Court Opinion

ID: 9530696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:02:47.805768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:13.437067
License: Public Domain

*1269SULLIVAN, Judge,
dissenting
The majority opinion confines its analysis to a single issue, i.e. whether an officer who makes a valid traffic stop not only may order a passenger, as well as the driver, to exit the vehicle but also may direct the passenger, who begins to walk away, to return to the vicinity of the vehicle. The majority does not consider whether the officer, for protective purposes, was entitled to conduct a pat-down of the passenger, which resulted in seizure of the knife, which in turn contained smears of cocaine; nor do I.
At the outset, I would note that the officer here did not order the occupants to exit the vehicle. Instead, while the officer was contacting the radio dispatcher and checking the license plate, Walls “jumped out of the passenger side of the vehicle and shut the door and started to walk away.” Record at 95. The officer believed that he was being placed at a “tactical disadvantage” and that his “safety” as well as the integrity of his investigation were being compromised, because allowing either party to leave the scene would have risked losing sight of a possible source of danger. Record at 97-98. Therefore, he ordered Walls to return to the car. The officer’s belief was not unreasonable given the fact that “this was ... a situation involving a lone police officer in a high crime area.” See Banks v. State (1997) Ind.App., 681 N.E.2d 235, 239.
The long established rationale underlying the decision in Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977) 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331, as quoted by the majority here, appropriately focused upon the balance between safeguarding the officer from unnecessary risks during a routine traffic stop and the minimal intrusion upon a motorist who has already been validly detained for the traffic violation. In Maryland v. Wilson (1997) 519 U.S. 408, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41, the same rationale was used to validate ordering a passenger out of the vehicle.
Prior to Maryland v. Wilson, supra, other jurisdictions had extended the holding of Mimms to passengers. In State v. Smith (1994), 134 N.J. 599, 637 A.2d 158, the court noted that several New Jersey Appellate Court decisions had already extended the Mimms rationale to passengers and approved those holdings by validating a police order to a passenger to exit the car and holding a subsequent pat-down to be reasonable. In doing so, the court cited numerous cases from other jurisdictions holding that because “a passenger presents as significant a danger to the safety of a police officer as a driver,” the officer may order the passenger out of the car. See Smith, supra, 637 A.2d at 164-165. The court, however, noted that the intrusion upon a passenger’s privacy is greater than upon that of a driver and upon that basis refused to apply a per se rule allowing passengers to be ordered out of vehicles in all traffic stops and under all circumstances. In my view, such caveat does not invalidate the action of the police officer here.
In another pre-Wilson case, People v. Robinson (1989), 74 N.Y.2d 773, 545 N.Y.S.2d 90, 543 N.E.2d 733, 734, cert. denied, 493 U.S. 966, 110 S.Ct. 411, 107 L.Ed.2d 376, the New York Court of Appeals presaged Wilson in holding that ordering passengers out of a car during a stop for a traffic violation was justified in that “the risks in these police/civilian vehicle encounters are the same whether the occupant is a driver or a passenger.”
As noted by the majority here, however, the Wilson court expressly declined to address the question of whether once ordered from the vehicle a passenger may be detained for the entire duration of the stop.
Be that as it may, the Wilson court itself gave us an indication of a prospective ruling in that it found “guidance by analogy” from Michigan v. Summers (1981) 452 U.S. 692, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 69 L.Ed.2d 340. Wilson, supra, 519 U.S. at 414, 117 S.Ct. at 886. In that case, the court upheld action by police who arrived to serve a search warrant and found Summers coming down the front steps of the residence. The decision held that the police could legitimately require Summers to re-enter the house and to remain while they,, conducted the search. In doing so, the court reasoned that “[t]he risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation.” Summers, supra, 452 U.S. at 702-03, 101 S.Ct. at 2594.
*1270Somewhat more directly and to the point, the Virginia Court of Appeals in Harris v. Commonwealth (1998), 27 Va.App. 554, 500 S.E.2d 257, 261, held that not only may a passenger be ordered from the vehicle but also the passenger may be forced to remain at the scene “to protect [the officers’] safety and maintain the status quo during the course of the investigatory traffic stop.”
In a case almost identical to that before us, People v. Gonzalez (1998), 184 Ill.2d 402, 235 Ill.Dec. 26, 704 N.E.2d 375, petition for cert. filed (U.S. Feb. 26,1999) (No. 98-8359), cited here by the majority, a police officer at 2:40 a.m. in a high crime area made a legitimate traffic stop. The defendant, a passenger, exited the ear and proceeded to leave the scene. The defendant ignored the officer’s command to return to the vehicle until the officer summoned his accompanying K-9 dog. When so confronted, the defendant obeyed the officer’s second demand to return to the vehicle. The officer asked the defendant if he was carrying any guns, needles or knives, a question to which defendant responded in the affirmative. The officer conducted a pat-down and discovered a gun in the front waist area of defendant’s pants.
The Illinois Supreme Court held as follows:
Thus, consistent with the rationale of Mimms and Wilson, we conclude in the cause at bar that, because the public interest in officer safety outweighs the potential intrusion to the passenger’s liberty interests, it is reasonable for a police officer to immediately instruct a passenger to remain at the car, when that passenger, of his own volition, exits the lawfully stopped vehicle at the outset of the stop. We find that because the same risk of harm to officers discussed in Mimms and Wilson is present where a passenger unexpectedly exits a lawfully stopped vehicle, the officer’s need to exercise “ ‘unquestioned command of the situation’ ” is likewise present, [internal citation omitted].
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Thus, our ruling today is in accordance with the trend of decisions that, based upon the rationale of Mimms and Wilson, it is reasonable for a police officer to control the movements of individuals during a traffic stop. Because “[w]e cannot allow the officer’s safety to depend on how fast the driver and passenger can get out of the vehicle after it has been stopped,” we find that ordering occupants to remain at the lawfully stopped vehicle “does no more than establish the status quo at the time of the stop.”
Gonzalez, supra at 382, 383 (quoting State v. Webster (1991), 170 Ariz. 372, 824 P.2d 768, 770, review denied).
I would hold the same in the case before us.
In light of my minority position with respect to the issue deemed dispositive by the majority, it would be an unproductive exercise for me to delineate my views concerning the validity vel non of the pat-dowm and discovery of the knife which contained cocaine.
Suffice it to say that I dissent with regard to the majority decision upon the sole issue considered.