Court Opinion

ID: 9722220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:21:13.48861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:32.303642
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
The controlling difference, in my view, between this case and State v. Donnell, 239 N.W.2d 575 (Iowa 1976), where I joined the dissent, State v. Cooley, 229 N.W.2d 755 (Iowa 1975), and United States v. Nicholas, 448 F.2d 622 (8 Cir. 1971), is the fact that the officers here had been informed of a specific crime which had just occurred in the vicinity and which they were investigating at the time they stopped the vehicle.
The following facts would justify the investigative stop here:
(1) the officers were investigating a specific crime of armed robbery which had just been reported to them;
(2) they had been told the offense had just occurred about eight blocks away;
(3) they had been told the robbers were several black males;
(4) within 30 to 60 seconds before receiving the report they had observed the vehicle defendant was driving, occupied by several black males, in a little-traveled street, travelling in a direction away from the robbery scene;
(5) it was about 1:30 a. m.; and,
(6) the vehicle was seen in an area that for several blocks was an exclusively white residential area.
These specific and articulable facts which led to the stopping of the vehicle were sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe the action was appropriate. The circumstances were reasonably suggestive of possible involvement of the vehicle occupants in criminal conduct. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906 (1968). It follows that the officers were justified in making a limited self-protective “patdown” search of the vehicle occupants for weapons.
I agree with the majority that defendant lacks standing to challenge the seizure of the wallets- from Truss during the patdown search. Once the officers learned one of the wallets taken from Truss had been sto*25len in the tavern robbery, they clearly had probable cause to place all of the vehicle occupants under arrest.
After the arrest of the vehicle occupants, the officers had probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of the vehicle under principles discussed in Division IV of the majority opinion. See Texas v. White, 423 U.S. 67, 96 S.Ct. 304, 46 L.Ed.2d 209 (1975). Therefore the search of the vehicle was reasonable. I would not reach the “plain view” issue.
On this basis, I concur in the result.
MASON and RAWLINGS, JJ., join in this special concurrence.