Court Opinion

ID: 9707750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:20:30.900468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:37.632465
License: Public Domain

Justice WALLACE, JR.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that a police officer is “lawfully performing an official function” under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-l(a) when he makes an invalid investigatory stop. I agree with the Appellate panel’s observation that if the police contact with defendant was a field inquiry, “then defendant would have been free to leave the area and his failure to heed the officer’s request to stop and speak with the officers could not have been criminalized.” Because I conclude that the police lacked articulable suspicion to perform a valid investigatory stop, but could have conducted a field inquiry, defendant’s flight was not a violation of the obstruction statute, N.J.SA 20:29-1.
Patrolman Williams testified that he and Patrolman Milton drove past defendant, who matched the description in an anonymous report of an armed individual at the Oasis Bar. Milton made *463a u-turn and approached defendant from the rear. Williams rolled down his window and said, “Police. Stop. I need to speak with you” or “I need to talk to you.” Milton recalled that Williams said, “Police. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.” Both officers agreed that defendant ran in response. The trial court convicted defendant of violating N.J.S.A 2C:29-1.
When interpreting a statute, this Court’s role is to effectuate the will of the Legislature. State v. Brannon, 178 N.J. 500, 505, 842 A.2d 148 (2004). We look first to the language of the statute. Id. at 506, 842 A.2d 148. “If the statute is clear and unambiguous on its face and admits of only one interpretation, we need delve no deeper than the act’s literal terms to divine the Legislature’s intent.” State v. Butler, 89 N.J. 220, 226, 445 A.2d 399 (1982) (citations omitted). If the statute is not clear or is ambiguous, courts must look beyond its literal language to determine the legislative intent. Id. at 226-27, 445 A.2d 399. “However, in criminal eases we are guided by the rule of lenity, which requires us to construe penal statutes strictly and interpret ambiguous language in favor of a criminal defendant.” State v. Livingston, 172 N.J. 209, 218, 797 A.2d 153 (2002).
The clear language of N.J.S.A 2C:29-1, which criminalizes “prevent[ing] or attempt[ing] to prevent a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight,” requires that the public servant be engaged in a lawful official function for an individual’s flight to be in violation of the statute. I reach that conclusion by the plain reading of the statute and by examination of similar statutes that do not use the word “lawfully.” For example, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-2(b), which pertains to eluding, provides that “any person, while operating a motor vehicle ..., who knowingly flees or attempts to elude any police or any law enforcement officer after having received any signal from such officer to bring the vehicle ... to a full stop commits a crime ...” Ibid. Unlike the obstruction statute, the Legislature did not condition an eluding conviction on the law enforcement officer engaging in a lawful signal.
*464Similarly, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-2(a), resisting arrest, was amended in 2000 to provide that “a person is guilty of a disorderly persons offense if he purposely prevents ... a law enforcement officer from effecting an arrest.” N.J.S.A 2C:29-2(a)(l). The amendment deleted the word “lawful” before the word “arrest.” Thus, the Legislature removed the language requiring a lawful arrest and added language to explicitly allow an individual to be convicted of resisting arrest regardless of whether the arrest was lawful or not. N.J.S.A 2C:29-2(a)(3)(b).
Notably, the Legislature did not eliminate “lawfully” from N.J.SA. 2C:29-1, when it amended N.J.SA 2C:29-2a in 2000. Consequently, I find the relevant language of N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1 to be clear and unambiguous. The Legislature intended that the public servant must be “lawfully performing” an “official function” for the statute to criminalize flight.
Although the majority recognizes that the sister statutes to N.J.S.A 2C:29-1 do not require “lawful” conduct by the police, it surmises that the Legislature did not intend “the textual differences between the obstructing statute and its sister statutes to lead to an outcome at odds with the overall statutory scheme or an outcome with absurd results.” Ante at 456, 901 A.2d at 933. I disagree. The majority, in its effort to reach a reasonable, but wrong, decision, ignores the plain meaning of the statute requirement and eliminates the rule of construction that we construe penal statutes strictly. It also overlooks the fact that the basis for the rule of lenity is a “fear that expansive judicial interpretations will create penalties not originally intended by the Legislature.” State v. Wooten, 73 N.J. 317, 326, 374 A.2d 1204 (1977) (citation omitted).
Moreover, the out-of-state cases cited by the majority were decided under different statutory schemes and, therefore, provide no guidance for deciding this case. Unlike the situation in most of those cited cases that concerned arrests, the majority opinion interprets N.J.S.A 2C:29-1 to apply to police conduct that would violate a defendant’s right to leave a police encounter and does not *465address whether the police were conducting a lawful investigatory stop or a field inquiry. In my view, if the stop was a lawful investigatory stop, then the obstruction statute applies. If it was a field inquiry, then the statute does not apply to criminalize defendant’s flight.
The next step in this analysis is to determine whether the police conducted a lawful investigatory stop. On several occasions, we have reviewed the constitutionally permissible forms of warrant-less police encounters with citizens. State v. Pineiro, 181 N.J. 13, 20, 853 A.2d 887 (2004); State v. Nishina, 175 N.J. 502, 510-11, 816 A.2d 153 (2003); State v. Maryland, 167 N.J. 471, 482-83, 771 A.2d 1220 (2001). Those encounters may be based on probable cause to arrest, reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop, or a field inquiry. It is not disputed that in the present case, the police lacked probable cause to arrest defendant, thus, we need only consider whether the encounter was an investigatory stop or a field inquiry.
An investigatory stop, also referred to as a Terry10 stop, is valid if it is based on “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Nishina, supra, 175 N.J. at 511, 816 A.2d 153 (quotation omitted).
A field inquiry occurs when a police officer approaches an individual and asks “if [the person] is willing to answer some questions.” Id. at 510, 816 A.2d 153 (quotation omitted). Such questioning is permissible so long as it is “not harassing, overbearing, or accusatory in nature.” Ibid, (citation omitted). “The person approached, however, need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way.” Maryland, supra, 167 N.J. at 483, 771 A.2d 1220, (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497-98, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 236 (1983)) (citations omitted).
*466In the present case, it is obvious that the police were attempting to make a Terry stop. Thus, I look to whether there were specific and articulable facts that gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to warrant such a stop. Police asserted that the reason for the stop was that defendant fit the anonymous tipster’s description of the person who possessed a gun.
When the source of the report is unknown, the United States Supreme Court requires more than a tip to validate an investigatory stop and frisk. Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000). In J.L., supra, an anonymous caller informed the police that a young black male wearing a plaid shirt was standing at a particular bus stop and was carrying a gun. 529 U.S. at 268, 120 S.Ct. at 1377, 146 L.Ed.2d at 259. The police arrived at the bus stop and observed three black males, one of whom was wearing a plaid shirt. Ibid. The police arrested the man fitting the description, and a search revealed a gun. Ibid. The Supreme Court unanimously held that the tipster’s information was not sufficiently reliable to justify the stop and frisk that revealed the handgun in the defendant’s possession. Id. at 271-72, 120 S.Ct. at 1379, 146 L.Ed.2d at 260-61. Writing for the Court, Justice Ginsburg explained that
[t]he anonymous call concerning [the defendant] provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant’s knowledge or credibility. That the allegation about the gun turned out to be correct does not suggest that the officers, prior to the frisks, had a reasonable basis for suspecting [the defendant] of engaging in unlawful conduct. The reasonableness of official suspicion must be measured by what the officers knew before they conducted their search. All the police had to go on in this case was the bare report of an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information about [the defendant].
[Id. at 271, 120 S.Ct. at 1379, 146 L.Ed.2d at 260-61.]
In addressing the accurate description of a subject’s readily observable location and appearance, Justice Ginsburg explained that such information “will help the police correctly identify the person whom the tipster means to accuse,” but “[t]he reasonable suspicion here at issue requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a *467determinate person.” Id. at 272, 120 S.Ct. at 1379, 146 L.Ed.2d at 261.
This Court addressed a similar issue in State v. Rodriguez, 172 N.J. 117, 796 A.2d 857 (2002). In that case, an anonymous caller informed the police that two men carrying drugs would return from Philadelphia by bus between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Id. at 121, 796 A.2d 857. The caller gave a detailed description of the men. Id. at 121-22, 796 A.2d 857. Around 4:45 p.m., the police observed two men fitting the description exit a bus from Philadelphia. Ibid. The police approached the men, who agreed to talk and subsequently consented to a search. Id. at 124, 796 A.2d 857. The search revealed drugs and more than $630 in cash. Ibid. This Court determined that the stop was unlawful. Id. at 125, 796 A.2d 857. We explained that
[a]n anonymous tip, standing alone, is rarely sufficient to establish a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity. The United States Supreme Court has warned that the veracity of persons supplying anonymous tips is by hypothesis largely unknown, and unknowable. That Court also has instructed that an informant’s veracity, “reliability,” and “basis of knowledge” are relevant in determining the value of his report. To justify action based on an anonymous tip, the police in the typical case must verify that the tip is reliable by some independent corroborative effort.
Generally, if a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable. Stated differently, courts have found no constitutional violation when there has been independent corroboration by the police of significant aspects of the informer’s predictions!;.] The analysis in any given case turns ultimately on the totality of the circumstances.
[Id at 127-28, 796 A.2d 857 (citations and quotations omitted).]
Applying the teachings of J.L. and Rodriguez to the present case, I conclude that the physical description received from the unknown source was not reliable because the tip did not demonstrate “that the tipster [had] knowledge of concealed criminal activity.” J.L., supra, 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. at 1379, 146 L.Ed.2d at 261. There was no indication that the tip was reliable in its assertion that the suspect illegally possessed a weapon. Moreover, the tipster’s claim that defendant had a gun was never corroborated before or after defendant was apprehended. Thus, the “veracity” and the “basis of knowledge” to establish the *468reliability of the asserted illegality was absent. Consequently, I conclude that the police lacked a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify an investigatory stop.
To be sure, upon receiving the anonymous tip the police could lawfully approach defendant and seek his permission to talk to him, thereby engaging a field inquiry. However, when police conduct a field inquiry, there is no lawful requirement that an individual acquiesce to questioning. Therefore, defendant here had a constitutional right to leave the scene. See Maryland, supra, 167 N.J. at 483, 771 A.2d 1220.
Previously, we explained that in some circumstances flight is not prohibited conduct. State v. Tucker, 136 N.J. 158, 169, 642 A.2d 401 (1994). We observed in Tucker that some people “may not feel entirely comfortable in the presence of some, if not all, police is regrettable but true.” Ibid. Although flight upon encountering police is not to be encouraged, standing alone, such flight is insufficient to justify an investigatory stop. Id. at 170, 642 A.2d 401.
Moreover, contrary to the majority’s position, I find no justification to impose a good faith exception. ‘We have recognized previously that an officer’s subjective good faith cannot ‘justify an infringement of a citizen’s constitutionally guaranteed rights.’” Rodriguez, supra, 172 N.J. at 129, 796 A.2d 857 (quoting State v. Arthur, 149 N.J. 1, 8, 691 A.2d 808 (1997)).
I conclude that based on the totality of circumstances, the police lacked sufficient reliable information to conduct an investigatory stop, but could have conducted a field inquiry. Because defendant may lawfully depart from a field inquiry, his departure did not violate N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1.
For the reasons expressed, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that a person may be guilty of violating N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1 by exercising his or her constitutional right to depart from a field inquiry.
*469Justice LONG joins in this opinion.
For affirmance—Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, ALBIN and RIVERA-SOTO—5.
For reversal—Justices LONG and WALLACE—2.

 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).