Court Opinion

ID: 9672866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:01:59.055503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.617480
License: Public Domain

D. E. Holbrook, Jr., J.
(dissenting). In granting defendant’s motion to suppress, the trial judge noted that the preliminary examination transcript revealed no testimony by the police officer that he had any idea what the "dark colored object” was nor any testimony that the officer feared for his safety. Under these circumstances there was no probable cause for a warrantless automobile search and the evidence should be suppressed.
To justify a warrantless automobile search, there must be probable cause to believe that a felony has been or is being committed. People v Kuntze, 371 Mich 419; 124 NW2d 269 (1963), Peo*451ple v Strong, 77 Mich App 281, 284; 258 NW2d 205 (1977), People v Iverson, 34 Mich App 519, 526; 191 NW2d 745 (1971). To sustain a warrantless search, the burden is on the people to show the police acted with probable cause and in response to exigent circumstances, thus bringing the search under one of the specific exceptions to the warrant requirement. People v White, 392 Mich 404, 410; 221 NW2d 357 (1974), People v Strong, supra at 285.
The fact that the driver committed several traffic violations is totally irrelevant to a determination of whether the officer had probable cause to search the automobile. People v Ridgeway, 74 Mich App 306, 312; 253 NW2d 743 (1977), People v Strong, supra at 285. The lawfulness of the traffic stop is not a factor in determining whether there was probable cause to search. People v Nelson Pitts, 40 Mich App 567, 571-572; 199 NW2d 271 (1972), lv den 388 Mich 791 (1972).
The only possible basis for the search, therefore, is the fact that the defendant dropped an unidentified dark colored object into a hole in the backseat area. Such a mere "furtive gesture” does not create probable cause to search an automobile. People v Pitts, supra at 576. In the instant case, as in Pitts, the officer had no reason to believe the occupants of the auto possessed any contraband. The defendant could have been hiding any number of things from the police. As in Pitts, the officer here had to infer that the defendant’s actions were evasive and the officer had to infer the dark colored object was contraband. At most, the officer had a mere suspicion and mere suspicion is not probable cause. People v Pitts, supra at 579. Furtive gestures which raise a mere suspicion, without some additional specific knowledge on the part of *452the officer, are insufficient to justify the warrant-less search. People v Terrell, 77 Mich App 676, 680; 259 NW2d 187 (1977).
As noted above, the testimony of the police officer at the preliminary examination reveals he did not know what the object was. Further there was no testimony that the officer feared for his safety, so the search cannot be characterized, as the majority has done, as a "protective” search. If anything the placing of the pistol into a hole in the side of the car placed the officer in less danger than had the defendant kept the pistol in his waistband. I am aware of the potential dangers facing police officers in even routine traffic stops, Pennsylvania v Mimms, 434 US 106; 98 S Ct 330; 54 L Ed 2d 331 (1977), but here the record is barren as to any fears which would justify an immediate protective search of the auto.
I would affirm the trial court’s suppression of the illegally seized evidence.