Court Opinion

ID: 9536206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:56:14.161944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:29.020745
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the conclusion that the investigatory stop of Free was constitutional, but for on a different basis. In Ebona v. State, 577 P.2d 698, 700 (Alaska 1978), this court reiterated the strict limits placed on permissible investigatory stops that were first articulated in Coleman v. State, 553 P.2d 40 (Alaska 1976). To be permissible, an investigatory stop must take place in the circumstance where
a police officer with a reasonable suspicion that imminent public danger exists or that serious harm that has recently occurred was caused by a particular person may stop that person.
553 P.2d at 43.
The majority finds the stop justified by the recent occurrence of a burglary. At the time of the stop, the burglary was two days old and the need for an immediate response had dissipated. While I do not think that the burglary justified the stop, I conclude that the investigatory stop was justified under the imminent public danger test because of the possibility of an armed robbery. Trooper Feichtinger testified, in part that he
was also aware that there was this possibility of an armed robbery being committed in the Mt. View area that might be a native male, a young native male.
Free was a young native male and a known suspect in a recent burglary in which two pistols had been acquired. Free supposedly had them, and there was information linking him to a possibly imminent armed robbery. In such circumstances, I believe an investigatory stop was warranted.