Court Opinion

ID: 9623224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:30:03.917287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:27.229847
License: Public Domain

Ruffin, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority sets out three tiers of police-citizen encounters and *587concludes that although this case involved a tier one encounter, the personal security of the police officers justified their search of Pace. While I agree with the majority that a police officer’s right to personal security is of great importance, I respectfully dissent because I disagree that the officers’ search was lawful in this case.
I also agree with the majority that under the first tier, a police officer may approach an individual and ask questions without triggering Fourth Amendment scrutiny. State v. Westmoreland, 204 Ga. App. 312 (1) (418 SE2d 822) (1992). See also Sabel v. State, 248 Ga. 10 (1) (282 SE2d 61) (1981). While I am troubled by the fact that the officers decided to question Pace based solely on their observation of him standing alone in an apartment complex parking lot for a full eight minutes, under existing precedent I am constrained to agree with the majority that there was nothing wrong with the officers pulling into the parking lot and asking Pace what he was doing. But we must also determine whether the officers’ subsequent conduct was likewise lawful.
In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (88 SC 1868, 20 LE2d 889) (1968), the United States Supreme Court examined the scope of a police officer’s power to seize and search a citizen without probable cause for arrest. Id. at 16. The Court initially found that “there is ‘no ready test for determining reasonableness [of an officer’s actions] other than by balancing the need to search (or seize) against the invasion which the search (or seizure) entails.’ [Cit.]” Id. at 21. The Court warned against treating such a search as a “petty indignity,” and indeed described it as “a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly.” Id. at 17. We all agree that “[e]ven a limited search of the outer clothing for weapons constitutes a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security, and it must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience.” Id. at 24-25. Accordingly, the Court in Terry emphasized that in reviewing such cases, courts must guard against police conduct “which trenches upon [an officer’s] personal security without the objective evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires.” Id. at 15. Importantly, the Court required that “in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 21.
In Terry, the necessary justification was established when a police officer observed three men walk alternately along an identical route, pausing to stare in the same store window approximately 24 times and where each completion of the route was followed by a conference between the men on a street corner. In light of this evidence, *588the Court concluded that “where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous[,] . . .” and where nothing in the course of his investigation dispels his reasonable fear for his own safety, he is entitled to a limited search of the individual. (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 30. While the Court in Terry only required specific and articulable objective evidence of unusual conduct related to criminal activity, it noted that “[tjhere is nothing unusual in two men standing together on a street corner, perhaps waiting for someone.” Id. at 22.
As clarified by Justice Harlan in his concurring opinion in Terry, “if the frisk is justified in order to protect the officer during an encounter with a citizen, the officer must first have constitutional grounds to insist on an encounter, to make a forcible stop. Any person, including a policeman, is at liberty to avoid a person he considers dangerous. If and when a policeman has a right instead to disarm such a person for his own protection, he must first have a right not to avoid him but to be in his presence. That right must be more than the liberty ... to address questions to other persons, for ordinarily the person addressed has an equal right to ignore his interrogator and walk away; he certainly need not submit to a frisk for the questioner’s protection. I would make it perfectly clear that the right to frisk in this case depends upon the reasonableness of a forcible stop to investigate a suspected crime.” Terry, supra at 32-33. See also Lafave, Search & Seizure (2d ed. 1987), Vol. 3, pp. 499-501 § 9.4, and authorities cited.
In Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40 (88 SC 1889, 20 LE2d 917) (1968), cited by the majority, the officer’s justification for searching the defendant was found by the Court to be unreasonable. As in this case, in Sibron the officer was not acquainted with the defendant and had no information concerning him. The officer merely saw the defendant talking to a number of known narcotics addicts over a period of eight hours. The Court emphasized that the officer “was completely ignorant regarding the content of these conversations, and that he saw nothing pass between [the defendant] and the addicts. So far as [the officer] knew, they might indeed ‘have been talking about the World Series.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 62. The Court in Sibron concluded that “[t]he inference that persons who talk to narcotics addicts are engaged in the criminal traffic in narcotics is simply not the sort of reasonable inference required to support an intrusion by the police upon an individual’s personal security.” Id.
In light of the above authority, I now turn to the facts of this case in search of some specific and articulable objective evidence of unusual conduct related to criminal activity. One of the officers testi*589fied that Pace was stopped because “he was making no attempt to go inside. He was obviously, . . . it’s a known drug area. He was loitering in the parking lot and seemed to have no purpose for being there.” The officer further testified that although he did not see any criminal activity occurring, and didn’t know what Pace’s intentions were, he “suspected that [Pace] may be up to something. . . .”
“That [the officer’s unparticularized suspicion] about [Pace] proved correct is perhaps a tribute to his policeman’s intuition, but it is not sufficient to justify, ex post facto, a seizure that was not objectively reasonable at its inception.” (Punctuation omitted.) Rogers v. State, 206 Ga. App. 654, 659 (3) (426 SE2d 209) (1992). There is simply nothing unusual about a man standing alone in an apartment complex parking lot for eight minutes. As in Sibron, the officers in this case were completely ignorant regarding the reason Pace was standing in the parking lot. There was absolutely no evidence that the officers were acquainted with Pace or had any information concerning him. Not only did they not see Pace hand anything to any other individual, they did not even see him interact with any other individual. I can think of numerous legitimate purposes for standing alone in an apartment complex parking lot, and so far as the officers knew he might have been waiting for a ride. See Sibron, supra; Terry, supra.
Again, I agree with the majority that a police officer’s safety is of utmost concern, but we cannot view that concern in a vacuum. Also at stake is a citizen’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. While I agree with the majority that “[t]he key question in all cases remains whether the protective measures taken by the officer were reasonable under the circumstances [,] . . .” courts cannot reach that question unless it is first established that there is specific and articulable objective evidence of unusual conduct related to criminal activity. Chaney v. State, 207 Ga. App. 72, 73 (427 SE2d 63) (1993). Indeed, before we even reached what we described as the “key question” in Chaney, we first established that the officers had “a reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity. Id.
Because the officers in this case had no specific and articulable objective evidence of unusual conduct related to criminal activity, I conclude that the evidence obtained in the search should have been excluded and Pace’s conviction should be reversed.
However, that is not the only disagreement I have with the majority’s opinion. The majority mentions that the officers did not conduct a pat-down before pulling the contraband out of Pace’s pocket, but states that this fact was not considered in its analysis. In my view, however, that fact makes a crucial and important difference in the legal analysis.
Terry allows only a “carefully limited search of the outer cloth*590ing” of a suspect. (Emphasis supplied.) State v. Sapp, 214 Ga. App. 428, 430-431 (2) (448 SE2d 3) (1994). Presented recently with a similar factual situation, a majority of this court held that under Terry, where circumstances permit and the officers’ safety is not compromised, a two-step process must be followed: an officer must first perform a non-intrusive pat-down before the second step of intruding beneath the surface of the detainee’s clothing. Barrett v. State, 212 Ga. App. 745 (443 SE2d 285) (1994). Because the officers in Barrett omitted that first step and reached into the accused’s sock to examine a “bulge” without first performing a pat-down, a majority of this court found that the contraband had been illegally seized.
The dissent in Barrett raised the same concerns for the officers’ safety that are raised by the majority here. In my view, under the circumstances here presented those concerns are unwarranted. Pace was under the officers’ control when he was searched; the threat posed by his reaching for his pocket had been neutralized. Before searching Pace, the officers placed him up against the police car; he was no longer free to reach into his pocket.
Even assuming a genuine concern that the pocket contained a weapon, these circumstances mandated a pat-down before reaching into Pace’s pocket. Clearly, it could have been done without endangering the officers. Under Terry, a pat-down was the necessary first step; the officers admitted none was performed until after they had reached into Pace’s pocket. Thus, for this reason also, the contents of Pace’s pocket were removed illegally and should have been suppressed.
I am authorized to state that Judge Johnson and Judge Blackburn join in this dissent.