Court Opinion

ID: 9756063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:06:05.135259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:14.455635
License: Public Domain

KELLEHER, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority’s opinion, as far as it relates to the detention of Lanoue’s vehicle, causes one to wonder whether it emanated from the same court that only two months ago decided the case of State v. Halstead, R.I., 414 A.2d 1138 (1980). In Halstead, an automobile-stop case, we also addressed the question of whether a police officer possessed an articulable and reasonable suspicion that the occupants of a motor vehicle were engaged in criminal conduct. Although I concede that my colleagues have correctly determined that this reasonable-suspicion test is applicable to the facts presented by the case before us, I believe that they have applied the test in a manner that runs contrary to both its underlying theory and purpose.
Following a lengthy review of the relevant cases, we concluded in Halstead that before a police officer may justifiably detain a vehicle for investigatory purposes, she or he must be able to articulate objective factors leading to a reasonable suspicion that “ ‘either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law.’ ” State v. Halstead, R.I., 414 A.2d at 1147, quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1401, 59 L.Ed.2d 660, 673 (1979). We also noted that this test, based on the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court in such cases as Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975), is predicated upon a balancing of the governmental interest in crime prevention and detection against the right of an individual to be free from unwarranted police intrusion. In determining whether an officer possesses the requisite articulable facts and reasonable suspicion, we examine the totality of the circumstances, keeping in mind that the reasonable-suspicion standard should not be considered in a vacuum, but rather from the viewpoint of a “prudent, reasonable police officer in light of the facts known to him at the time of the detention.” State v. Halstead, R.I., 414 A.2d at 1148.
Applying these legal principles to the facts presented in Halstead, we examined the actions of two officers of the Rahway, New Jersey, police department to determine if they were justified in detaining for purposes of investigation the vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger. While parked at an intersection in a high-crime area at 4:30 a. m., these officers observed the defendant and his companion traveling in a Ryder rental truck with Georgia plates. As they passed through the intersection at a speed of fifteen to twenty miles per hour below the speed limit, the two men stared at the police for approximately five seconds. The officers were surprised to see a rental truck in that area so late at night and thought that the speed of the vehicle was unusual. Suspecting that something was up, the officers followed the truck for a short distance before directing the driver to pull it over to the side of the road.
The incorporation of these circumstances into the reasonable-suspicion test led to our conclusion that
“[tjhese facts, when considered from the vantage point of an experienced police officer whose duty it is to be attuned to unusual circumstances, could very well create a reasonable suspicion that the occupants of the truck were engaged in *296some sort of criminal activity. The personal knowledge and experience of the officers are important factors that may allow an officer reasonably to infer from observation of otherwise innocuous conduct that criminal activity is imminent or is taking place. In light of the officers’ knowledge of the character of the neighborhood and of the usual traffic patterns for that time of night, as well as the unusual behavior of the occupants, we believe that their suspicions were reasonable. * * * Given the reasonable suspicion that the officers possessed, in this instance the state’s interest in crime detection outweighed the individual’s right to be free from the intrusions on his liberty that accompanied the investigatory stop.” Id. 414 A.2d at 1148-49.
Comparing the facts of Halstead to those of the ease before us, I am of the firm belief that the articulable facts available to Officer Calabro prior to his detention of Lanoue’s automobile make out a stronger case for reasonable suspicion than did those facts available to the New Jersey officers. At four o’clock in the morning, Calabro was traveling east on Division Street in the industrial area of Pawtucket when he observed three men in a 1968 Mercury driving south on Industrial Highway. The vehicle pulled out in front of him, turned left onto Division Street, and crossed over a set of railroad tracks. Calabro surmised that the Mercury was heavily loaded, for the back end scraped the tracks, causing sparks to fly. As the Mercury proceeded over the tracks, a passenger in the back seat looked back at the patrol car. His suspicions aroused, Calabro attempted to follow this vehicle as it proceeded to the end of Division Street and turned right onto York Avenue. Calabro testified that he waited for a truck to pass and proceeded to York Avenue, but
“the vehicle had vanished. I couldn’t find it. * * * I took the first left off York Avenue, went down to Burgess Street, and it just happened that their vehicle came out two streets * * * farther south than mine, but running parallel with me. * * * At that time they took a right and I took a right and they took a left. I also took a left, and we proceeded now toward Newport Avenue.”
During these maneuvers, Calabro noticed that the passenger in the back seat continued to turn around and look back. Calabro stated that before he signaled the vehicle to pull over, it appeared as though the driver was attempting to elude him.
Thus, in this case the officer observed three men in a heavily laden vehicle traveling at 4 a. m. in an industrial area. Although the majority refers to these facts in the opinion, it overlooks the fact that the back-seat passenger, after his initial backward glance, continued to look back at the patrol car, as well as Officer Calabro’s belief that the Mercury was attempting to elude him. Given the set of circumstances described by Calabro under oath, I am perplexed by the majority’s statement that Calabro’s decision to stop the vehicle was “apparently based solely on the fact that at the time he first spotted the Mercury, the back of the car was overweighted and struck the railroad tracks.” (Emphasis added.) This conclusion must be considered in light of the majority’s comment that “[o]f course, the sight of a heavily weighted car could combine with other specific objective facts, which taken together in certain circumstances, could support a reasonable suspicion.” This comment takes on added significance when one considers the numerous factors related by Officer Calabro in describing his efforts to keep the Mercury under surveillance as he and Lanoue played a game of motorized hide-and-seek.
Measuring the suppression-hearing evidence against the standards set forth in Halstead and the United States Supreme Court cases upon which this decision rests, I can only conclude that an officer such as patrolman Calabro could reasonably suspect that the trio in the Mercury were leaving with the loot after burglarizing one of the many manufacturing plants located within this particular section of Pawtucket. The views expressed by the majority cast a substantial shadow over our pronouncements in *297Halstead, wherein we stressed that the totality of the circumstances must be examined from “the vantage point of an experienced police officer whose duty it is to be attuned to unusual circumstances * See United States v. Brignoni— Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975), and Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979).
Officer Calabro typifies the “experienced police officer” alluded to in Halstead. The record indicates that at the time he detained Lanoue and DeMasi he had been patrolling the streets of Pawtucket for seven years. At the suppression hearing, he told the Presiding Justice that when the names of the three detainees were transmitted to NCIC, “it came back a hit on Mr. Lanoue.” Calabro’s “hit” language and his seven years on the street qualified him, in my opinion, as one of those officers who, because of their experience, can reasonably “infer from observation of otherwise innocuous conduct that criminal activity is imminent or is taking place.” I submit that police officers attempting to distinguish Halstead from this case will find themselves in the same state of bewilderment which gave rise to this dissent.
A final comment is directed toward the majority’s conclusion that once Lanoue had produced an apparently valid license and registration and the passengers had identified themselves, the officer’s further detention of the suspects pending a warrant check was an unreasonable intrusion upon their Fourth Amendment rights. Since I have taken the position that Officer Calab-ro did indeed possess a reasonable suspicion that the occupants of the vehicle he detained were involved in criminal activity, I cannot agree that either the warrant check or the five-minute time period required to conduct it was impermissible. Terry v. Ohio and its progeny contemplate that once an officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, a brief investigatory stop is proper in furtherance of the governmental interest in crime detection and prevention. The length of the detention cannot be measured with stopwatch precision but must depend on the practicalities of the particular situation. Officer Calabro conducted a brief investigation in order to verify the identities of the three men and to determine whether any of them were subject to an outstanding warrant. The time required to complete this check is necessarily limited by our present state of technology, and I do not believe that the five-minute period spent at curb side while awaiting the results of the 4 a. m. check was such an unreasonable length of time as to constitute a violation of the suspects’ Fourth Amendment rights.