Court Opinion

ID: 9780872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 03:05:47.032638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:15.396676
License: Public Domain

MIKELL, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I write separately because I believe both the majority and the dissent have used the incorrect standard of review. I agree with the majority that any initial illegality did not taint the subsequent consent to search, and I agree with the judgment reached by the majority.
1. Standard of Review. I object, as set out in my special concurrence in State v. Austin,2 to the line of Georgia decisions holding, or at least reciting, that whenever the evidence in the trial court was “undisputed” or “uncontroverted,” the review on appeal is de novo. Far stronger ammunition than a special concurrence by a judge of an intermediate appellate court, however, is our Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Miller v. State.3 The standard of review on appeal was the reason for granting certiorari, and the majority *141opinion’s holding is that the use of a de novo standard by our court was reversible error. The first paragraph of the opinion makes the holding crystal clear. As stated by Justice Melton, “we find that the Court of Appeals erred by applying a de novo standard of review.”4 Why the Court of Appeals continues to err in the face of this controlling precedent mystifies me.
Here, there was testimony at the hearing on the motion to suppress, and it was the trial court’s duty to make a credibility determination regarding the officer who testified. Although no written findings of fact were entered, the trial court obviously made a credibility determination by denying the motion to suppress. Where such a determination is made, a clearly erroneous standard of review applies.5
If any of my colleagues are in doubt about the proper standard of review on appeal, I urge them, indeed I beg them, to glance at Division 2 of Judge Melton’s excellent majority opinion in Miller.6 This Division leaves no doubt about the current thinking of a majority of the justices. Because Miller, a 2010 decision, is the latest expression of our Supreme Court on the standard of review, it overruled by implication that Court’s earlier rulings in Palmer7 and Underwood.8
2. (a) I agree with the dissent that the first officer’s encounter with the defendant, “which included the pat-down, was a second-tier encounter.” But the dissent wrongly conflates the Terry stop, which was clearly legal, and the pat-down, whose constitutionality is more nearly arguable.
A second-tier, or Terry, police-citizen encounter is a “brief investigatory stop[ ] that must be supported by reasonable suspicion.”9 Discussion of whether the officer had “reasonable suspicion,” i.e., suspicion that a crime had been committed or was about to be committed, shows the wisdom of our deferring to the findings of the trial judge, who is familiar with his bailiwick, with possible subtle differences in dialect or habits of speech in his or her judicial circuit, and with jargon used by local law enforcement officers and by lay witnesses. For example, it is highly improbable that Officer Spahr, in his testimony about Johnson’s explanation for being at the shopping *142center at 3:00 a.m. while dressed all in black, used the term “probable” in the sense and with the force that the word has for us when we discuss, for example, “probable” cause.10 And Officer Spahr was apparently under the illusion that all Terry stops include a pat-down.11
(b) The Terry stop in this case passes muster under either the Georgia or the United States Constitution. But technically speaking, we consult here only the latter, because Johnson did not invoke our state Constitution in the trial court. The trial court must have decided that the varied inferences to be drawn from the testimony boiled down to the following facts: the time was 3:00 a.m.; only two businesses were open in the shopping center, a grocery store and a restaurant; restaurant personnel reported Johnson hiding or lurking among the restaurant’s dumpsters; and the restaurant had been the victim of a recent armed robbery. The officer must have suspected that Johnson was or was about to be involved in criminal activity. On those facts, i.e., inferences, a brief investigative stop was constitutional.
Based on those facts, a trial court need not, as a matter of law, find that a Terry stop was justified. A trial court could legally reach a contrary conclusion. A ruling either way would be authorized by the above-listed facts.
(c) Not every investigative, Terry-type stop includes a pat-down. When it does, the officer must have had additional, specific suspicions, and the trial court must have found additional facts, in order for the pat-down to pass constitutional muster. Under federal law, a pat-down as part of a Terry stop is permissible only when it is “supported by a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and presently dangerous. ”12
(d) We need not decide whether the pat-down was legal, because the pat-down had nothing to do with Officer Rankin’s asking for consent, or with Johnson’s being present to give consent, or with the finding of the contraband. If the pat-down were a “poisonous tree,” the contraband was not its “fruit.” It was, however, the “fruit” of the Terry stop which preceded the pat-down. That stop was legal, and *143so the consent search was legal.13
3. The dissent in the case at bar, as well as authoritative precedents from our Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court and persuasive opinions from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, discuss whether an allegedly unconstitutional act by the police “tainted” a later discovery of contraband.14 In theory, all evidence which was discovered later as a result of the original illegal act by the police; or, in other words, was obtained by exploiting the original illegal act; or, in yet other words, was “caused” by the original illegal act, should be suppressed under the exclusionary rule laid down in Wong Sun v. United States.15 One problem with the rule in Wong Sun is that it might result in the suppression of evidence which would not have been obtained absent the illegal act, but was obtained long after that act or after such intervening acts as would seem to make suppression unjust. Thus, the precedents posit that the connection between the illegal act and evidence obtained later might be so attenuated that any “taint” from the illegal act is removed, so that the later evidence need not be suppressed. Elaborate rules have been promulgated to decide whether or not the taint has been removed. But confusion can arise when those rules are used unnecessarily.
There is no need to use a “taint” analysis, or the elaborate rules thereunder, when the illegal act was not a cause-in-fact of the later obtaining of the evidence. In other words, when the later evidence was not the “fruit of the poisonous tree” in the first place, why get into a complicated “taint” analysis?
4. In the case at bar, the contraband evidence was arguably obtained via the consent search, which resulted from the original Terry stop of Johnson by Officer Spahr. That stop was not illegal, so there was no poisonous tree for the evidence to be the fruit of. Pretermitting whether the pat-down was legal, it is irrelevant to our *144inquiry. It was not a cause-in-fact of the discovery of the contraband.16
I agree with the judgment only.

 310 Ga. App. 814, 821-825 (714 SE2d 671) (2011) (Mikell, J., concurring specially).

 288 Ga. 286 (702 SE2d 888) (2010).

 Id.

 I acknowledge that a special rule, allowing de novo review, may apply when the trial court makes no explicit findings of fact. But the better practice would be to posit what would be the minimal findings of fact required to support the trial court’s decision on the motion and to review those under a clearly erroneous standard.

 Supra at 289-290 (2).

 State v. Palmer, 285 Ga. 75 (673 SE2d 237) (2009).

 State v. Underwood, 283 Ga. 498 (661 SE2d 529) (2008).

 (Footnote omitted.) State v. Baker, 261 Ga. App. 258, 259 (582 SE2d 133) (2003).

 It is unlikely that we would permit an inference of criminal intent to be drawn solely from testimony that a citizen was dressed “all in black.” Many people prefer black clothing without harboring criminal intent.

 The dissent makes the same mistake as did Officer Spahr. Appellate reports, state and federal, include many examples of Terry stops which were not accompanied by a pat-down, and the particulars of the suspicion required for a valid Terry stop may not be the same as the circumstances required for a valid pat-down, as discussed below.

 (Punctuation omitted.) Molina v. State, 304 Ga. App. 93, 95 (695 SE2d 656) (2010), citing Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85, 92-93 (II) (100 SC 338, 62 LE2d 238) (1979). See also Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U. S. 323, 327 (129 SC 781, 172 LE2d 694) (2009).

 Compare St. Fleur v. State, 296 Ga. App. 849, 853 (2) (676 SE2d 243) (2009) (“officers did not exploit the pat-down as a means for discovering the [contraband]”) (footnote omitted), with Brown v. State, 188 Ga. App. 184, 187 (372 SE2d 514) (1988) (“the consent was the product of the [unconstitutional act]”).

 E.g., Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298, 306 (II) (A) (105 SC 1285, 84 LE2d 222) (1985); State v. Poppell, 277 Ga. 595, 597 (3) (592 SE2d 838) (2004) (evidence at issue was clearly “fruit of the poisonous tree”; therefore, “taint” analysis was unnecessary); Burnham v. State, 265 Ga. 129, 134 (5) (c) (453 SE2d 449) (1995) (evidence at issue, a confession, was product of illegal arrest and was not sufficiently attenuated to remove “taint”); Moore v. State, 263 Ga. 11-12 (1) (427 SE2d 766) (1993) (later-obtained evidence, a confession, not “tainted” because illegality was a technical Miranda violation and not a due process violation); Devier v. State, 253 Ga. 604, 616 (7) (a) (323 SE2d 150) (1984) (later-obtained evidence, a confession, not obtained by exploitation of the illegality, i.e, not “fruit of the poisonous tree”). See also United States v. Miller, 821 F2d 546, 549-550 (II) (C) (11th Cir. 1987); United States v. Thompson, 712 F2d 1356, 1361-1362 (III) (11th Cir. 1983).

 371 U. S. 471 (83 SC 407, 9 LE2d 441) (1963).

 Suppose a defendant is properly arrested, pursuant to a valid arrest warrant. After “booking” and while being escorted to his cell in the county jail, he is unconstitutionally assaulted by a deputy sheriff who has no connection with his case. Eight hours later, an inventory search of the defendant’s car reveals contraband. Would we waste time analyzing whether the assault had “tainted” the later finding of the contraband?