state his business abroad. [39] Purnell produced valid identification and told the detectives that he was visiting his grandmother. [40] He then pointed down the street to a house the police believed to be vacant. [41] The officers also asked Purnell how he had traveled to his grandmother's house, and he said that he had taken the bus. [42] This aroused the detectives' suspicions, however, because during the pat down the officer felt what he believed to be a remote control automobile keypad in Purnell's jacket. [43] The officers then searched Purnell a second time and removed the keypad from his jacket. Purnell told the officers that the keys belonged to his grandfather's Buick which he had permission to drive. [44] There was a black Buick parked on the street near the house where Purnell had pointed. The detectives asked Purnell if the car was his or his grandfather's, and he stated that it was neither his nor his grandfather's. The officers then walked toward the car and pressed the keypad they had taken from Purnell. [45] The doors of the car unlocked and they ran a license plate check of the vehicle and found that it was registered to Purnell. [46] After a K9 unit alerted the officers to the presence of drugs in the car, they arrested Purnell. [47] In Purnell, this Court considered the validity of the second search following the lawful Terry stop and frisk which revealed no weapons. [48] The record showed that the purpose of the additional search was not to protect the officers, but to gather evidence. [49] The Superior Court denied Purnell's motion to suppress the fruit of the second search. This Court reversed and held that the second search violated Purnell's Fourth Amendment right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, and any evidence gathered pursuant to this second search should have been suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. [50] This Court stated, The officers did not have the authority to conduct this second search because the first search revealed that Purnell did not have any weapons. Thus, the second search was not for the purpose of protecting the officers. [51] Hicks v. State, [52] is another case where this Court found that police action exceeded the permissible scope of a Terry stop. A uniformed police officer, while patrolling in Frankford, Delaware, notice a Chevette stopped in the middle of the street, in violation of 21 Del.C. § 4178(a). [53] The officer then approached the driver, Monica Collins, and asked for her license and registration. [54] During the investigation, the officer noticed that Hicks and a few others come closer, and the officer began to feel uneasy about the growth of the crowd and Hicks' apparent interest in his investigation. [55] The officer asked Hicks his purpose abroad, and Hicks in turn asked the officer to explain what he was doing. [56] The officer became increasingly concerned when he noticed Hicks was keeping his hands in his pockets, and could be concealing a weapon. [57] Next, the officer asked Hicks to leave the area so that he could complete his investigation. [58] Hicks refused, and the officer decided to detain Hicks to identify him. [59] The officer ran a computer check on Hicks and decided to do a pat down for weapons. During the pat down, he felt a hard object in Hicks' pocket. [60] The officer removed a green pouch from Hicks' pocket. Hicks told the officer that the pouch contained his grandmother's money. The officer did not believe Hicks and opened the bag and found money and a sandwich bag. [61] Before continuing his search, however, the officer placed Hicks in his police car, [62] reexamined the bag, found nearly $1,800 in cash and what was later verified to be 6.48 grams of crack cocaine. [63] This Court concluded that although Hicks' menacing conduct justified his initial detention, the officer's decision to reexamine the contents of the pouch without articulating any reasonable basis to believe it contained a weapon exceeded the permissible scope of the safety search authorized under 11 Del. C. § 1903 and Terry v. Ohio .  [64] In both Purnell and Hicks, the sole purpose of the officers' second search was to obtain evidence after they had not found any indication of criminal activity as a result of a Terry pat down. Here, a similar situation occurred when the police patted Rollins down and did not find any indication of criminal activity. Then the police directly entered and searched Rollins' right pocket (the same pocket into which Rollins had inserted his hand earlier when police approached him in the courtyard). Their purpose was to obtain evidence. It is manifestly clear that the officers' interest in a more extensive search did not relate to protecting themselves. That said, the issue here is the import of the conversation between Rollins and the police after the Terry pat down. In the suppression hearing, it was not necessary for the Superior Court judge to determine whether Rollins consented to the second search because he found that the police did not have a reasonable articulable suspicion to stop Rollins and, therefore, had no need to explore whether Rollins voluntarily consented to a police probe directly into his pockets. While we hold that there was a reasonable articulable suspicion for the initial Terry stop, we nevertheless believe that the Superior Court must first decide whether Rollins voluntarily consented to an incursion into his pockets in order to determine whether the evidence seized as a result of that direct entry into his pockets should be admitted or suppressed. Therefore, we remand to the Superior Court with the following instructions: The Superior Court judge should find as a matter of fact whether Rollins voluntarily and knowingly consented to the officers' direct search of his pockets following the uneventful Terry stop and frisk.