Court Opinion

ID: 9715342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:00:51.753075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:33.725959
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, CHIEF JUSTICE
¶ 44. (dissenting). Police saféty is of paramount importance in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Every person whom a law enforcement officer stops presents a risk to the officer. Perhaps police officers should be allowed to frisk anyone and everyone stopped for a violation of the law. But in our country police officers do not have this power. Police officers are not authorized under the federal constitution to frisk every person they stop.1
¶ 45. In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the Supreme Court made the limits on frisking clear. The court began by recognizing the importance of individual freedom from government restraint, stating:
No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law. Terry, 392 U.S. at 9 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
*580¶ 46. Terry went on to hold that an officer may perform a limited frisk "[w]hen an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others." Terry, 392 U.S. at 24. The Terry exception to the probable cause requirement has a "narrow scope." Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93 (1979).
¶ 47. Terry requires "reasonable, individualized suspicion" that the person is armed and dangerous before undertaking a frisk; the officer must point to specific and articulable facts that would warrant a reasonably cautious officer in light of his or her experience to believe that the defendant was armed. Terry frisk cases are fact-sensitive. The necessary articulable facts are, in my opinion, missing in this case.
¶ 48. I conclude that the officer acted on an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch.'" Terry, 392 U.S. at 27. The hunch here did not prove correct. The defendant was not armed. That fact is not relevant in determining the constitutionality of the. frisk.
¶ 49. The facts relied on by the majority were articulated by the officer. The court may draw reasonable inferences from those articulated facts. The officer's decision to frisk the defendant should be judged on whether the facts articulated by the officer, and facts reasonably inferred, were sufficient to justify the officer's suspicion that the defendant was armed and presently dangerous. In my view, this standard is not met here.
¶ 50. The stop occurred at night, it was dark, and the officer was alone. The officer frisked the defendant "because he didn't stop right away, smell of intoxicants. He was acting nervous, his hands were twitching by his *581sides. For my safety and his safety I decided I should pat him down before I continued any further. Was going to do a field sobriety test."
¶ 51. These facts simply do not add up to a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and presented a danger to the officer.
¶ 52. The majority opinion infers from the facts, including that the defendant was attempting to walk away from the officer and avoid the encounter, that the defendant had something to hide. The majority opinion then infers from the "attempt to hide something" that the something was "perhaps a weapon." See majority op. at ¶ 33. The majority's inference that the defendant was attempting to hide a weapon is not based on any articulated fact. The officer in this case may have indeed reasonably suspected that the defendant had something to hide. But that suspicion does not justify a Terry frisk for a weapon.
¶ 53. A Terry frisk is not to see if the defendant is hiding something that may be evidence of illegal activity. As the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, "[njothing in Terry can be understood to allow a generalized cursory search for weapons or, indeed, any search whatever for anything but weapons." Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93-94 (1979) (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 54. An officer may not conduct a Terry frisk unless the officer has reasonable suspicion that the defendant is armed and presently dangerous. No facts justifying such a reasonable suspicion are articulated or may be inferred in this case.
¶ 55. The majority opinion also errs in relying on the fact that the defendant "smelled of intoxicants and illegal drugs [marijuana]." Majority op. at ¶ 31. The officer testified that the defendant had an "odor of *582intoxicants and a slight odor of marijuana." The majority jumps from the officer's statement about what he smelled to conclude that the defendant "was under the influence" and not sober. Majority op. at ¶ 31. From there the majority opinion further declares that a person who is not sober is more likely to commit an impulsive violent act than one who is sober. Majority op. at ¶ 31. The majority opinion thus infers facts that are not rationally related to the officer's observation that the defendant had an odor of intoxicants and a slight odor of marijuana.
¶ 56. The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly told us that we cannot adopt per se rules in search and seizure cases based on the fact that many involved with illegal drugs carry weapons. Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394 (1997). The majority opinion suggests that police officers may infer that anyone who has an odor of intoxicants or marijuana is armed and presently dangerous and may be frisked. I disagree.2
*583¶ 57. My decision rests, as does the U.S. Supreme Court's Terry opinion, and as the majority opinion does not, on a recognition that subjecting an individual to being frisked is not a small invasion of privacy. The Terry Court viewed a frisk as "a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security," an "annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience." Terry, 392 U.S. at 24-25. The court further described the "stop and frisk" as "a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly." Terry, 392 U.S. at 24-25.3
¶ 58. I agree with Judge Friendly that "courts should not set the test of sufficient suspicion that the individual is 'armed and presently dangerous' too high when protection of the investigating officer is at stake." United States v. Riggs, 474 F.2d 699, 705 (2d Cir. 1973). With this in mind, I conclude that this record does not establish a basis for an objectively reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and dangerous.
*584¶ 59. Because the frisk was conducted in violation of the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions, the evidence found by the subsequent seizure and search of the contents of the plastic bag must be suppressed. Alternatively, even if the Terry frisk were justified, I conclude that the officer did not have probable cause to open the plastic bag and unwrap the aluminum foil that he had seized from the defendant's pocket.
¶ 60. The majority recognizes that the officer's decision to open and unwrap the plastic bag cannot be justified as a Terry search. See majority op. at ¶ 40. After removing the plastic bag from the defendant's pocket, the officer knew that the plastic bag was not a weapon. The Terry frisk was therefore completed.4
¶ 61. The majority nonetheless upholds the officer's decision to open the plastic bag and unwrap the aluminum foil, stating that the object was in plain view of the officer and he had probable cause to believe that it contained illegal drugs. See majority op. at ¶ 42.
¶ 62. The majority opinion reasons as follows: the officer had seen drugs in other cases packaged in aluminum foil within a plastic bag, the defendant smelled of intoxicants and marijuana, the defendant lied about the contents of the plastic bag, and the defendant reached for his pocket while the officer was frisking him. See majority op. at ¶ 42.
¶ 63. The officer's testimony in this case is revealing. The officer testified at the suppression hearing that when he saw the object he thought it "could be any type of narcotic or drug." Majority op. at ¶ 11. He *585further stated that he did not know what was in the foil until he opened it. The words "could be" and "did not know" are not those of probable cause or immediate apparency.5 Regarding the officer's experience with drugs packaged this way, he testified he had seen such packaging "less than" 10 times during a seven-year career.
¶ 64. This case is similar to Davis v. State, 829 S.W.2d 218, 220-21 (Tx. Ct. Crim. App. 1992), in which an officer, during a legal Terry stop of a suspected drug dealer, seized and opened a box of matches that contained drugs. The court concluded that the officer had proper grounds to remove the matchbox from the defendant's pocket to see if it was a weapon. However, even though the officer was investigating a possible narcotics sale and testified that he had seen drugs kept in matchboxes previously, the court held that the officer's testimony could not justify the search under the "plain view" doctrine. The court suppressed the evidence. 829 S.W.2d at 221 and n.5.
¶ 65. The facts of this case are very similar to those in Davis. The incriminating character of the object was not immediately apparent to the officer. The *586object that was just a second ago thought to be a weapon, now "could have been" drugs. Such testimony does not equal the probable cause required, unless every opaque container in the pocket of every suspect can be presumed to contain contraband. Such a presumption, such a per se rule, is inconsistent with the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
¶ 66. For the reasons stated, I dissent.

 "The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person whom he sees on the street or of whom he makes inquiries. Before he places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. In the case of the self-protective search for weapons, he must be able to point to particular facts from which he reasonably inferred that the individual was armed and dangerous." Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 64 (1968).

 In Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394-95 (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this court's blanket generalization that all drug dealers may be presumed armed and that therefore no-knock entries to the home are justified. The U.S. Supreme Court condemned this court's categorical rule on the grounds that the generalization could be applied to many crimes and thus undercut the Fourth Amendment requirement of individualized suspicion. Richards, 520 U.S. at 394. I believe the same concern applies to the suggestion in this case that all persons who smell of intoxicants can be frisked for weapons.
On this issue see State v. Thomas, 542 A.2d 912, 916-18 (N.J. 1988) (where officer was investigating report that defendant was in possession of narcotics, nothing in record justified officer in frisking the defendant); State v. Cobbs, 711 P.2d 900, 907 (N.M. Ct. App. 1985) ("In order, however, to conduct a frisk of a person suspected of engaging in a non-violent offense, such as possession of small amounts of marijuana, vagrancy, or pos*583session of liquor, additional articulable facts of potential danger must be present, as well as the suspicion of criminal activity.").

 Today's decision affects not only this individual defendant, but all of us. I quote from Justice Stevens:
.. . the potential daily burden on thousands of innocent citizens is obvious. That burden may well be minimal in individual cases. But countless citizens who cherish individual liberty and are offended, embarrassed, and sometimes provoked by arbitrary official commands may well consider the burden to be significant. In all events, the aggregation of thousands upon thousands of petty indignities has an impact on freedom that I would characterize as substantial, and which in my view clearly outweighs the evanescent safety concerns pressed by the majority.
Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 419 (1997) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted).

 See Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 373 (1993):
If the protective search goes beyond what is necessary to determine if the suspect is armed, it is no longer valid under Terry and its fruits will be suppressed (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

 See State v. Paul T., 993 P.2d 74, 83 (N.M. 1999). In that case, the New Mexico Supreme Court held that although the officer had grounds to conduct a Terry frisk on a juvenile he was transporting, the officer exceeded the "plain feel" doctrine when he removed a plastic bag from the defendant's pocket. The court stated:
Finally, the State appears to make a sub-argument under Terry and its progeny regarding the "plain feel" doctrine, which embraces soft objects Even if we were to reach the issue of "plain feel," the fact that Officer Serna merely speculated about what the object in Paul's pocket "could have been" indicates that it was not immediately apparent to him that the object was in fact contraband. This argument is therefore unavailing.