Court Opinion

ID: 9854574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:09:21.043781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:09.643132
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority view. The Fourth Amendment protects the people against “unreasonable searches and seizures” of their “persons . . . and effects”. A “stop and frisk” is a seizure and a search of the person within the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16 (1968). But the seizure and search are not constitutionally “unreasonable” intrusions when a police officer can “point to specific and articulable facts”, id. at 21, which lead him “reasonably to conclude . . . that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous”, id. at 30.
In the stop and frisk context, the Fourth Amendment guarantee as defined in Terry is less protective of the rights of a suspect than the provisions of Code § 19.2-83. Simmons v. Commonwealth, 217 Va. 552, 557, 231 S.E.2d 218, 221-22 (1977). Undeur statute, a police officer may “detain a person in a public place” and “require of such person his name and address”, but only if the officer “reasonably suspects” that such person “is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or possesses a concealed weapon”; if the detention is lawful, the officer may search the suspect, but only “for a dangerous weapon” and only if the officer “reasonably believes that such person intends to do him bodily harm”.
The seizure in issue here is not the stop of the van but the detention of the defendant. A seizure occurs “when the officer, by *216means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen.” 392 U.S. at 19 n. 16. The defendant was detained or seized when he was required to exit the van, place his hands on the vehicle and remain in that posture at gun point until the arrival of Officer Alt. Officer Missouri, who was unaware of the Loudoun County robbery, had no credible reason to believe that the defendant, a passenger in the van, was guilty of complicity in any criminal activity, felonious or otherwise, past, present, or planned. Hence, the seizure was not authorized under either the Terry test or the Virginia statute unless Missouri was justified in believing that the defendant might be “armed and presently dangerous”, 392 U.S. at 30, or that the defendant “possesse[d] a concealed weapon”, Code § 19.2-83.
Such a belief can be justified under Terry only by “specific and articulable facts” and, under the rationale invoked by the majority, only by “the totality of the circumstances”. What were the facts and circumstances summarized by the majority? The driver committed a number of traffic violations. But traffic violators are seldom armed and, more rarely, their passengers. The van had no rear or side windows, and Officer Missouri “didn’t know what was going on in the van.” Whatever relevance that fact may have had disappeared once the occupants exited the van. The night was dark, Officer Missouri was alone, none of the occupants could produce any personal identification, and doubtless the confrontation was tense. Do such circumstances justify a belief that the defendant or any of his companions were armed and dangerous? Although Officer Missouri testified on direct examination that he was “concerned about them possibly having weapons”, he acknowledged on cross-examination that he observed nothing “on the defendant . . . that appeared to be a weapon” and that the defendant did nothing “to indicate that he posed any danger.” The officer’s testimony alone is sufficient to distinguish Simmons where the officer felt himself endangered by a weapon when he observed a bulge in the suspect’s pocket.
I do not believe that “the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search [would] ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief ”, 392 U.S. at 21-22, that the defendant was guilty of criminal activity, that he was armed, or that he intended to do the officer bodily harm. In such case, neither the seizure nor the search was authorized under either the Terry test or the statutory standard. In my view, the trial court *217erred in overruling the defendant’s motions to suppress, and I would reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.