Court Opinion

ID: 9543169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:42:51.409794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:54.951288
License: Public Domain

SHIELDS, Presiding Judge,
concurring and concurring in result.
I join in the majority's affirmance of the trial court's judgment. Further, I fully concur in the majority's discussion and decision on Issue II involving the corpus de-licti.
However, in addressing Issue I involving probable cause, the majority states: "Consistent with the above authorities we hold that [Officer Pritchard's} actions were proper, and the trial court did not err in admitting the evidence, recited in the Statement of Facts, flowing from the initial contact." While I certainly agree with the conclusion, I do so without regard to the authorities djs'cussed by the majority. In my opinion, the encounter between Clark and Officer Pritchard was the type of consensual contact not implicating Fourth Amendment interests. It was a one-on-one encounter, Pritchard in his automobile and Clark walking along a lonely stretch of highway in the rain and in the dark. Neither Pritchard's question nor Pritchard's "invit{ing] Clark into the patrol car to go back to Clark's stuck car," which Clark did, constituted a seizure which required specific, articulable facts indicating a crime had been committed or was about to be committed. Pritchard had done nothing to make Clark think he was not free to leave, and Clark did not have to answer the officer's questions. See Florida v. Rodriquez (1984) 469 U.S. 1, 105 S.Ct. 308, 83 L.Ed.2d 165; Huey v. State (1987), Ind.App., 503 N.E.2d 623.
Further, I am in complete agreement with the holding of Warner v. State (1986), Ind.App., 497 N.E.2d 259. Therefore, I concur in result with respect to Issue III concerning the sufficiency of the evidence.