Court Opinion

ID: 9625983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:57:40.190708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:18.425877
License: Public Domain

Benton, X,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in Part I of the opinion and would uphold the conviction of Eugene Hogan for possession of cocaine on January 14, 1989. However, I dissent from Part II because I would hold that the search of Eugene Hogan’s vehicle on May 5, 1989, was unlawful.
Although Hogan does not challenge on this appeal the stop, frisk, or detention to which he was subjected on May 5, 1989, he challenges the search of his vehicle conducted after he was frisked, handcuffed, and detained in the police vehicle. When the police searched Hogan’s vehicle, they had not arrested Hogan and had, at that time, no known reason to arrest him. The officer testified as follows:
I handcuffed him for my safety and Officer Kuehn’s safety, and I told him that he was not under arrest at this point. He was undergoing investigative detention; and he was not under arrest. . . . Then I placed him in the back seat of my car, and Officer Kuehn and I went back up and frisked his car for weapons.
After the search of Hogan’s vehicle, the officer was advised that Hogan was wanted, and the officer “then immediately placed him under arrest for failure to appear in court.”
No evidence supports the warrantless search of Hogan’s vehicle.The police are not empowered to make an inventory search predicated solely upon the detention of the vehicle’s owner. See Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 375 (1987). The police also are not permitted to “conduct automobile searches whenever they conduct an investigative stop[.]” Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1050 n.14 (1983) (emphasis in original). See also State v. Brown, 63 Ohio St. 2d 349, 588 N.E.2d 113 (1992). The police may search an automobile during an investigatory stop only “if the police officer possesses a reasonable belief based on, ‘specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inference from those facts, reasonably warrant’ the officer in believing that the suspect is dangerous and the suspect may gain immediate control of weapons.” Long, 463 U.S. at 1049.
*368[P]art of the reason to allow area searches incident to an arrest is that the arrestee, who may not himself be armed, may be able to gain access to weapons to injure officers or others nearby, or otherwise to hinder legitimate police activity. This recognition applies as well in the Terry context. However, because the interest in collecting and preserving evidence is not present in the Terry context, we require that officers who conduct area searches during investigative detentions must do so only when they have the level of suspicion identified in Terry.
Id. at 1050 n.14.
In this case, the police had no reasonable basis to suspect that Hogan was the person who had called and threatened the gas station attendant. Hogan was seated in his vehicle parked in the vicinity of a public telephone. These facts, standing alone, did not furnish reasonable suspicion that Hogan had made the threatening telephone call. Indeed, the police saw the steam coming from the vehicle’s radiator and saw the broken pipe, objective verification that Hogan was at that place because his vehicle was disabled. While Hogan does not challenge the validity of the initial stop and detention, we are asked to address the validity of the investigatory search of his vehicle, conducted immediately after the police frisked, handcuffed, and detained Hogan. That search of Hogan’s vehicle was impermissible.
Long does not create a per se rule that a vehicle’s passenger compartment may be searched in the course of every investigatory stop. Before conducting a search, the police must have “specific” and articulable facts “[that] reasonably warrant” a belief that the detained person is armed and dangerous. 463 U.S. at 1049. The police may not simply rely upon the fact that a detainee who is not arrested will eventually return to the vehicle. In United States v. Powless, 546 F.2d 792 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 910 (1977), cited with approval by the Long majority, the police did not initiate a search of the vehicle until sighting the butt of a gun on the floor of the vehicle while reading its YIN number. Id. at 794. This sighting of a weapon in plain view was buttressed by other information, including a state police report that the occupants of the vehicle were considered armed and dangerous. Id. at 794-95. These facts, viewed in toto, provided the police in that case with a reasonable basis to search the vehicle and seize the weapon. Id. at 795.
*369“Officers who conduct area searches during investigative detentions must do so only when they have the level of suspicion identified in Terry!' Long, 463 U.S. at 1050 n.14. The police may not search a vehicle solely because an individual who has been subjected to an investigatory stop might reenter. Rather, Long requires a discrete assessment of present and potential danger. In Powless, discovery of the rifle in plain view along with the police radio report that the occupants were armed and dangerous supported the reasonableness of the search. Powless, 546 F.2d at 795. In Long, the observation of a large knife in the automobile just as Long, who was standing very close to the automobile, prepared to reenter supported the search. Long, 436 U.S. at 1050. A search of a vehicle was also upheld in United States v. Jackson, 918 F.2d 236 (1st Cir. 1990), because the police knew that Jackson, a convicted felon, had been seen conducting two drug transactions while in possession of a firearm. Id. at 239-40. When an investigatory search of Jackson’s person failed to reveal a weapon, the police were justified in making an investigatory search of the car in which he was a passenger at the time of the investigatory stop. Id. In those cases, the facts strongly indicated that a “reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968).
In this case, Hogan was handcuffed and seated in the back of the police car at the time of the search. One of the officers peered into Hogan’s vehicle and saw nothing more dangerous than a car phone inside the vehicle. The record contains no articulable facts to support a conclusion that Hogan was armed or dangerous. The police had no prior knowledge of a firearm being seen in Hogan’s possession, and the police had no independent basis for believing Hogan’s vehicle might contain a weapon. The majority simply assumes without explanation that because the police frisked Hogan, they had a lawful basis to search Hogan’s vehicle.
The testimony also raises the existence of a pretextual motive for the initial search of the automobile. While frisking Hogan for weapons, the officer found a hotel room key and a large sum of cash. These discoveries caused him to suspect that Hogan was involved with “[djrugs or other types of illegal activities . . . [sjelling stolen property. Receiving stolen property.” The officer then explained to Hogan that he was not under arrest, but under “investigative detention” as he handcuffed Hogan and placed him in the backseat of the police cruiser *370and proceeded to search the automobile. The officer testified that after he became aware of the money, the beeper and the car phone, his primary interest, prior to his search of the vehicle, was in the possibility of Hogan’s involvement in drug activity. “Nothing in Terry can be understood to allow a generalized ‘cursory search for weapons’ or indeed, any search whatever for anything but weapons.” Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93-94 (1979). “The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 (1972). See also United States v. Lott, 870 F.2d 778, 785 (1st Cir. 1989) (where evidence found by officers when they “frisked” the car should have been suppressed because the search was for contraband as well as weapons).
For these reasons, the police exceeded the scope of a permissible investigatory search. Accordingly, I would reverse the conviction arising out of the May arrest.