Court Opinion

ID: 9583860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:42:38.130852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:32.998580
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Defendants waived jury trial and their motion to suppress was considered on the basis of the evidence presented at trial. Dalton police Lieutenant Walthour testified that Jane Mercer (a motel desk clerk) told him “that . . . Bowman [another motel desk clerk] the second shift clerk, had asked her [Mercer] to contact us about a package that was placed in a safety deposit box, of sorts, at the motel by one of the guests there.” Although the record contains the testimony of Bowman, giving a further description of the package and surrounding circumstances, there is no evidence of probative value that such information was conveyed to police prior to the stop. Bowman testified that she related this information to Mercer and was told by Mercer that the information had been passed on to police. However, Mercer’s statement to Bowman that she relayed the information is clearly hearsay and of no probative value even in the absence of objection thereto. Stamper v. State, 235 Ga. 165, 169 (1) (219 SE2d 140).
Based on Walthour’s conversation with Mercer, the Dalton police initiated an investigation and communicated with the Rome Police Department (the defendants’ automobiles had Floyd County tags). The Rome Police Department sources advised that defendant Hubert Holbrook could possibly be involved in drug trafficking, that caution should be exercised in any dealings with him as he was known to carry a weapon, and that he had two sons, one of whom was Russell Holbrook who was a fugitive. The second defendant, Gary Neal Holbrook, is defendant Hubert Holbrook’s other son but he was not the suspected fugitive.
Police were notified by an agent of the motel that defendants had checked out. A roadblock was set up at the exit from the motel. When the vehicles exited the motel, they were stopped at the roadblock.
By stopping the defendants’ vehicles the police “seized” the defendants within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. “To justify such intrusion, the state has to produce evidence of articulable facts which give rise to a suspicion that the law has been violated. Although this suspicion need not meet the standard of probable cause, it must be more than mere caprice or a hunch or an inclination. [Cit.]” State v. Smith, 137 Ga. App. 101, 102 (223 SE2d 30). Although defendant Hubert Holbrook apparently may carry a questionable rep*323utation within law enforcement circles, there is no evidence that officers had knowledge of circumstances from which they might reasonably conclude that criminal activity was afoot. The singular fact that defendant Hubert Holbrook had a son who was a fugitive, alone should not authorize an investigative inquiry which involves a seizure of defendant Hubert Holbrook’s person and of any younger male person found in his company. Conspicuously absent from the record is any evidence as to the physical appearance of the fugitive son and any correlation of that description with the appearance of defendant Gary Neal Holbrook.
Decided December 3, 1985
Rehearing denied December 19, 1985
Harold N. Wollstein, for appellants.
Jacques O. Partain III, District Attorney, Steven M. Harrison, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
I would hold that the trial court erred in denying defendants’ motion to suppress. State v. Smith, 137 Ga. App. 101, 102, supra; Nix v. State, 138 Ga. App. 122, 123 (3) (225 SE2d 714); State v. Smith, 164 Ga. App. 142 (296 SE2d 141). Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Banke and Judge Carley join in this dissent.