Court Opinion

ID: 9683013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:20:47.939907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.987628
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, concurring. I disagree that when Officer Kwano ordered or requested Paul Frette to come down from the cab of his truck, this was a seizure. The dispatcher of the Springdale Police Department had received a tip from a Jerry Smith, who identified himself as an out-of-state truck driver. Smith told the police dispatcher that Frette was drinking beer in the cab of his truck. As the majority makes clear, the Springdale Police Department had had no prior dealings with Jerry Smith. Clearly, the tip could have been as bogus as it could have been real. The information needed to be verified. Officer Kwano was dispatched to the scene to investigate. He found an unidentified person sitting in the cab of a truck but saw no beer. He ordered him down from his cab in order to assess the situation further. At this point, Officer Kwano was operating, in my judgment, under Rule 2.2(a) of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure: (a) A law enforcement officer may request any person to furnish information or otherwise cooperate in the investigation or prevention of crime. The officer may request the person to respond to questions, to appear at a police station, or to comply with any other reasonable request. I cannot conclude that at this moment Frette’s liberty was restrained by show of physical force or authority so as to constitute a seizure. See Thompson v. State, 303 Ark. 407, 797 S.W.2d 450 (1990). Frette was told to come down from his cab. This was for the purpose of answering questions and assessing his condition. Whether Officer Kwano requested he come down from his cab or ordered him down seems more a question of semantics than a pivotal distinction to me under these circumstances. Once Frette was out of the cab and face-to-face, Officer Kwano detected the smell of alcohol and noticed that Frette was unsteady on his feet. With this added information, he had reasonable suspicion to stop and detain Frette under Ark. R. Crim. P. 3.1. Field sobriety tests were administered which Frette failed, and he was arrested. This progression from a tip to a Rule 2.2 investigation to a Rule 3.1 stop-and-detention to an arrest is precisely what this court recently approved in Hammons v. State, 327 Ark. 520, 940 S.W.2d 424 (1997). In Hammons, the tip was that “Wild Bill,” who had sold drugs to the caller’s roommate and a woman named Shannon Smith, was coming to Fort Smith to sell methamphetamine. He would be driving a black 70 or 80 model Corvette. He was described as being in his late 30’s or early 40’s, of slender build, and with a moustache and beard. A second anonymous caller said Wild Bill would be at a particular bar in Fort Smith on a certain night. A Fort Smith police detective was dispatched to the parking lot of that bar on the suspected night. He approached a black Corvette in his police car and when he saw a man in the Corvette scramble and pull out what he thought was a gun, he activated his blue lights. That constituted a stop. After the stop, what was believed to be methamphetamine was found on Hammons, and he and his companion were arrested. We affirmed the denial of Hammons’s motion to suppress because the two anonymous calls led the police detective to the parking lot for further investigation under Rule 2.2. The same holds true in the instant case — the unverified tip warranted further investigation. At the parking lot in Hammons, the police detective first saw nothing unduly suspicious. In the instant case, Officer Kwano did not see Frette with a beer. Then, in Hammons the detective saw scrambling and what he thought was a gun which gave him reasonable suspicion to stop and detain the car’s occupants under Rule 3.1. Similarly, the odor of alcohol on Frette and his unsteadiness on his feet gave Officer Kwano reasonable suspicion to stop and detain the man. Drugs were found in Hammons’s possession which led to his arrest. Here, Frette failed the field sobriety tests and was arrested. The case of Hammons v. State, supra, provides the blueprint for police actions in situations where the tip is open to question, and I would follow it. The question arises whether a police officer, under this reasoning, could order anyone out of a vehicle for any purpose. The answer, of course, is no. But in this case, the tip provided a basis for further investigation and, without question, the information relating to a potentially inebriated truck driver needed to be checked out immediately and thoroughly. I would affirm, but for the reasons stated in this opinion.