Court Opinion

ID: 9406923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-05 12:03:56.48156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:34.181306
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court
Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the
opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any
prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and
official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

                                                           Decided: July 5, 2023

                   S22G1050. MIDDLETON v. THE STATE.

       BOGGS, Chief Justice.

       Patrick Middleton filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained

during a search by Officer Amanda Graw of the Kingsland Police

Department (“KPD”), arguing that she did not have authority to stop

or search him because she was outside the territorial jurisdiction of

the KPD. Officer Graw claimed that she did have authority to

perform the stop and search because she had been deputized by the

Camden County Sheriff’s Office (“CCSO”) seven years earlier. After

the trial court granted the motion to suppress, the State appealed.

The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that Officer Graw had

presented sufficient evidence of her deputization. See State v.

Middleton, 363 Ga. App. 851 (872 SE2d 920) (2022) (“Middleton I”).

We granted Middleton’s petition for certiorari to consider whether

                                                     1
the trial court erred in its ruling. We vacate the Court of Appeals’

opinion with direction that it vacate the trial court’s order and

remand the case to the trial court with direction to clarify its basis

for ruling that the search and seizure of Middleton was unlawful. 1

     1. On February 15, 2020, KPD Officer Graw stopped

Middleton’s vehicle while outside Kingsland city limits in Camden

County. After smelling the odor of marijuana, Officer Graw

conducted a search of Middleton’s vehicle, found a controlled

substance, and arrested him. Prior to trial, Middleton asked the trial

court to suppress evidence obtained during the search because

Officer Graw, as a KPD officer, did not have authority to make a

traffic stop outside Kingsland city limits. At a motion-to-suppress

hearing, Officer Graw testified that she was employed by both the

KPD and CCSO by virtue of having “been deputized by the Camden

County Sheriff’s Office since 2013” while riding along with CCSO

deputies. She also testified that she had never worked a paid shift

     1  We thank the Attorney General of Georgia, the Georgia Association of
Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia
for their briefs amicus curiae.
                                     2
as a CCSO deputy or received a paycheck from the CCSO.

     The trial court granted Middleton’s motion to suppress under

OCGA § 40-13-30, which provides that a municipality’s law

enforcement officers lack arrest powers outside of the municipality’s

city limits. 2 In its written order, the trial court concluded that

“without a showing that extra-territorial jurisdiction was conferred

upon Officer Graw by local or other law, Middleton’s search and

seizure were unlawful.” In a footnote, the trial court stated that it

was “not persuaded that Officer Graw’s 2013 deputization by the

Camden County Sheriff to act as an agent of the CCSO as part of

her riding with CCSO deputies at the time changes its analysis,

especially where the State has failed to introduce evidence as to the

     2   OCGA § 40-13-30 provides:

     Officers of the Georgia State Patrol and any other officer of this
     state or of any county or municipality thereof having authority to
     arrest for a criminal offense of the grade of misdemeanor shall
     have authority to prefer charges and bring offenders to trial under
     this article, provided that officers of an incorporated municipality
     shall have no power to make arrests beyond the corporate limits of
     such municipality unless such jurisdiction is given by local or other
     law.

                                      3
scope and/or content of said deputization.”

     The State appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed,

concluding that Officer Graw’s testimony that she was deputized in

2013 was sufficient to prove that she was acting within her

jurisdiction as a deputy sheriff at the time of the arrest. Middleton

I, 363 Ga. App. at 854-855. Middleton subsequently petitioned for

certiorari, which this Court granted to review the question of

whether the trial court erred in granting Middleton’s motion to

suppress evidence on the basis that Officer Graw was not engaged

in the lawful discharge of her official duties at the time of the search

and subsequent arrest.

     2. We start with the scope of a deputy sheriff’s official duties.

“Sheriffs are authorized in their discretion to appoint one or more

deputies.” OCGA § 15-16-23. Deputy sheriffs in many ways stand in

the same shoes as the sheriff. They are usually presumed to have

the same powers as the sheriff. See Jones v. Rountree, 96 Ga. 230,

231 (23 SE 311) (1895) (“It is difficult to conceive why deputy-

sheriffs should be appointed at all, if they are not at least competent

                                   4
to perform such duties pertaining to the sheriff’s office as serving

papers and making entries of such service.”); Veit v. State, 182 Ga.

App. 753, 756 (357 SE2d 113) (1987) (“A deputy sheriff is an agent

of the sheriff and in effecting the proper discharge of his duties is

empowered with the same duties and powers.”). Likewise, deputy

sheriffs are required by statute to take the same oath that sheriffs

do. See OCGA § 45-3-7 (“Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall

take the same oaths as their principals take . . . .”). However,

sometimes deputies are sworn in for a more limited role, such as to

work on a particular case or cases. See OCGA § 45-3-7 (exempting

deputies “employed in particular cases only” from having to file and

enter the record of their oath with their principal’s office).

     Generally, “a public officer is presumed, until the contrary

appears, to have properly performed his official duties and not to

have exceeded his authority.” Fine v. Dade County, 198 Ga. 655, 663

(32 SE2d 246) (1944). At a minimum, that presumption may be

overcome if the party challenging the public officer’s action

persuades the court that the person being held out as a purported

                                   5
deputy does not in fact hold that position at the time of arrest. See

id. Here, there is no dispute that Officer Graw was deputized in 2013

by the Camden County Sheriff; what is disputed is whether she was

still deputized when she arrested Middleton in 2020. The key

question is thus one of scope: Was Officer Graw deputized for

particular cases only, see OCGA § 45-3-7, or was the deputization

general in nature? If the deputization was not restricted in scope,

this case would present difficult questions about the duration and

legal effect of that 2013 deputization, but those questions do not

arise if in fact Officer Graw was deputized for particular cases only.

     This initial question of scope is a question of fact. However, the

trial court’s order is ambiguous regarding whether it made a factual

finding when it took note of “Officer Graw’s 2013 deputization by the

Camden County Sheriff to act as an agent of the CCSO as part of

her riding with CCSO deputies at the time.” It is not clear to us

whether this statement rests on a factual finding that Officer Graw

was deputized only for cases that arose as she was “riding with

CCSO deputies,” particularly in light of the trial court’s later

                                  6
statement that “the State has failed to introduce evidence as to the

scope and/or content of said deputization.” If the trial court’s order

did depend on a factual finding as to the scope of Officer Graw’s

deputization, that finding would be entitled to deference;

alternatively, if the trial court’s ruling was based on the duration

and legal effect of a general deputization, it would be subject to de

novo review. See Nelson v. State, 312 Ga. 375, 377 (863 SE2d 61)

(2021) (“In reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a defendant’s motion

to suppress evidence, the trial court’s decision with regard to

questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly

erroneous; . . . [t]he trial court’s legal conclusions are reviewed de

novo, however.”).

     In light of this unresolved and threshold factual question, we

vacate the Court of Appeals’ opinion with direction that it vacate the

trial court’s order and remand the case to the trial court with

direction that the trial court clarify whether its ruling that Officer

Graw did not have legal authority to stop and search Middleton was

based on the factual finding that Officer Graw had been deputized

                                  7
for particular cases only.3

     Judgment vacated and case remanded with direction. All the
Justices concur.

      3 Although amici in their briefs suggest in the alternative that the trial
court erred because suppression is not an appropriate remedy for
extraterritorial arrest, the State conceded at oral argument that this issue was
never raised in proceedings below. Thus, we need not address it here. See
Pfeiffer v. Ga. Dept. of Transp., 275 Ga. 827, 829 (573 SE2d 389) (2002)
(“[A]bsent special circumstances, an appellate court need not consider
arguments raised for the first time on appeal.”). See also Harrell v. State, 297
Ga. 884, 886 n.2 (778 SE2d 196) (2015) (“[T]he State did not raise any such
issue below, before or after the trial court’s ruling on the subject, [so] its ability
to [rely on that argument] on appeal has been waived.”).
                                          8