Court Opinion

ID: 9573503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:56:09.957843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:41:29.029427
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent because the arrest of Marvin Keith Jamison was without probable cause and therefore his motion to suppress should have been granted. This court has addressed the effect of flight on probable cause to arrest in the context of airport stops. See Brown v. State, 188 Ga. App. 417 (373 SE2d 99) (1988) (defendant properly arrested when, after consenting to body search, he decided to call attorney first, walked nervously past telephones 20 to 30 yards away, was followed by agents from one airport concourse to another concourse, passing other telephones, before running from officers up an escalator) and Banks v. State, 187 Ga. App. 280, 281 (1) (370 SE2d 38) (1988) (after voluntarily disclaiming any ownership of totebag he was carrying, defendant first started to go with officers to discuss the matter then turned and bolted). See also Brown v. State, 190 Ga. App. 38 (378 SE2d 357) (1989) (defendant properly arrested as a party to the crime based on the behavior of defendant’s travelling companion who assaulted a DEA agent and fled) and State v. Reid, 247 Ga. 445 (276 SE2d 617) (1981) (defendant consented to body search, then ran into parking lot, discarding bag with contraband 100 feet from place where apprehended). The facts of these cases are in marked contrast to the evidence adduced at the hearing on appellant’s motion to suppress.
The transcript of the hearing establishes that appellant and his brother, Karl Jamison, were stopped by three DEA agents because the brothers exhibited several characteristics of the drug courier profile and because Agent Terrell Toles had not overheard appellant make any noise while inside an airport bathroom stall. It is uncontro-verted that being stopped in the airport by three DEA agents did not unduly alarm appellant, who appeared “fairly calm” to Toles. It is also uncontroverted that both appellant and his brother cooperated fully with the agents, telling the agents their correct names, allowing the agents to inspect their airline tickets, which were in their correct names, and providing the agents, at the agents’ requests, with South Carolina driver’s licenses identifying them as the persons named on the tickets. The only additional piece of suspicious information raised by the stop was Toles’ discovery that the two brothers had only one piece of checked baggage between them.
Toles admitted at the hearing that the stop of appellant and his brother demonstrated no irregularity, so he requested that the broth*407ers submit to a consensual search. Toles testified that Karl responded “quickly” that the agents could search the luggage but could not search them. Toles responded by asking if Karl had a problem being searched and indicated that it was “just a quick pat of your body and we can do it in private so that nobody will see it.” After appellant, in turn, told Toles “no, the suitcase is okay, but not us,” Toles nevertheless pointed to a small hallway to their right and said “it’s really no big thing, guys, we could go right over there and do it real fast.” It was during this conversation about searching appellant’s person that Toles noticed that appellant had become extremely nervous and fidgety, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. Toles stated that up to the point where appellant refused a body search the agents had done nothing to manifest to the brothers that they were not free to leave and that the brothers had not indicated they wanted to end the conversation or tried to leave. However, as Toles was making his third request that the brothers submit to a body search, appellant “quickly jumped to his right and took off running up the concourse” in the direction of the rest room and away from his departure gate. Toles’ own testimony established that the running involved was “[j]ust a couple of steps” before appellant was tackled and knocked cleanly to the floor. Appellant was then handcuffed and body searched, leading to the discovery of the contraband.
Toles testified, based on his experience, that the circumstances surrounding the stop of appellant did not present the DEA agents with an articulable suspicion that appellant was committing a crime until the moment appellant “broke and ran.” The trial court denied appellant’s motion because “taking in all the other facts and circumstances,” Toles had an articulable suspicion which ripened into probable cause to arrest at the moment appellant ran.
“It is basic that an arrest with or without a warrant must stand upon firmer ground than mere suspicion, [cit.], though the arresting officer need not have in hand evidence which would suffice to convict. The quantum of information which constitutes probable cause — evidence which would ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that a felony has been committed, [cit.] — must be measured by the facts of the particular case. The history of the use, and not infrequent abuse, of the power to arrest cautions that a relaxation of the fundamental requirements of probable cause would ‘leave lawabiding citizens at the mercy of the officers’ whim or caprice.’ [Footnote omitted; cit.]” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 479 (83 SC 407, 9 LE2d 441) (1963).
The law is clear that Toles and the other officers were entitled to detain appellant and his brother for the limited amount of time necessary to investigate the circumstances invoking suspicion, primarily the drug courier profile characteristics the brothers exhibited. How*408ever, because our courts have recognized that the drug courier profile is applicable as much to innocent as to suspect individuals, Bothwell v. State, 250 Ga. 573, 578 (300 SE2d 126) (1983); see also Del Rio v. State, 171 Ga. App. 381, 383 (1) (320 SE2d 236) (1984), the courts have restricted the scope of such a stop to obtaining identification and asking those questions reasonably related to the circumstances that justified the initiation of the momentary stop. Pullano v. State, 169 Ga. App. 377, 380 (312 SE2d 857) (1983). Here, appellant and his brother were stopped, the agents made their inquiries, appellant fully cooperated with the officers, and no irregularities were uncovered by the agents. Since it is well established that exhibition of certain characteristics listed on the drug courier profile does not automatically establish reasonable suspicion for an arrest, United States v. Berry, 670 F2d 583, 600 (5th Cir. 1982), followed in Bothwell, supra, as Agent Toles acknowledged in his testimony, an examination of those “other facts and circumstances” considered by the trial court reveals that they presented no legal basis for arresting appellant.
Turning to appellant’s nervousness and foot shifting, stressed by the majority, since it is uncontroverted appellant was fairly calm up to the point Toles requested he voluntarily consent to a body search, and since Toles testified that Karl Jamison “quickly” declined Toles’ request, it would appear that this suspicious nervousness arose only when Toles began making his repeated requests for the brothers to submit to a body search. It also appears that after having fully cooperated with Toles up to this point, appellant did not “break and run” until the explicit refusals by both appellant and his brother to consent to such a search had been ignored and Toles had indicated to appellant a nearby hallway where the body search could be conducted.
Since Toles testified that appellant was not in custody, that he had no reasonable basis to arrest appellant, and that he could not require appellant to submit to a body search, the inescapable conclusion is that from Toles’ point of view, appellant was absolutely free to leave. As a result, there existed nothing from which Toles could have thought appellant was “breaking” when appellant “ran” two steps. “The term ‘flight’ signifies not merely a leaving, but a leaving . . . under a consciousness of guilt and for the purpose of evading arrest, and the mere going away from the scene of a crime is not always flight in the sense that evidence is thus furnished of a consciousness of guilt.” 22A CJS Criminal Law, § 743. See, e.g., Renner v. State, 260 Ga. 515 (3) (a) (397 SE2d 683) (1990) (evidence indicated that defendant’s departure “was occasioned by a consciousness of guilt”). The reasoning behind that definition likewise applies to the mere “going away from” the presence of a law enforcement officer. See Richardson v. State, 113 Ga. App. 163, 164 (2) (147 SE2d 653) (1966). *409However, while flight, in connection with other circumstances, can constitute probable cause for arrest without a warrant, see Green v. State, 127 Ga. App. 713, 715 (194 SE2d 678) (1972), appellant’s behavior in taking two running steps does not evidence the sort of consciousness of guilt to justify characterizing his behavior as “flight.”
Decided March 12, 1991
Rehearing denied March 29, 1991
William E. Frey, for appellant.
An explanation for appellant’s behavior is presented not only on the basis that appellant, not being in custody, was legally free to depart at any time (and, arguably, in any manner) he chose, or on the fact that Toles’ testimony, having established that from his point of view he believed appellant was free to depart, leaves uncontroverted appellant’s testimony that his intent in moving from Toles was not to flee. The evidence adduced at the hearing also offers another explanation. It is based on Toles’ testimony that after appellant and his brother had cooperated with the officer and after they had explicitly denied his requests made to each of them to allow him to search their bodies, an invasion of their privacy to which the brothers were not legally required to submit, Toles ignored their responses and persisted, even to the point of indicating to the brothers where the search could be conducted. It was at that point, according to Toles, that appellant “broke and ran.” However, as with the fleeing defendant in Wong Sun, supra, appellant’s flight of two steps signified a consciousness of guilt no more clearly than it did a natural desire to avoid the persistence of an officer who refused to take “no” for an answer.
Given the cooperation provided by appellant and his brother, their open acknowledgment of each other and their relationship, compare Brown, 190 Ga. App. at 39, the legal identification they produced, compare Banks, supra at 281 (1), and the lack of nervousness they displayed until Toles pressed for a body search, compare Brown, 188 Ga. App. at 417-418, appellant’s two running steps from the noncustodial presence of an officer who would not accept appellant’s refusal as an answer could not have warranted a man of reasonable caution in the belief that a felony had been committed. Wong Sun, supra at 479. “A contrary holding here would mean that a vague suspicion could be transformed into probable cause for arrest by reason of ambiguous conduct which the arresting officers themselves have provoked. [Cit.]” Id. at 484. Therefore, I would reverse the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion to suppress.
I am authorized to state that Judge Carley and Judge Cooper join in this dissent.
*410Robert E. Keller, District Attorney, Clifford A. Sticker, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.