Court Opinion

ID: 9846686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:45:26.318567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:43.490223
License: Public Domain

Adams; Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I do not believe that the stop was authorized by a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity.
An officer may briefly stop a vehicle to investigate only if the stop is justified by specific, articulable facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, that is, by “some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Postell v. State of Ga., 264 Ga. 249 (443 SE2d 628) (1994).
Martin v. State, 257 Ga. App. 435, 436-437 (571 SE2d 459) (2002).
The evidence showed that Howard was stopped only because he slowed down in front of a residence where police were attempting to serve an arrest warrant. Officer Siegel testified he stopped Howard for identification purposes after observing his vehicle come “almost [to] a complete stop” at the end of the driveway of the residence where he was attempting to serve the warrant. Although Siegel said Howard then “kind of took off,” he also testified that he followed Howard for a short time before stopping him, and there was no evidence that he was attempting to elude the officer or flee the scene. Rather, the officer testified that prior to the stop he did not observe Howard do anything illegal or violate any traffic laws. And other than gender, the officer had no information, such as a physical description of the person or his vehicle, that would point to Howard as the person he was seeking. The most the officer had, other than a name and address, he characterized as “nonchalant” information that the person might be driving a “pick-up with a trailer.” But Howard was not driving a “pick-up with a trailer,” and by the time the officer stopped Howard, he had run the vehicle tag and knew it was not registered to the person named in the warrant.
Although each case must turn on its own circumstances, we have previously upheld the grant of motions to suppress where the sole basis of the stop was to determine who was inside the vehicle. State v. Mallard, 246 Ga. App. 357, 361 (541 SE2d 46) (2000). In that case, *839police officers observed a vehicle leaving a residence where a search warrant was about to be executed, and they stopped the vehicle about one-half mile from the residence solely to determine whether the owner of the premises was inside the vehicle. The officers had no specific information about the car or its occupants, had no reason to believe the car belonged to the owner of the premises, and did not observe the driver of the vehicle or his passenger violate any traffic or other laws. Based on these circumstances, we concluded, inter alia, that the stop was not based on a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity and upheld the grant of the motions to suppress the evidence obtained following the stop. Id. at 364-365.
The majority holds, however, that Mallard is factually distinguishable because the officer in that case “stopped the car for the sole purpose of determining if the known owner of the residence about to be searched was in the car.” Id. at 357-358. I fail to see how this distinguishes it from the present case, since the officer here testified, “I wanted to stop him for identification purposes only truthfully, just to make sure he wasn’t the person I was looking for.”
Also instructive to our analysis here are the numerous other decisions in which our state appellate courts have considered whether the suspect’s behavior or information known to the officer established a particularized and objective basis for suspecting involvement in criminal activity necessary to justify the stop even though no specific criminal conduct, illegal activity, or violation of the law was observed. For example, in the following cases, either this Court or our Supreme Court concluded that the stop was not justified: Hughes v. State, 269 Ga. 258, 261 (1) (497 SE2d 790) (1998) (driving slowly around high crime area insufficient to justify stop); Martin v. State, 257 Ga. App. at 436-437 (denial of motion to suppress reversed when the only suspicious behavior officer observed was suspect not moving through intersection after traffic light turned green); Baker v. State, 256 Ga. App. 75, 77 (1) (567 SE2d 738) (2002) (denial of motion to suppress reversed where suspect observed turning down a difficult to traverse road in commercial area at night after businesses were closed); Holmes v. State, 252 Ga. App. 286, 288-289 (556 SE2d 189) (2001) (denial of motion to suppress reversed when officer observed suspect in a high crime area walk to the passenger side of car, change his mind about walking toward an apartment complex after he observed officers, and go and sit in what appeared to be an abandoned car); Smith v. State, 245 Ga. App. 613, 615 (538 SE2d 517) (2000) (stop not justified when suspect observed sitting in apartment parking lot late at night, who then left quickly as officer approached); State v. Winnie, 242 Ga. App. 228, 230-231 (529 SE2d 215) (2000) (grant of motion to suppress affirmed where suspect drove behind closed business at 4:00 a.m., but no criminal *840activity observed, and suspect was in the process of exiting parking lot at the time of the stop); Howden v. State, 240 Ga. App. 139, 141 (522 SE2d 279) (1999) (denial of motion to suppress reversed where suspect observed driving away from warehouse located in area known for criminal activity late at night); In the Interest of T. J. B., 237 Ga. App. 824, 825-826 (517 SE2d 77) (1999) (denial of motion to suppress reversed when evidence showed only that juvenile was deliberately avoiding contact with law enforcement in an area known for drug transactions); Attaway v. State, 236 Ga. App. 307, 309 (511 SE2d 635) (1999) (stop not justified when suspect observed driving several times around subdivision late at night). And equally instructive are the cases where this Court or our Supreme Court found the stop was justified: Garmon v. State, 271 Ga. 673, 677-678 (2) (524 SE2d 211) (1999) (officers had independent information that suspects observed leaving residence, where officers had reasonable belief illegal activities were occurring, were participating in those activities); Cox v. State, 263 Ga. App. 266 (587 SE2d 205) (2003) (officers observed defendant at 3:40 a.m. in a no-trespass-posted parking lot in an area plagued by burglaries, and evasive action taken upon approach of police cruiser); Evans v. State, 262 Ga. App. 712 (586 SE2d 400) (2003) (suspect appeared startled when he saw officer behind him, tried to evade officer, and then returned to his original route when officer no longer behind him).
Decided February 25, 2004
Head, Thomas, Webb & Willis, Thomas J. Thomas, for appellant.
Jason J. Deal, District Attorney, Lindsay H. Burton, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
In this case, I believe that although the circumstances may have been such that the officer would have been justified in following Howard in order to closely observe his activities to gain more information that would have either confirmed the officer’s suspicions that Howard was the person he was looking for or eliminated him as a suspect, the information known to the officer at the time of the stop did not provide a particularized and objective basis for suspecting Howard of illegal activity such that an investigatory stop was justified. Consequently, I would reverse the trial court’s denial of Howard’s motion to suppress.
I am authorized to state that Judge Barnes joins in this dissent.