Court Opinion

ID: 9780873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 03:05:47.039323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:15.401709
License: Public Domain

McFADDEN, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority opinion takes liberties with the evidence. When the majority finds Officer Spahr’s testimony convenient, it accords his opinion unwarranted deference. When it finds his testimony as to a different opinion inconvenient, it disregards his testimony and ascribes to him an opinion exactly opposite of the one he expressed. I therefore respectfully dissent.
Officer Spahr lacked authority to conduct the pat-down; and Johnson’s consent to the subsequent search that turned up the drugs was not freely and voluntarily given, but rather was tainted by the illegal pat-down. Therefore, the trial court should have granted Johnson’s motion to suppress, and I would reverse his conviction.
1. Although I agree with the majority that the applicable standard is de novo review, I begin with analysis of the standard of review in order to respond to Chief Judge Mikell’s special concurrence. Normally “a trial court’s ruling on disputed facts and credibility at a suppression hearing must be accepted on appeal unless clearly erroneous.” Stale v. Palmer, 285 Ga. 75, 79 (673 SE2d 237) (2009), citing Petty v. State, 283 Ga. 268, 269 (2) (658 SE2d 599) (2008). “But where, as here, the facts are not in dispute and no findings were made by the trial court, the appellate court owes no deference to the trial court’s ruling and the standard of review is de novo.” Palmer, 285 Ga. at 79, citing Vansant v. State, 264 Ga. 319 (1) (443 SE2d 474) (1994).
Notwithstanding Chief Judge Mikell’s objection, Palmer mandates de novo review in the present case. Palmer may not be distinguished on the basis that the evidence here includes testimony. It is true that our Supreme Court has held that a “trier of fact can choose to reject even ‘undisputed’ testimony if that factfinder believes that witness’ testimony to be unreliable.” Tate v. State, 264 Ga. 53, 56 (3), n. 5 (440 SE2d 646) (1994). But in Palmer, as here, an arresting officer testified at the suppression hearing; and the Supreme Court reversed our application of “a deferential standard of review to the trial court’s findings.” 285 Ga. at 77. See also State v. Underwood, 283 Ga. 498, 500 (661 SE2d 529) (2008) (“The Court of Appeals applied the wrong *145standard of review to the trial court’s judgment. In cases such as this, where the facts relevant to a suppression motion are undisputed, the proper standard of review on appeal is de novo, not clearly erroneous.”), reversing State v. Underwood, 285 Ga. App. 640, 642 (647 SE2d 338) (2007) (“Based on our review of the hearing transcript and . . . construing that evidence to support the trial court’s findings, as we must on appeal, we cannot say that finding was clearly erroneous. Tate v. State, 264 Ga. 53 (1)[.]”).
Nor is there support for the Chief Judge’s position in Miller v. State, 288 Ga. 286 (702 SE2d 888) (2010). It is true, as he points out, that the first paragraph of that opinion clearly holds that this court had erred in applying de novo review. But the body of the opinion makes equally clear the basis for that holding. Justice Melton “focus[ed] on the facts found by the trial court in its order,” (emphasis in original) id. at 287, including the trial court’s “overt[ ] . . . credibility determination.” Id. at 288. According to Justice Melton’s majority opinion, the trial court’s order repeatedly and “explicitly addresses the unreliability of [the arresting officer’s] testimony,” id. at 288, and contains language that “is overtly a credibility determination.” Thus, Justice Melton concluded, the clearly erroneous standard of review applied “in [that] case.” Id. at 289.
Contrary to Chief Judge Mikell, Miller dovetails with Palmer, supra, 285 Ga. 75. As detailed above, Palmer mandates de novo review where “the facts are not in dispute and no findings were made by the trial court.” (Emphasis supplied.) 285 Ga. at 79. I therefore reject Chief Judge Mikell’s argument that Miller implicitly overruled Palmer and Underwood, 285 Ga. App. 640. Palmer and Underwood are distinguishable on their facts from Miller. It follows that Miller did not overrule them by implication. See, e.g., Boring v. State, 303 Ga. App. 576, 580-581 (2) (694 SE2d 157) (2010) (declining to find that a case overruled others by implication when the cases were factually distinguishable).
Where, as here, none of the evidence is contradicted and the trial court makes no findings of fact, the appellate courts face the potentially difficult question whether the trial court nevertheless disbelieved some of that testimony. By expressly setting out such credibility determinations, trial courts can assure their findings of fact will receive the deference on appeal to which they are entitled.
2. I now turn to the question whether Officer Spahr had constitutionally adequate grounds to conduct the pat-down search. I would find that the state did not meet its burden of establishing that Officer Spahr reasonably suspected that Johnson was armed and dangerous or otherwise a threat to his personal safety. So Officer Spahr did not have constitutionally adequate grounds for the pat-down.
*146“There are three levels of police-citizen encounters: (1) consensual police-citizen communication that involves no coercion or detention; (2) brief investigatory stops that must be supported by reasonable suspicion; and (3) arrests, which must be supported by probable cause.” (Citation omitted.) State v. Baker, 261 Ga. App. 258, 259 (582 SE2d 133) (2003). Officer Spahr’s encounter with Johnson, which included the pat-down, was a second-tier encounter. Id. To be constitutional, a second-tier encounter requires reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is engaged in criminal activity. Chapman v. State, 279 Ga. App. 200, 202 (630 SE2d 810) (2006). Pat-downs, a subset of second-tier encounters, require, in addition, reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and presently dangerous. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 27 (III) (88 SC 1868, 20 LE2d 889) (1968).
Before an officer places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. If an officer conducts a pat-down for weapons without sufficient justification, any evidence discovered is inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. Constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for a pat-down for weapons for officer or bystander safety are present when, based on particular and articulable facts, the officer actually and reasonably suspects that the individual is armed and dangerous or is otherwise a threat to personal safety.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Santos v. State, 306 Ga. App. 772, 774 (1) (703 SE2d 140) (2010). A pat-down is constitutionally permissible under the Fourth Amendment if it is “supported by a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and presently dangerous. ...” (Punctuation omitted.) Molina v. State, 304 Ga. App. 93, 95 (695 SE2d 656) (2010), citing Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85, 92-93 (II) (100 SC 338, 62 LE2d 238) (1979).
The state has the burden of proving that the pat-down was lawful. Molina, 304 Ga. App. at 95. That burden entails proving that the officer reasonably believed the suspect to have been “armed or otherwise dangerous.” Lewis v. State, 307 Ga. App. 593, 595 (705 SE2d 693) (2011); Meadows v. State, 303 Ga. App. 40, 42 (1) (692 SE2d 708) (2010). See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. at 7. The majority correctly notes that a second-tier encounter is authorized if the officer has reasonable suspicion “that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.” United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417 (II) (A) (101 SC 690, 66 LE2d 621) (1981). See also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. at 16-19. As a practical matter, a reasonable *147suspicion that a person is about to be engaged in criminal activity often encompasses a reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous. Officer Spahr’s testimony was not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion either that Johnson was armed or otherwise dangerous or that he was about to engage in criminal activity.
Officer Spahr articulated no particular facts from which he could have reasonably drawn either inference. Officer Spahr testified that he decided to pat down Johnson because of his presence, at 3:00 a.m., in the parking lot of a shopping center at which an armed robbery had occurred a few weeks earlier. He explained that
[t]he purpose of that is at the time that I conducted the Terry pat-down, I was one of the only officers on the scene, and so just for my safety dealing with the subject one-on-one at that time of night in this situation where it may have been an armed robbery or something like that about to occur, then I just feel that for my safety I need to pat the subject down and make sure he doesn’t have any weapons upon his person.
But that is not a sufficient reason. See State v. Hopper, 293 Ga. App. 220, 222 (666 SE2d 735) (2008) (“A person’s mere presence in a high crime area does not give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, even if police observe conduct which they believe consistent with a general pattern of such activity.”).
Unable to find sufficient support in the officer’s testimony, the majority turns to the written police reports, which were stipulated into evidence. Attempting to justify reliance on those reports, the majority misreads United States v. Arvizu, 534 U. S. 266, 273 (122 SC 744, 151 LE2d 740) (2002). It correctly quotes the holding in Arvizu that de novo review entails consideration of the ability of trained and experienced officers to draw inferences “that might well elude an untrained person.” And it is true that this court has recognized that de novo review authorizes us “to give due weight to inferences drawn from [the historical] facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers.” Higdon v. State, 261 Ga. App. 729, 733 (a) (583 SE2d 556) (2003) (quoting Ornelas v. United States, 517 U. S. 690, 699 (116 SC 1657, 134 LE2d 911) (1996)). But the majority’s analysis exceeds the outer limits of those propositions. As the United States Supreme Court held in Ornelas, de novo review is not compatible with “a policy of sweeping deference.” 517 U. S. at 697. And'we have held that the inferences drawn must be specific, articulable and based on fact. Higdon, 261 Ga. App. at 733. The United States Supreme Court persuasively illustrated the sort of inference to which deference is authorized in Arvizu, supra, 534 U. S. 266.
*148We think it quite reasonable that a driver’s slowing down, stiffening of posture, and failure to acknowledge a sighted law enforcement officer might well be unremarkable in one instance (such as a busy San Francisco highway) while quite unusual in another (such as a remote portion of rural southeastern Arizona). [The searching officer] was entitled to make an assessment of the situation in light of his specialized training and familiarity with the customs of the area’s inhabitants.
Id. at 275-276. See also Higdon, 261 Ga. App. at 733, quoting Ornelas, 517 U. S. at 700 (“To a layman(, for example, a) loose panel below the back seat armrest in (an) automobile . . . may suggest only wear and tear, but to (an experienced officer), who (has) searched roughly 2,000 cars for narcotics, it suggests that drugs may be secreted inside the panel. An appeals court should give due weight to a trial court’s finding that the officer was credible and the inference was reasonable.”).
It follows that the majority errs in holding that we should defer to Officer Spahr’s testimony “that he suspected another armed robbery was possibly about to occur” simply because of his “experience and specialized training.” We may not accord the officer such “sweeping deference.” See Ornelas, 517 U. S. at 697.
Officer Spahr did not testify about any circumstances that he observed that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that an armed robbery was about to occur or that any other crime had occurred or was about to occur. There is no evidence connecting Johnson to the earlier robbery at the restaurant or, apart from the simple possession for which he has been convicted, to any other criminal conduct.
Relying on the brief summaries of the restaurant employee’s initial telephone report set out in the officers’ written reports, the majority notes that Johnson had been seen “loitering or hiding behind the restaurant.” Cf. OCGA § 16-11-36 (setting out the elements of the misdemeanor of loitering). But when the officer approached Johnson, he was walking toward the open grocery store at the other side of the shopping center. As detailed above, Johnson gave the officer an explanation of his presence, and the officer testified that he found that explanation “probable.” The majority would reject the officer’s unambiguous sworn testimony. Instead it examines the one-sentence summary of Johnson’s explanation in the officer’s written report — “When asked what he was doing in the shopping center the subject stated that he lived off of Pinehurst View Court and had come to the shopping center to get the phone number of a cab company.” — and declares that explanation to be “improb*149able” and to be a basis for “heightened] reasonable suspicion.”
The majority’s construction of the evidence is unsustainable. Having sought to over-extend the principle that we may defer to certain inferences drawn by experienced, trained officers, the majority pivots and cites the countervailing rule that reasonable-suspicion analysis is objective and not controlled by the officers’ state of mind. See Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 404 (126 SC 1943, 164 LE2d 650) (2006); Johnson v. State, 299 Ga. App. 474, 478 (682 SE2d 601) (2009). The difficulty with applying that rule here is that the only evidence in this record is Officer Spahr’s testimony and written report and Officer Rankin’s written report. The majority rejects Officer Spahr’s testimony and forms his own contrary conclusion on the basis of Officer Spahr’s written report.
The single relevant sentence in Officer Spahr’s report is too slender a reed to support the weight the majority would attach to it. More fundamentally, especially given the limited information in this record, the officer’s determination that Johnson’s explanation was “probable” is the sort of inference to which we should defer. See Higdon, 261 Ga. App. 729; see also Arvizu, 534 U. S. 266; Ornelas, 517 U. S. 690.
Both the majority and the Chief Judge find unconvincing Johnson’s explanation of his conduct, as that explanation is reflected in Officer Spahr’s report. I agree that what Officer Spahr wrote is unconvincing. He provides no details of the explanation. He does not explain why he found it “probable.” But, as detailed above, notwithstanding the majority’s and Chief Judge’s determination to misunderstand him, Officer Spahr’s testimony made it clear that he found it so.
And the majority would substitute its judgment not only for the officer’s but also for that of the prosecuting attorney, who having had the opportunity to confer with the officer, chose not to elicit additional testimony about Johnson’s explanation or about the officer’s reasons for finding it credible.
Our Supreme Court has rejected the majority’s approach. See Miller, 288 Ga. at 290 (“the dissent’s analysis requires it to make credibility determinations not made by the trial court”); Palmer, 285 Ga. at 79 (because “the facts are not in dispute and no findings were made by the trial court, . . . the standard of review is de novo”). We cannot deem the state’s burden of proof to have been satisfied simply by invoking the trial court’s authority to disbelieve the state’s own witness.
Chief Judge Mikell would go even further. Invoking “subtle differences in dialect or habits of speech” and local “jargon,” he proposes that we defer to the trial court’s possible determination that Officer Spahr did not mean what he plainly said. If this court *150were authorized to decide cases on the basis of speculation about hidden meanings in plain language, there would be no such thing as principled appellate review.
If we were policy makers writing on a blank slate, we would be free to adopt a policy that would authorize a pat-down when a lone officer questions someone who seems to match a suspicious-person report at 3:00 in the morning. And respect for the dangers inherent in police work might lead us to do so. But we are not policy makers writing on a blank slate. And there are countervailing considerations. As our Supreme Court reminded us in Vansant, when it reversed us and reinstated a trial court’s grant of a motion to suppress:
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.
Vansant, 264 Ga. at 321, citing Terry, 392 U. S. 1.
3. Since the pat-down was illegal, the relevant question becomes whether Johnson’s consent to the subsequent search that turned up the drugs was voluntarily given and not the product of the illegal pat-down. Contrary to Chief Judge Mikell, the legality of the Terry stop itself is not at issue; so there is no reason to discuss whether the consent was also a product of the Terry stop. As to the relevant question, the state failed to meet its burden of proof.
Officer Spahr did not discover the MDMA during the illegal pat-down. Officer Rankin found the drugs when he conducted a search pursuant to Johnson’s consent. The question, then, is “whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.” (Punctuation omitted.) McKinney v. State, 261 Ga. App. 218, 219 (2) (582 SE2d 463) (2003). “[I]n order to eliminate any taint from an involuntary seizure or arrest, there must be proof both that the consent was voluntary and that it was not the product of the illegal detention.” (Emphasis supplied.) Brown v. State, 188 Ga. App. 184, 187 (372 SE2d 514) (1988). Simply put, the state must prove not only that Johnson’s consent was voluntary but also that his consent was not the product of the illegal pat-down. See State v. Poppell, 277 Ga. 595, 597 (3) (592 SE2d 838) (2004).
Johnson argues that he did not freely and voluntarily give his consent because he was surrounded by three officers, one of whom *151had already conducted the illegal pat-down, and he was not told that he could leave. In other words, Johnson contends that the encounter had not de-escalated into a first-tier encounter, and therefore his consent was not voluntary. See State v. McMichael, 276 Ga. App. 735, 737 (1) (624 SE2d 212) (2005).
The [s]tate has the burden of proving that the consent was freely and voluntarily given under the totality of the circumstances. The crucial test is whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Davis v. State, 306 Ga. App. 185, 188 (2) (702 SE2d 14) (2010).
To determine whether the encounter became consensual, the courts must look to the totality of the circumstances in determining whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave. A nonexhaustive list of factors that have been identified by courts in making this determination includes the existence and nature of any prior seizure; whether there was a clear and expressed endpoint to any such prior detention; the character of police presence and conduct in the encounter under review (for example — the number of officers, whether they were uniformed, whether police isolated subjects, physically touched them or directed their movement, the content or manner of interrogatories or statements, and “excesses” factors stressed by the United States Supreme Court); geographic, temporal and environmental elements associated with the encounter; and the presence or absence of express advice that the citizen-subject was free to decline the request for consent to search. In general, a full examination must be undertaken of all coercive aspects of the police-citizen interaction.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) McMichael, 276 Ga. App. at 737-738.
The only testimony about Johnson’s consent was Officer Spahr’s testimony that, “Officer Rankin asked for consent to search the person — or the subject person for narcotics. The subjéct’s reply was, yes he could search his person. . . . And he consented to the search.” Officer Rankin did not testify at the hearing. Officer Spahr testified that nothing led him to believe that Johnson objected to the request. Johnson never asked if he could leave, nor did any of the officers tell *152him he was free to leave. Given that Johnson had just been subjected to an illegal pat-down search; that there had been no clear endpoint to that illegal detention; that Johnson, alone in a parking lot at 3:00 a.m., was then encircled by three uniformed and armed officers, who continued to question him; that another officer then requested his consent to another, more intrusive search of his person; and that the officers did not advise Johnson that he was free to leave or free to decline consent, I conclude that the police conduct would not have communicated to a reasonable person that he was at liberty simply to ignore the officers and go about his business. Accordingly, I would hold that the state did not satisfy its burden of showing that Johnson freely and voluntarily consented to the search.
Further, I would hold that Johnson’s consent was tied to the illegal pat-down. “The relevant factors [in making this determination] include the temporal proximity of an illegal seizure and consent, intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.” Brown, 188 Ga. App. at 187. Officer Spahr continued his conversation with Johnson after the illegal pat-down, never telling Johnson that he could leave, and the other officers arrived, asking the same questions that Officer Spahr had just asked. During this questioning, Johnson gave his consent.
[Tjhere was no significant lapse of time between the unlawful detention and the consent [, and] no intervening circumstances dissipated the effect of the unlawful detention. . . . Therefore, we [should] hold that the consent was the product of the illegal detention, and that the taint of the unreasonable [pat-down] was not sufficiently attenuated.
Id.
Chief Judge Mikell’s special concurrence asserts, at Division 2, that “any initial taint” arising out of the pat-down “was dissipated by the fact that,” when he asked Johnson to consent to another, more intrusive search, Officer Rankin “was apparently unaware of the initial pat-down.” The Chief Judge’s special concurrence goes on to charge that our analysis disregards causation and therefore constitutes an unwarranted and unprecedented extension of the exclusionary rule. He is mistaken on both counts. Both of his mistakes arise from a misunderstanding of the core legal issue before us. The Chief Judge erroneously confines his analysis to the motives and knowledge of the second officer. It is true, of course, that considerations relating to officers’ motives and incentives underlie much Fourth Amendment law. But the core legal issue before us is whether the state met its burden of proving “both that the consent [to the second, more intrusive search] was voluntary and that it was *153not the product of the illegal detention.” Brown, 188 Ga. App. at 187. Our application of that standard has entailed analysis of the relevant chain of causation; but contrary to the Chief Judge’s analysis, that chain does not run through Officer Rankin’s knowledge and motivations.
Decided December 1, 2011.
Marvin E Hicks III, for appellant.
Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Richard A. Vandever, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Arguing that the pat-down did not taint Johnson’s consent to the subsequent search, the majority cites Langston v. State, 302 Ga. App. 541, 544, n. 3 (691 SE2d 349) (2010) and St. Fleur v. State, 296 Ga. App. 849, 850 (676 SE2d 243) (2009). Those cases are not on point. Although both involve pat-downs, both arose in a significantly different context — the expansion of traffic stops. In the former, the officer examined Langston’s license and rental agreement and inquired about the rental agreement’s apparent expiration. In the latter “St. Fleur [argued] that the search of his vehicle was rendered illegal despite the drug dog’s ‘alert,’ because the dog sniff and subsequent search followed an unjustified pat-down frisk of his person.” St. Fleur, 296 Ga. App. at 852 (2). Neither case sheds any light on the application of the factors identified in McMichael, 276 Ga. App. at 735, and Brown, 188 Ga. App. at 184, to the present case. Their only apparent relevance is that both note that a pat-down search takes only a few seconds. But if that is the majority’s argument, it proves too much. Brevity notwithstanding, an illegal pat-down search can taint subsequent consent to an additional search. See Debord v. State, 276 Ga. App. 110, 114 (622 SE2d 460) (2005).
For these reasons, the trial court should have granted Johnson’s motion to suppress, his conviction should be reversed, and I respectfully dissent.