Court Opinion

ID: 9660635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:17:27.617419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:21.050917
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I must disagree with the majority on its finding of probable cause for a search of appellant’s vehicle. My disagreement is twofold: the first being the lack of knowledge of probable cause by the arresting officer, Parnell, who made the stop and conducted the search. The majority states that the police were initially acting on a mere suspicion at the time they started the surveillance but that it rose to reasonable cause by the time the vehicle was stopped — that “the activity observed by the officer chasing the GTO, along with the his prior knowledge, was sufficient to allow a stop of the vehicle.” [My emphasis.] The problem here is that Parnell had no prior knowledge to add to his observation of activity in the vehicle. The only information that had been been relayed to him was that there was a gray ‘66 to ‘68 GTO with two suspects in it; that the suspects could be armed and would probably run; and that he was to follow them until he could get a backup. No other information regarding the prior investigation had been communicated to Officer Parnell. The investigation of this matter had been carried on by officers Beach and Scott and prior to the stop of appellant’s vehicle, the information they had was admittedly insufficient for any stop. The suspicious activity observed by Parnell was therefore critical to having a sufficient basis. Beach and Scott, however were never informed of the activity observed by Parnell, nor was Parnell involved in the investigation or in a sharing of the previous information gathered by Scott and Beach. The record reveals that Parnell was apparently called off of some other duty for this particular surveillance effort, and then was given only a description of the car and a directive to follow the vehicle and, at most to conduct a Terry stop. Lacking knowledge of the details of the investigation to that point, there was no way Officer Parnell could have added his observations of activity in the vehicle to the other officers’ information and produced a sufficient basis to stop. While we have made reference to the “collective knowledge” of the police as a legitimate basis for probable cause, as the majority briefly notes, citing to Tillman v. State, 271 Ark. 552, 609 S.W.2d 340 (1980), it has not been used in the sense suggested by this case. That is, it has not referred to the finding of probable cause through a piecemeal collection of information from various police officers where no one officer has put that information together to find probable cause. Rather, as in Tillman, it has referred to a finding of probable cause when the arresting officer lacks any basis for such a conclusion, but has been directed to make an arrest or search when someone else in the department does have such information. Or as in Perez v. State, 260 Ark. 438, 541 S.W.2d 951 (1976), where an officer has found probable cause not from his own personal knowledge but from data collected from others in his department. See also Woodall v. State, 260 Ark. 786, 543 S.W.2d 957 (1976); Jones v. State, 246 Ark. 1057, 441 S.W.2d 458 (1969). In the case before us, neither the investigating officers nor the arresting officer had enough information individually to support a search. Only by an exchange of information could there have been any possibility of finding grounds for a search by Parnell. The danger in the method approved in this case is quite obvious. It encourages arrests and searches where there is an insufficient basis, in hopes that an after-the-fact inquiry will turn up additional information to support the police action. “To say in the abstract that probable cause is to be evaluated on the basis of the collective information of the police ignores the underlying assumption — and factual reality — that there is some communication between those officers, who do know facts amounting to probable cause, and those who do not. . . If no officer connected to the arrest knows the facts which might justify it, no officer exercises the judgment required as a substitute for judicial approval. Information scattered among various officers in a police department cannot substitute for possession of the necessary facts by a single officer related to the arrest.” State v. Cooley, 457 A.2d 352 (Del. 1983). “[T]he fellow officer rule. . . is not a means of creating probable cause by using post hoc combinations of information available to the police. The rule does not permit the police to call its archives in hopes of justifying an arrest which is not supported by probable cause.” People v. Hazlehurst, 662 P.2d 1081 (Colo. 1983). The burden of proof is allocated to the state when a warrantless search has occurred, and the state must prove the source of its information and the means of its acquisition. Rowland v. State, 262 Ark. 783, 561 S.W.2d 304 (1978). The state failed in this case and I would reverse on the basis discussed above. But even if we were to somehow impute the officers’ knowledge, one to the other, I would still reverse because the cumulative information of all the officers was insufficient to make a finding of probable cause to support a search. The majority relies on Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983), for the proposition that an anonymous tip will support the probable cause requirement if there is sufficient corroboration of the tip by independent observation by the police. In Gates, the police received an anonymous letter stating that a named couple sold drugs; that the wife would drive to Florida, leave the car and fly back; the husband would then fly to Florida and drive back with the purchased drugs; and that another such trip was about to occur. A few days later the police determined that the husband had flown to Florida and had gone to a hotel where he met his wife. The next day they were both observed leaving in their car heading in a northerly direction toward their home. The court held there was probable cause to support a search warrant. It found: the activity suspicious because Florida was well-known as a source of illegal drugs; the police corroborated several details given in the letter; and the details corroborated concerned future activities which were not easily predicted. While Gates has been criticized as providing a questionable basis for supporting a search warrant, 1 LaFave, Criminal Procedure, § 3.3(c), the facts in our case don’t even meet the minimum standard of Gates. The only information from the tip that was corroborated by the police was that two individuals would leave in a certain car around noon and would return later in the day from the direction of Jonesboro. There was simply nothing untoward about the activity observed and only the most minimal of details corroborated. Neither did the information reveal any future activity that could not be easily predicted. All the police had was that two men had probably gone to Mountain Home on that particular afternoon. If we add to that Officer Parnell’s observation that two individuals in the car appeared to be moving around or hiding something, there was arguably a basis for a Terry stop, but no more. See U.S. v. White, 648 F.2d 29 (D.C. Cir. 1981), for a discussion of the quantum of evidence needed for a Terry stop and what is needed beyond that to “boost” the case into one constituting probable cause. Here, the evidence presented by the state had to be sufficient to support a probable cause test or nothing at all. There were no preliminaries by Parnell in the way of an investigatory stop that revealed further facts that would in turn justify a search. See e.g., Reeves v. State, 20 Ark. App. 17, 722 S.W.2d 880 (1987). Rather, Parnell simply stopped the vehicle, had the occupants get out, and without further discussion or questioning undertook a search of the automobile.1 Even if we were to assume, which I could not, that Parnell had knowledge of- the other officers’ information, the sum of data available to the police did not constitute an adequate basis to support the full-scale search that was undertaken and the motion to suppress in this case should have been granted.   It appears from the record that Parnell had made this decision on his own or had misunderstood the directive. Officer Beach who was in charge or directing the surveillance effort indicated that no authorization for a search had ever been given: Q: Now, when you set up this trap to stop the car, the directions were if you saw a gray primer Pontiac GTO coming from the direction of Jonesboro, stop it? A: Basically, yes, sir. Q: You used traffic stop in your direct? A: Yes, sir. Q: So these officers that were placed out here were to make a stop? A: That’s correct. Q: Now when they stopped this vehicle, they were to search the vehicle to see if there was any contraband in the vehicle? A: No sir. We didn’t give anyone any particular instructions to search. The vehicle was supposed to be stopped, but by the time that we had responded to where the vehicle had been stopped, it had already been searched.