Court Opinion

ID: 9789004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:24:26.213196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:18.493786
License: Public Domain

Greene, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully depart from the majority to note that this case may be a high watermark in affirming a finding of reasonable suspicion based solely on the hunch of an officer “with training and experience in enforcing drug crimes” who is working in “a high crime area.” I respectfully suggest that, whereas we formerly refused to endorse reasonable suspicion based on a mere hunch, the majority does so in this case because the hunch was that of a “trained and experienced” officer. In other words, a hunch may not support reasonable suspicion, but the hunch of an officer of undefined but adequate training and experience can indeed support reasonable suspicion. My fear is that the majority moves us ever closer to a purely subjective test for reasonable suspicion, abandoning the need to rely on objective factors.
Analyzing the district court’s conclusion, the factors supporting reasonable suspicion can fairly be itemized as follows: (i) high crime area; (ii) defendant’s “suspicious conduct” (unexplained by the officer); (iii) the manner in which the defendant made contact (gen*26erally, when individuals in two separate vehicles make contact with each other, one of them exits a vehicle and walks to the other vehicle); (iv) the time of night (11:45 p.m. — the gas stations were open for business, thus demonstrating that normal commerce supports activity at this hour); (v) the duration of time the defendant was in the other vehicle (“short”); and (vi) the training and experience of the officer. As conceded by the majority, this was conduct that “was not on its face illegal and could have been innocent.” (Emphasis added.) Because the majority has conceded this synthesis of the objective factors, I need not further address their innocence. It was only the “trained eye” of the officer that turned such innocent activity into reasonable suspicion a crime had been committed.
How far will we go with this “trained officer” in a “high crime area” exception to reasonable suspicion based on a hunch? First, we should examine the evidence in the record of this officer’s “training and experience.” I do not intend to demean the credentials of the arresting officer, but the evidence of his experience boils down to this: (i) “been to a couple of street narcotics schools”; (ii) attended the DEA’s Operation Pipeline School that “deals with large amount of narcotics that travels on the interstates”; (iii) before being promoted to sergeant, the officer averaged four to five drug arrests per month over a 7-year period; and (iv) the officer was unable to identify the last time he made a drug arrest in tins “high crime area.” Is this sufficient training and experience? What objective standard shall we employ in making this determination? Is it enough for the officer to have only that training and experience that exceeds that of a reasonable prudent person? What guidance have we offered to district courts to assess this factor? The point is that in relying on the general fact of the officer’s “training and experience,” the majority has abandoned any anchor in an objective standard.
Second, we should examine the evidence in the record of the “high crime area.” At the outset, of course, it should be acknowledged that mere presence in a high crime area is insufficient to create reasonable suspicion. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 61 L. Ed. 2d 357, 99 S. Ct. 2637 (1979); State v. Anguiano, 37 Kan. *27App. 2d 202, 151 P.3d 857 (2007). More important for the case before us, when pressed about what arrest records might show in the way of drug arrests at the locations in question here, the officer admitted that “if you put in the address of the Texaco and the address of the Phillips 66,1 doubt you are going to get a whole lot of narcotic stuff, because most [of the arrests are not there.” (Emphasis added.) Although records were later produced showing actual arrests within a 16 block area including these locations, the focus must be on the officers basis for suspicion when he made the stop; obviously, his belief that few if any arrests had been made at these locations belies at least to some extent his reliance on “high crime area” in his formation of reasonable suspicion. Thus, I conclude we have litde more than: (i) innocent activity; (ii) in what the officer did not believe was the precise area of frequent drug arrests; (iii) but perceived by him as suspicious because he used to be (but no longer is) involved in drug arrests and once attended three seminars having some reference to drug interdiction.
The majority’s reliance on Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968), is not persuasive. In Terry, there was objective evidence of suspicious conduct to support the stop; as related in the Court’s opinion:
“[The officer] saw one of the men leave the other one and walk southwest on Huron Road, past some stores. The man paused for a moment and looked in a store window, then walked on a short distance, turned around and walked back toward the comer, pausing once again to look in the same store window. He rejoined his companion at the comer, and the two conferred briefly. Then the second man went through the same series of motions, strolling down Huron Road, looking in the same window, walking on a short distance, turning back, peering in the store window again, and returning to confer with the first man at the comer. The two men repeated this ritual alternately between five and six times apiece— in all, roughly a dozen trips. At one point, while the two were standing together on the comer, a third man approached them and engaged them briefly in conversation. This man then left the two others and walked west on Euclid Avenue. [The first two men] resumed their measured pacing, peering, and conferring. After this had gone on for 10 to 12 minutes, the two men walked off together, heading west on Euclid Avenue, following the path taken earlier by the third man.” 392 U.S. at 6.
I respectfully suggest that this is not like what we have before us; comparing the two scenarios, anyone would say the Terry facts *28appear suspicious (the officer said it appeared they were “casing a job for a stick-up”) whereas even the majority concedes that the facts before us — standing alone — appear to be innocent conduct “to an untrained eye.” The difference for the majority here was the “training and experience” of the officer. This is wtyere the objective standard of Terry has been transformed into an unfettered license for liberty deprivation to an officer of requisite “training and experience.” The court in Terry, however, specified the objective test as follows:
“[I]n making that assessment [of reasonableness] it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that the action taken was appropriate? ... ‘If subjective good faith alone were the test, the protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ only in the discretion of the police.” (Emphasis added.) Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22.
This objective standard was reiterated in the case cited by the majority, Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570, 120 S. Ct. 673 (2000) (“the determination of reasonable suspicion must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior”).
Once we endorse a subjective standard, based on a rather undefined claim of “training and experience,” we vest more power in the officer than we do in a magistrate reviewing an affidavit for probable cause. If the officer has sufficient “training and experience” (whatever that may be), his hunch trumps any objective factor, and the protection of the Fourth Amendment is eviscerated. Just as the majority has endorsed in this case, where the officer is sufficiently “trained,” he or she may stop a citizen involved in what appears to be purely innocent conduct so long as the officer subjectively believes that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed.
I concede that the majority’s emphasis on the “training and experience” of the officer is not of its own making; even the Court in Terry indicated that reasonable action is to be determined by the “specific reasonable inferences” the officer is entitled to draw “in light of his experience.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 27. Our Supreme *29Court has recently emphasized the “officer’s capabilities” in endorsing reasonable suspicion. See State v. Moore, 283 Kan. 344, 154 P.3d 1 (2007). Nevertheless, I argue that neither the United States Supreme Court in Terry nor our Supreme Court in Moore ever intended that the officer’s “training and experience” should itself be a factor in the determination, and it certainly should not be the determinative factor in an otherwise close case. In fact, it is clear from the Terry Court’s analysis that the court is to make its determination of reasonableness based upon what a “reasonably prudent man would have been warranted in believing” from the specific and articulable facts. Terry, 392 U.S. at 28. And our Supreme Court has oft embraced this standard, stating “ ‘ “we judge the officer’s conduct in light of common sense and ordinary human experience.” ’ ” Moore, 283 Kan. at 354. I contend we should be vigilant in maintaining this objective criteria and assure that our deference to an officer’s training not eclipse the centrality of an objective standard.
Let me make clear the slippery slope upon which the majority would launch our reasonable suspicion analyses: so long as the officer effecting the stop is sufficiently trained and experienced, his affirmative statement that he alone perceived that a crime had been, was being, or would be committed is sufficient to support reasonable suspicion for purposes of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if the objective facts would appear to reflect totally innocent conduct to a reasonable prudent person. I truly fear that this development will serve to license unbridled deprivation of the comprehensive right of personal liberty intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment.
I respectfully dissent and would reverse the district court’s denial of Cook’s suppression motion.