Court Opinion

ID: 9853260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:45:15.818415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:43.680705
License: Public Domain

dissenting.
The majority, applying the totality of circumstances test that we approved in Lansdown v. Commonwealth, 226 Va. 204, 209, 308 S.E.2d 106, 110 (1983), states:
The totality of the circumstances we consider here . . . included a traffic stop in a high-crime area; similar traffic stops two days earlier in the same neighborhood in which weapons were discovered in a car; Bethea’s actions immediately prior to the stop; Warren’s 22 years of experience and his statements that Bethea’s actions “startled” and “scared” him; and Warren’s concern that Bethea might have weapons in the car. These circumstances constitute “specific and articulable facts” which show that Warren was reasonably concerned for his *421safety and believed that Bethea might have had access to weapons with which to assault him. These facts justified the intrusion on Bethea’s Fourth Amendment rights that occurred when Warren asked him to get out of the car.
I disagree with the majority’s holding and logic for several reasons. I do not believe that it is the law in this Commonwealth, or in this nation, that one’s Fourth Amendment rights are lessened simply because one happens to live or travel in a high-crime area. Certainly, the Fourth Amendment does not accord a greater degree of protection to people who do not live in impoverished communities or neighborhoods that experience high crime rates.
Furthermore, I simply do not agree with the majority’s holding that the police officer was justified in searching Bethea because of concern for the police officers’ safety. My review of the record reveals that after the car stopped, Sergeant Paulus walked to the driver’s window and asked the driver, Tony Dodson, to get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk. Paulus testified that he asked Dodson to alight from the car in order that he ‘ ‘could get out of the traffic” while talking to Dodson. Officer Warren had positioned himself on the car’s passenger side. When he approached the car, Bethea did not say anything, nor did he make any threats or take any provocative action.
Approximately 30 to 40 minutes lapsed between the time the car was stopped and the time Bethea was searched. In fact, Bethea was not searched until Officer Pence arrived on the scene, looked in the car, and saw rice in the front passenger seat and on the floorboard.
It is patently clear to me that the sole reason that Officer Pence searched Bethea was because Pence saw the rice on the floor of the car and, therefore, he thought that Bethea might have illegal drugs in his possession. Officer Pence gave the following testimony:
Q: Please relate to the Court your observations?
A: At the time that I pulled up behind the 473 unit, I observed three males standing on the curb beside a parked vehicle there. At that time I walked up to help with anything I could. I saw that there was rice in . . . the front passenger seat, and in the floor board, and I just walked back and stood at the rear of the car.
*422THE COURT: What is the siginificance [sic] of rice in the front seat?
THE WITNESS: In my experience as a police officer and from talking from other officers, and from my experience as a police officer, I have learned that rice is sometimes used to keep heroin and cocaine dry before it is distributed.
THE COURT: All right.
A: At this particular time, I was standing at the rear of the car, just standing by, when I noticed the defendant had his right hand on his waist line and appeared to be adjusting something. He then grabbed his waist line and began jumping up on the rear of the vehicle, still holding on to his waist and appeared to be adjusting something within.
I started to look at him, he jumped back down off the car still holding his waist line with his right hand. As he jumped down off the car, I looked at him even more. As he turned away from me towards the car, I couldn’t see his hands at that time. I could see his elbows. I could see his arms moving. At that time I asked him to take his hands away from his waist for my own protection. I told him that I was going to pat him down in the area that he kept moving with his hands for my own protection to make sure he didn’t have a gun. He was leaning with his mid-section up against the car at the time. I pulled him away from the car to pat that area down, and when I did, he had white short pants on, and from his left leg pants a plastic bag fell to the ground. It contained rice and several packets of white powdery substance, which at the time I believed to be cocaine.
Had the officers truly been concerned with their safety, they would have frisked Bethea immediately when he got out of the car.
I believe that Warren’s statements that Bethea’s actions “startled” and “scared” him are merely incredulous. It is of significance to note that when Dodson was removed from the car, the police officers immediately searched him for weapons. Had the officers been “startled” or “scared,” they would have also searched Bethea immediately.
*423I am ever mindful of the need for law enforcement officers to protect themselves from danger. However, this need cannot and does not confer upon police officers an unfettered right to search citizens. As the Supreme Court stated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the police officers’ right to conduct a search in these circumstances is limited:
When an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is in fact carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.
Id. at 24. Here, there is no evidence which indicates that the officers were concerned with anything other than searching Bethea to discern whether he possessed illegal drugs. Accordingly, I dissent.