Court Opinion

ID: 9587754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:25:53.464993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:32.734954
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
1. Appellant Garmon is barking up the wrong tree and thereby leading off the track for a proper resolution of his constitutional challenge to the car stop. He would find the prey of success if FritziusSummers1 were the proper tree.
I agree with Garmon and the dissenting opinion that the boundaries of reasonableness for police seizures set in Michigan v. Summers were exceeded by the police when they stopped Garmon several miles from the residence for which a warrant authorized a search. I did not join in the majority in Fritzius v. State, and in this case the facts express no more of a justifiable governmental interest indicating a need for the seizure than they did in Fritzius.
In fact, when the stop was made, the police did not know who the two people were or what connection they had with the residence they had just left. The no-knock warrant was for the “residence of Michael Joel Wilson” and “the motor vehicles on said premises . . . being in the possession and control of Michael Joel Wilson,” and if any named *678articles were found, they and “Michael Joel Wilson” were to be brought before a judicial officer. Thus, in the first place, the warrant itself did not encompass the seizure distanced from the residence and did not contemplate that the person was Wilson.
Secondly, none of the government interests identified in Summers was articulated by the police in this case, none of them appeared from the circumstances, and no others were offered other than that the decision had been made to stop any vehicles which left the house. But why? The question was not answered. The Fourth Amendment was compromised under a Michigan v. Summers analysis.
But that is not the end of the hunt for the proper constitutional quarry. Under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (88 SC 1868, 20 LE2d 889) (1968), the detention was a permissible vehicle stop.
“Although an officer may conduct a brief investigative stop of a vehicle, such a stop must be justified by specific, articulable facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct^] [See Terry v. Ohio.] Investigative stops of vehicles are analogous to Terry-stops, and are invalid if based upon only unparticularized suspicion or hunch. An investigatory stop must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity. This suspicion need not meet the standard of probable cause, but must be more than mere caprice or a hunch or an inclination.”2 The objective facts must indicate “a founded suspicion . . ., some basis from which the court can determine that the detention was not arbitrary or harassing.”3 Under Terry, “a police officer who lacks probable cause may momentarily detain a suspicious individual in.order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo while obtaining more information.”4
In Whren v. United States,5 the Supreme Court rejected a subjective test to determine reasonableness of a motor vehicle stop under the Fourth Amendment. What is stated by the officers as the reason for the stop is not determinative of its constitutionality.6 It depends on an evaluation of the objective facts surrounding the stop. Do they *679give rise to “at least articulable and reasonable suspicion” of criminal conduct so as to justify an investigative stop? If there are “specific, articulable facts sufficient to give rise to” such a suspicion, the stop is valid.7
Facts which gave rise to an articulable suspicion of criminal conduct occurring or having just occurred and involving at least the male occupant of the vehicle, who was seen driving, were at least these. The truck was stopped not more than 20 minutes after the police monitored a telephone conversation in which a Sammy and a Dan talked about their gambling and made a side bet. Based on information the police had from the IRS, they believed that Sammy was Sammy Joe Garmon, whom they had seen on a previous occasion at a pool hall conduct what appeared to be a drug sale. The name “Sammy” had come up in several of the telephone conversations monitored earlier in December. On one occasion, the resident of the house about to be searched told a requester of drugs that “he would have to wait until Sammy called him back.”
So, when a male person left the house where the gambling transaction had occurred moments earlier, in a truck belonging to a known drug dealer (Billy Joe Kilgore, who sold methamphetamine), the police could have a reasonable belief that he was either Sammy Garmon or Dan, the males who had engaged in the bet. If it was Sammy Garmon, there was a reasonable possibility that he would be in possession of drugs.
It would also be reasonable to believe, alternatively, that it was the owner of the truck, Kilgore, and because of his livelihood and their knowledge that Wilson, the resident of the house, liked drugs, that he possessed drugs in the vehicle or had just completed a drug delivery to Wilson.
Thirdly, considering the ongoing gambling operation that was known via the telephone monitoring, it was reasonable to believe that the persons leaving had information about it or were actually involved in it.
Stopping the vehicle two or three miles from the house rather than at the house was justifiable also. It was not, in this sense, a stale stop. Had the driver seen police closing in on him, he could have alerted the occupants of the house by horn blow or possibly by car phone that the police were on the premises. Much of the evidence of criminal activity which the police were authorized by the search warrant to seize could be quickly and easily destroyed. In addition, if *680police approached the truck while it was still visible from the house, this activity would have informed the occupant to police presence and allowed frustration of the search warrant’s execution. Even signaling the car to stop somewhere close to the house would not have allowed enough time for the other officers to announce their presence at the door with the warrant and secure the house for the search. A premature police car presence and activated blue light in the truck occupants’ view would have allowed the truck occupants to make a car phone call to the house before the police were ready to announce their presence. It would be reasonable to suspect that persons engaged in gambling or drug transactions might have a car phone.
Based on these objective facts, there was at least an articulable suspicion which warranted the stop and investigatory detention. The trial court is properly affirmed in this regard.
2. As to Division 2 of the majority opinion, I fully concur.

 Fritzius v. State, 225 Ga. App. 642 (484 SE2d 743) (1997); Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (101 SC 2587, 69 LE2d 340) (1981).

 (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Jorgensen v. State, 207 Ga. App. 545, 546 (428 SE2d 440) (1993).

 (Citations and punctuation omitted.) State v. McFarland, 201 Ga. App. 495, 496 (411 SE2d 314) (1991).

 State v. Corbett, 205 Ga. App. 554, 556 (423 SE2d 38) (1992).

 517 U. S. 806 (116 SC 1769, 135 LE2d 89) (1996).

 United States v. McKie, 951 F2d 399, 402 (II) (D.C. Cir. 1991): “Terry requires only that the facts establishing reasonable suspicion be ‘articulable’ •— as opposed to ‘inchoate’ — not that the officer making the stop precisely and individually articulate the facts that added up to suspicion in his mind. The Terry standard being one of objective reasonableness, we are not limited to what the stopping officer says or to evidence of his subjective rationale; rather, we look to the record as a whole to determine what facts were known to the officer and then *679consider whether a reasonable officer in those circumstances would have been suspicious. [Cit.f

 Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 663 (99 SC 1391, 59 LE2d 660) (1979); Johnson v. State, 230 Ga. App. 535, 537 (1) (496 SE2d 785) (1998); United States v. McKie, supra.