Court Opinion

ID: 9641097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:23:11.945951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:35.037799
License: Public Domain

John E. Jennings, Judge, concurring in part; and dissenting in part. The majority is correct in its holding that, as to the revocation proceeding, the constitutional validity of the “frisk” is immaterial because the exclusionary rule does not apply, and I therefore concur in that portion of the opinion which affirms the trial court’s judgment revoking appellant’s probation. I do not agree, however, that the search of the appellant was constitutionally valid. As the majority recognizes, the “stop and frisk” exception to the fourth amendment right of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures was established in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). In discussing that right the Supreme Court in Terry said: This inestimable right of personal security belongs as much to the citizen on the streets of our cities as to the homeowner closeted in his study to dispose of his secret affairs. For, as this Court has always recognized, “No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, then the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” Union Pac. R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250 (1891). 392 U.S. at 9. In discussing the anticipated effect of the decision, the Terry court said: Under our decision, courts still retain their traditional responsibility to guard against police conduct which is overbearing or harassing, or which trenches upon personal security without the objective evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires. When such conduct is identified, it must be condemned by the judiciary and its fruits must be excluded from evidence in criminal trials. 392 U.S. at 15. In addressing the nature of the intrusion the court stated: It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has “seized” that person. And it is nothing less than sheer torture of the English language to suggest that a careful exploration of the outer surfaces of a person’s clothing all over his or her body in an attempt to find weapons is not a “search.” Moreover, it is simply fantastic to urge that such a procedure performed in public by a policeman while the citizen stands helpless, perhaps facing a wall with his hands raised, is a “petty indignity.” It is 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. 392 U.S. at 16. Finally, in discussing the standard to be applied the Terry Court held: And in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rationale inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. . . . Anything less would invite intrusions upon constitutionally guaranteed rights based on nothing more substantial than inarticulate hunches, a result this court has consistently refused to sanction. 392 U.S. at 21, 22 (citations omitted). Cases such as Hill v. State, 275 Ark. 71, 628 S.W.2d 285 (1982), United States v. Alvarez, 898 F.2d 833 (9th Cir. 1990), and United States v. Laing, 889 F.2d 281 (D.C. Cir. 1989), are very different factually from the case at bar. In each of those cases the police officers had specific, particularized information that the defendant was armed. Hill was a murder suspect described in a radio dispatch as “armed and extremely dangerous.” The authorities had information that Alvarez was going to rob a bank and had dynamite with him. In Laing, the police had a valid search warrant and the affidavit described the occupants of the apartment to be searched as being armed with automatic weapons. The case at bar cannot be successfully distinguished from Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979).There, police officers hada valid warrant to search a tavern in Aurora, Illinois, and its bartender, who they suspected was selling heroin. When the officers entered the tavern they found approximately ten customers present, including Ybarra, and immediately conducted a pat down search for weapons. In frisking Ybarra the officers found a cigarette pack containing several tinfoil packets of heroin. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the search was constitutionally impermissible: The initial frisk of Ybarra was simply not supported by a reasonable belief that he was armed and presently dangerous, a belief which this court has invariably held must form the predicate to a patdown of a person for weapons.. . . . . . The “narrow scope” of the Terry exception does not permit a frisk for weapons on less than reasonable belief or suspicion directed at the person to be frisked, even though that person happens to be on premises where an authorized narcotic search is taking place. The dissenting justices in Ybarra took the view that the search could be sustained because the officers were operating pursuant to a valid search warrant, a factor which is not present in the case at bar. Finally, while like the Court in Ybarra I would not reach the issue, the retrieval of and search into the matchbox clearly violates Ark. R. Crim. P. 3.1 For the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the search of the appellant was constitutionally permissible.