Court Opinion

ID: 9746948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:46:43.147298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:18.691684
License: Public Domain

WAGNER, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority’s disposition of the seizure question; however, I respectfully dissent from its determination that the trial court erred in concluding that the search involved here was consensual. In my view, the trial court’s findings are supported by the record and, therefore, should not be disturbed. See Kelly v. United States, 580 A.2d 1282, 1285 (D.C.1990). Whether a consent which would justify a search is voluntary is a question of fact which must be determined from the totality of circumstances. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 248-49, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2059, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); Kelly, 580 A.2d at 1285. Since the determination of the question is essentially fact-based, we must “ ‘uphold the trial court’s finding that a search was consensual unless such a finding is clearly erroneous.’ ” Id. at 1285 (quoting Childress v. United States, 381 A.2d 614, 618 (D.C.1977)); D.C.Code § 17-305(a) (1989). Consonant with that proposition, in my opinion, there is no basis to overturn the trial court’s ruling.
The trial court found that appellant consented to the search, basing its finding on the circumstances surrounding appellant’s encounter with the police and appellant’s “subjective state” as a result of his prior experience with the drug interdiction team. See Schneckloth, supra, 412 U.S. at 229, 93 S.Ct. at 2049 (in determining if consent was coerced, “account must be taken of subtly coercive police questions, as well as the possibly vulnerable subjective state of the person who consents”). Specifically, the trial court credited Detective Zattau’s testimony that he asked appellant if he could speak with him, that they conversed thereafter about the drug problem in the District, and that appellant consented to a patdown. The trial court found further that during the patdown, the detective discovered a bulge in appellant’s crotch which appellant explained was a colostomy bag, and that appellant “kind of picked up his shirt to show what it was.... ” Although appellant indicated that he did not want to *711be searched in public, he assented to accompanying the officers to the bathroom to continue the search, according to the court’s findings. While there is conflicting evidence on some of these issues, having determined credibility and resolved the conflict, the trial court made the foregoing findings which are supported by evidence in the record. I do not understand the majority to disagree up to this point.
The critical facts which account for the majority’s rejection of the trial court’s finding of consent pertain to the circumstances surrounding appellant’s prior encounter with a drug interdiction team and its effect upon appellant’s “subjective understanding” of his rights. What appears to divide us is a difference in our perceptions of the trial court’s findings on the issue, and the evidence upon which the court relied in making them. The trial court found that on the earlier occasion, appellant allowed the search of his luggage because of “an implied threat that a dog could always sniff the luggage” and that the police searched appellant’s bag against his will. The court did not find that the police searched appellant’s person against his will on that earlier occasion. Rather, the court’s ruling conveys that appellant allowed the police to search his person at the suggestion of his companion, in order to avoid further delay.1 The record supports these findings. During the redirect examination, responding to questions of defense counsel, appellant testified as follows:
Question: All right. When did he threaten to call the dogs on you? When it was your bags or when it was you.
Answer: When it was my bag.2
Apparently, the trial court accepted this particular version of the events and rejected appellant’s explanation that he thought he would not be permitted to leave. In fact, appellant testified that he informed the officer that he had no right to search him during the earlier encounter,3 and the court so found.
The court weighed against appellant his inability to explain why he did not walk away from the police while in the train station, since he knew that he did not have to consent to the search. The trial court was not obliged to infer from the evidence or conclude on the record before it, as the majority apparently does, that appellant’s earlier encounter left him with the subjective understanding that he either had no right to object or that the police would disregard his refusal to consent. The contrary inferences made by the trial court from the evidence are reasonable, and it is within the trial court’s province to make that determination. See Nche, supra note 2, 526 A.2d at 24 (credibility of witnesses and inferences to be drawn from their testimony are for trier of fact whose determination cannot be disturbed unless plainly wrong or unsupported by evidence). The trial court's findings are supported by the record and are not clearly erroneous. Accordingly, we should uphold them. See *712Kelly, supra, 580 A.2d at 1288.4

.The pertinent parts of the trial court’s findings were as follows:
I will credit [appellant's] testimony that he was with a friend and that Detective Hanson who testified here, approached and asked him the same types of questions that had been asked by Zattau, that at that particular time, I think it’s consistent from both their testimonies that [appellant] was not interested in having his luggage — his bag that he was carrying at the time searched and he was not interested in having his person searched and made that known and that I think it’s probably correct, although it’s not critical to find this that upon an implied threat that a dog could always sniff the luggage, [appellant] was probably willing to go along with that, but nevertheless his friend said let’s not waste time. The search was done of his person.
The search was done of his bag against his will and he left, there having been nothing discovered. (Emphasis added).

. In earlier testimony, appellant had stated that the officers threatened to have the dog sniff him. His defense counsel cleared up the matter during redirect examination, and the trial court credited the later version, which is within its province. See Nche v. United States, 526 A.2d 23, 24 (D.C.1987).

. The court questioned appellant as follows:
THE COURT: And you told this same officer, this detective at that time, he couldn’t search your bag and, he had no right to do that; and he couldn’t search you, he had no right to do that; right?
APPELLANT: Yes.

. The foregoing analysis necessitates consideration of another issue raised by appellant. Appellant also argues that the trial court erred in concluding that he could not revoke his consent after the police discovered that the bulge was not the colostomy bag and that appellant’s jockstrap, which contained the bulge, was worn over his boxer shorts. Although the court expressed the view that appellant could not limit the scope of the search, an issue we need not decide, the court did not find that appellant expressly refused a further search. The record supports that appellant did not refuse the search which occurred.