Court Opinion

ID: 9852907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:38:46.674323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:37.116654
License: Public Domain

BURNS, Chief Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent from Parts II.D. and II.E. and a portion of Part II.G. In all other respects, I concur.
The relevant facts are as follows. Upon deplaning, the police subject a man to an unlawful investigative stop by stepping in front of him and stopping him. The police inform the man that they would be detaining his shoulder bag for canine screening for narcotics. The police ask the man for his ticket, his identification, and whether he has any drugs on him. The man states that he left his ticket on the plane and does not have any drugs on him, and gives the police his business card. The man tells the police that if they want his bag they can have it, hands the bag to the police, and then walks away toward the main terminal. The police take no action to stop him from walking away. Two police officers follow him at a distance. After making a phone call, the man asks the police why they are following him. The police do not answer. The man resumes his walk toward the main terminal. One police officer continues to follow the man and then hides behind a pillar while continuing to observe the man. The man arrives at the curbside, sits on a bench and, believing himself to be out of the view of the police, throws a white object into the planter of bushes directly behind him. The police officer arrests the man and then recovers the white object from the planter of bushes. Subsequent tests reveal that the white object contains black tar heroin.
The question is whether, when the man threw the white object into the planter of bushes, a reasonable person in the man’s shoes would have believed that he was not free to leave. My answer is no.
The words and actions of the police communicated to the man that (a) they stopped him to obtain possession of his shoulder bag for canine screening for narcotics, (b) the stop was terminated when he handed them his shoulder bag, and (e) they would not stop him again unless and until the canine screening was positive or he provided them with cause to stop him.
The fact that the police did not stop the man when he walked away after handing them his shoulder bag communicated to him his freedom to leave. The surveillance of the man by the police at a distance did not communicate to him his lack of freedom to leave. It communicated to him his freedom to leave albeit under surveillance at a distance. Surveillance at a distance is not a seizure. The absence of a response from the police when the man asked them why they were following him communicated to him his freedom to leave. The factual situation that caused the man to believe that he was out of the view of the police communicated to him his freedom to leave. If the man believed that he would not be allowed to leave the airport until the police had completed their investigation to their satisfaction, his belief was unsupported by the facts and, therefore, unreasonable. The man knew that he was free to leave unless and until the canine screening was positive or he provided them with cause to stop him.
I conclude that the man was not seized when he abandoned the white object. Therefore, he has no standing to complain about the fact that the police recovered the white object and searched it. State v. Mahone, 67 Haw. 644, 701 P.2d 171 (1985). The unlawful arrest of the man by the police after he abandoned the white object but prior to their recovery and search of the white object does not give the man standing to complain about the recovery and search of the white object.
Accordingly, I would affirm the order denying the motion to suppress the two packets from the planter area and the August 5,1992 judgment of conviction on Count I in Criminal No. 92-0025. In all other respects, I concur.