Court Opinion

ID: 9641096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:23:11.942348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:35.036679
License: Public Domain

George K. Cracraft, Chief Judge, concurring in part; and dissenting in part. I dissent from that part of the prevailing opinion holding that the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress the cocaine as evidence during appellant’s prosecution for possession. I have no real problem, under the facts of this case, accepting that the officer had a right to investigate the gathering of persons in front of the abandoned store. As part of his investigation, he could inquire of appellant as to his activity and would be authorized to perform a limited, pat-down search of appellant’s person for his own protection. Where I depart from the prevailing opinion is its holding that the officer then had the right to look inside the matchbox. First, there is nothing in the record even suggesting that the officer’s motive in doing so was the possibility that it may have contained some dangerous weapon or threat to his safety. Nor do I think that this intrusion can be justified on the theory that the officer had probable cause to believe that the matchbox contained a controlled substance. Even considering that this was a high-crime area, in the absence of some other evidence, the mere fact that a matchbox contains something other than matches cannot be said to amount to probable cause to believe that it, therefore, contains a controlled substance. While the officer may have suspected as much, neither a mere suspicion nor even a “strong reason to suspect” will suffice. See Roderick v. State, 288 Ark. 360, 705 S.W.2d 433 (1986). Rogers, J., joins in this dissent.