Court Opinion

ID: 9626896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:27:09.822651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:54.201434
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice:
(concurring in the result).
I dissent from the majority’s determination that Adair’s search of defendant Dorsey’s truck was proper because Adair had probable cause to believe that the truck contained cocaine. However, analyzing the stop and subsequent search under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983), I conclude that Adair did have an articulable suspicion that the truck’s occupants were involved in criminal activity and did have an articulable and objectively reasonable belief that the occupants were potentially dangerous. Therefore, he acted reasonably in stopping the truck and searching its interior for weapons, and his actions do not violate the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. I therefore concur with the result of the majority opinion: the contraband discovered in the search was properly admissible.
The majority concludes that the search of the truck was permissible because the fourth amendment allows warrantless searches of vehicles if those searches are *1091based on probable cause.1 It then attempts to draw together various disparate facts known by officers present at the motel to paint a picture complete enough to give Adair probable cause to believe that the occupants of the truck were in possession of a pound of cocaine. In my view, the picture that emerges is so sketchy that if it had been presented to a neutral magistrate, he or she would not have been justified in issuing a warrant to search the truck for cocaine; therefore, the search was unconstitutional and the evidence seized must be excluded under the fourth amendment. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).
A careful examination of the facts known to Adair shows that there was simply nothing beyond suspicion to connect the “man in the leather jacket” and the “truck with California plates” with the aborted cocaine transaction; certainly, nothing Adair knew would support a finding that he had probable cause to believe that the pound of cocaine was located in the truck.
Despite the contrary suggestion in the majority opinion, Adair knew nothing at the time of the stop that connected the truck’s occupants with rooms 131 and 137 of the motel, the rooms where the cocaine transaction was being negotiated and where the police might reasonably have suspected the possessor of the cocaine to have been located. Instead, Adair knew only that a man in a leather jacket had walked to a truck bearing California plates located in the parking lot of a large motel and had then stood near a dumpster looking around the parking lot for a period of time. This man he identified as Dorsey. There was some mention in the police broadcasts that either Schiell or Vaughn, the two persons intimately involved in the drug transaction and with whom Hafen was dealing face-to-face, was wearing a dark leather jacket, and the majority seems to suggest that this information gave Adair reason to believe that the man in the leather jacket who got into the truck and drove away was one of these persons. However, these facts would not lead a reasonable person to believe that either Schiell or Vaughn was the person Adair associated with the truck. Since Schiell and Vaughn were shuttling back and forth between rooms 131 and 137 and the car where Hafen was sitting, obviously neither of them could have been the person who, during the same period of time, walked to the truck and then stood near the dumpster for an extended period.
A final reason why I cannot accept the majority’s determination is that Adair never claimed to have probable cause to believe that the truck carried the cocaine. Adair stopped the truck only because its leather-jacketed occupant’s actions had raised a suspicion that he somehow was involved in the transaction and because another officer directed Adair to make the stop and to identify the occupants of the truck.
There is an alternative ground for finding the search lawful that does not strain either the facts or the law. An officer lacking the probable cause necessary to justify the issuance of a search or arrest warrant may still stop a person for investigative questioning if the officer has an articulable suspicion that the person is engaged in or is about to engage in criminal *1092activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879-1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972); State v. Folkes, 565 P.2d 1125 (Utah), cert, denied, 434 U.S. 971, 98 S.Ct. 523, 54 L.Ed.2d 461 (1977); State v. Elliott, 626 P.2d 423 (Utah 1981); see Coleman v. State, 553 P.2d 40, 46 n. 19 (Alaska 1976).2 In the present case, the facts known to Adair did give rise to an articulable suspicion that the occupants of the truck were somehow involved in the aborted cocaine transaction. The rather confusing references to the leather jacket, Dorsey’s surreptitious surveillance of the parking lot for an extended period of time, the California plates, and the fact that the truck left the parking lot almost immediately after the transaction fell apart all gave Adair grounds to stop the truck and ask its occupants questions about possible involvement in the cocaine transaction.
Once an investigative Terry stop is made, the officer has the right to take steps reasonably necessary to protect himself from assault by the suspect during the stop. According to the Terry Court, a narrowly circumscribed search for weapons is permissible if the officer “is justified in believing that the individual ... is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others_” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 28, 88 S.Ct. at 1883. This search can extend beyond the suspect’s person to the area “within his immediate control.” Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969).
In Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983), the Supreme Court considered the permissible scope of such a weapons search when an automobile stop was involved. It concluded that a search of the
passenger compartment of an automobile, limited to those areas in which a weapon may be placed or hidden, is permissible
if the police officer possesses a reasonable belief based on “specific and articu-lable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” the officer in believing that the suspect is dangerous and the suspect may gain immediate control of weapons.
Id. at 1049, 103 S.Ct. at 3481 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879). The legality of the search in the present case is a close call even under Long. However, I conclude that the trial court did not err in finding it permissible.
Here, Adair had a reasonable basis for suspecting Dorsey of being involved in a large, wholesale narcotics transaction that involved the transportation of the drugs from California to Utah. Adair reasonably could assume that those participating in moving large quantities of illegal drugs over long distances might be armed to protect themselves from criminals who might attempt to “rip-off” a drug dealer. Dorsey’s truck did bear California license plates. When Adair announced who he was, Dorsey made a furtive gesture, which consisted of taking something off the seat and placing it between his legs on the floor of the car. Given the dangers always present when an officer confronts suspects in an automobile, id. at 1048 n. 13, 103 S.Ct. at 3480 n. 13. I conclude that, under the circumstances, Adair was justified in concluding that the occupants of the truck might be armed and a danger to himself and the other officers.
The most difficult aspect of this matter is presented by the fact that at the time Adair searched under the seat, the truck’s occupants were standing by the rear of the truck under control of several officers holding drawn weapons. Dorsey contends that, *1093under these circumstances, it is entirely unrealistic for the officers to fear that weapons that might be located in the truck cab would present a threat to their safety, since the truck’s occupants were constrained effectively some distance from the cab.
This claim has some appeal. There are various degrees of restraint. Plainly, if a suspect is handcuffed or otherwise taken into custody and physically secured, there is little real likelihood that he will be able to retrieve a weapon from some remote location. But we are not dealing here with a suspect who has been handcuffed and belted into a police car — common steps taken to secure prisoners. Nor are we dealing with suspects who have been arrested or taken into custody. Instead, we have two persons who have been stopped for investigation and are standing outside their vehicle late at night. Had they not been subsequently arrested, they might have reentered their vehicle and presented a threat to the officers. Under these circumstances, we should not second guess the officers, at least when the trial court found this fear reasonable.3
Based on the facts known to Adair at the time of the stop and the fourth amendment teachings of Long, I conclude that the search was lawful as incident to a Terry stop. Therefore, I join the majority in affirming the conviction.
DURHAM, J., concurs in Justice ZIMMERMAN’S concurring opinion.

. I agree with the majority that the legality of the search should be addressed only under the federal constitution because defense counsel has not briefed the issue under the Utah Constitution. However, as I have suggested elsewhere, I do not accept the proposition that in interpreting the search and seizure provision in the Utah Constitution, article I, section 14, we should slavishly follow the ever-quickening trend started by the United States Supreme Court in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), of eroding the warrant protections that have long been central to American search and seizure law, simply because the place to be searched is a motor vehicle. See State v. Hygh, 711 P.2d 264, 271, 273 n. 3 (Utah 1985) (Zimmerman, J., concurring). For all intents and purposes, Utah’s constitutional provision has lain dormant since its passage in 1896. Its meaning needs to be fleshed out, but there is nothing in law or logic to suggest that the form that emerges from that process must be a copy of what the United States Supreme Court has made of the fourth amendment in the years since 1896.

. I see no merit in the majority’s rather odd suggestion that because it finds some unexplained uncertainty in the Terry doctrine as it is applied to vehicles, that uncertainty somehow justifies the majority’s refusal to even consider the more lenient Terry standard for permitting warrantless searches. Instead, the majority resorts to torturing the facts in order to satisfy the much higher probable cause standard by which all warrants must be tested. Because of the majority opinion’s implications for searches conducted with and without warrants, I consider the majority’s aversion to the narrower Terry test quite impossible to understand.

. Moreover, the facts of Long appear to make it controlling on this question. There, the suspect was standing at the rear of his car in the company of an officer at the time another officer searched the passenger compartment. He contended that since he was not in the vehicle and was effectively under control of one of the officers who had stopped to question him, they reasonably could not have feared for their safety. However, the Court rejected this claim, reasoning that a suspect might break away from police control and retrieve a weapon from his automobile_ In addition, if the suspect is not placed under arrest, he will be permitted to reenter his automobile, and he will then have access to any weapons inside.
Id. at 1051-52, 103 S.Ct. at 3481-82 (citations omitted).