Court Opinion

ID: 9584007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:43:47.076631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:26.272113
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COMPTON,
dissenting.
In determining whether police detention of a defendant constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, a court should take cognizance of the totality of the circumstances — the whole picture. Leeth v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 335, 340, 288 S.E.2d 475, 478 (1982). The picture the majority displays in this case is underexposed because a description of the circumstances surrounding the incident are not fully developed in its opinion.
The relevant facts are undisputed. The defendant was a 21-year-old college student who, with a young female friend, had stepped outside an apartment filled with people for a breath of fresh air at 11:45 p.m. The couple was standing on grass adjacent to a parking lot curb near a garbage container. Neither person was holding any sort of beverage or giving any indication of criminal activity. They were merely talking.
As the pair turned to walk back into the apartment building, a Town of Ashland police officer, responding to another officer’s information of “possible drunk in publics,” drove his police vehicle into the parking lot “loud and going fast” and shone a “big floodlight,” affixed to the side of the police vehicle, on the two pedestrians from a distance of 15 feet. The officer “call[ed] for them” and commanded, “you two, come over here.” Identifying the caller as a police officer, the students reacted to the display of authority and came “over” to the officer.
Viewing all the circumstances surrounding this incident, I submit that a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would not have believed that he was free to disregard the command of this police officer, and free to merely walk away. This is not, as the majority concludes, inoffensive contact between a member of the public and the police. Rather, given the defendant’s age, the proximity of the searchlight to the couple, and the other circumstances of the encounter, the contact was intimidating and amounted to impermissible harassment of private citizens who were minding their own business.
At the moment of the commotion caused by the arrival of the officer — loud and going fast — shining a big floodlight — from *20115 feet — the officer had no reasonable suspicion, based on objective facts, that the defendant was involved in criminal activity. See Zimmerman v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 609, 611-12, 363 S.E.2d 708, 709 (1988). It was only after the initial stop that the officer detected the smell of alcohol and the staggering.
Consequently, I believe that the investigatory stop was unlawful, that the motion to suppress should have been sustained, and that the charges against the defendant should have been dismissed.