Court Opinion

ID: 9692812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:07:02.865009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:20.923025
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge
(dissenting):
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), teaches us that when a police officer “accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away” the Fourth Amendment comes into play and, accordingly, the reason for such intrusion by the officer must be sufficiently articulated on the record to enable a reviewing court to conclude that action was reasonable under the circumstances. See Stephenson v. United States, D.C.App., 296 A.2d 606 (1972). In the instant case there were three separate and distinct “intrusions” by the officer:
First, Officer Jenkins by a show of authority, viz., his uniform, stopped appellant walking down the street in mid-afternoon and asked him a series of questions, the answers to which the officer recorded on a so-called “contact card” he carried;
Second, although the officer thereafter allowed appellant to proceed on his way he promptly radioed into headquarters some of the information elicited from appellant during the stop and questioning, which (a) triggered the advise, wholly mistaken as it later turned out, that appellant was wanted in Virginia on a warrant and (b) caused the officer to arrest him; and,
Third, the officer searched appellant simultaneously with the arrest and discov*380ered a pistol which constitutes the basis of the conviction he now appeals.
The majority focuses on and ultimately approves the second and third acts of this sidewalk drama, viz., the arrest and the search incident thereto. My difficulty, however, is with the lawfulness of the initial stop, which the majority (Opinion at 4) disarmingly characterizes as “an approach [by the officer to appellant] to request identification.” The record reflects appellant in response to the officer’s show of authority left the sidewalk where he had been walking and proceeded to where the officer was parking his scooter in the street, and thereafter underwent questioning by the officer. In my view this is a Terry stop requiring on the record “specific and articulable facts, which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S. Ct. at 1880.
Turning to the record we can glean only that the uniformed officer stopped appellant for questioning because of a belief that the latter was possibly “breaking into a car”, after observing appellant about 2:30 p. m. a block from the Hilton Hotel (1) in “sort of a slow walk” and (2) “just going by looking in the direction of the automobiles parked along” the street. Parenthetically, I note that the trial court in its order denying the motion for suppression incorrectly describes the police officer as having “noticed defendant walking along the sidewalk and looking into parked cars”.1 (Emphasis added.) The officer unequivocally testified both on direct and cross-examination, that appellant had been “looking in the direction of” cars parked on the street along which he was walking on the sidewalk. The difference between (a) appellant “looking into” and (b) appellant “looking in the direction of” parked cars is significant when determining the reasonableness of the officer’s response here. Jenkins v. United States, D.C.App., 284 A.2d 460 (1971); Smith v. United States, D.C.App., 295 A.2d 64 (1972).
It may well be that the officer could have articulated under proper questioning by the prosecutor why, as an experienced law enforcement, official, he concluded criminal activity was afoot on the basis of his observing appellant in a “sort of a slow walk” and “looking in the direction of parked autos”; but the record by which we are governed in our consideration of this appeal is devoid of any such articulation by the officer.2 Upon what this court has before it, I am unable to agree the officer’s stop and questioning was reasonable and in accordance with the Fourth Amendment. Hence, I think the subsequent arrest several minutes later based in critical part upon information dieted from appellant during the unlawful stop and questioning is invalid and the seizure of the gun must also be disapproved. United States v. Luckett, 484 F.2d 89 (10th Cir. 1973); see *381Commonwealth v. Whitaker, 336 A.2d 603 (Pa.1975). In my view of the case it is not necessary to reach, and I do not reach, the Whiteley-Gilchrist-Hill issue discussed in the majority opinion.

. Tlie majority seeks to justify (Opinion at 375) the trial court’s erroneous characterization in its order of the officer’s testimony, viz., “A police officer noticed defendant walking along the sidewalk and looking into parked cars . . . ” by suggesting this was an “inference . . . drawn from the totality of the testimony.” However, the officer’s testimony in pertinent part on direct examination was: “I observed him . . . walking along some parked cars, and looking in the direction of the parked cars”. On cross, the officer was asked, “How was he looking at cars?” and answered, “Just going by looking in the direction of the automobiles parked along 19th Street.” Assuming arguendo the court’s descriptive comment in its order was indeed an “inference,” it was plainly wrong and without evidence to support it.

. I note the officer’s testimony that in the past petit larcenies from parked autos had occurred in the area. What the officer failed to explain was how appellant’s conduct, viz., a sort of slow walk and looking in the direction of the autos parked along the sidewalk, signalled a theft was about to occur in the heart of downtown on 19th Street at two-thirty in the afternoon.