Court Opinion

ID: 9586768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:45.828203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:50.441132
License: Public Domain

Banke, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
At the time of the appellant’s arrest, the sum total of the incriminating information known to the arresting officers was as follows: (1) The appellant had arrived at the airport from Miami, which was described as a known “source city” for the distribution of illegal drugs; (2) he had abnormally large boots, one of which protruded more than the other along his calf; (3) he had purchased a one-way airline ticket with cash; (4) he had no checked baggage and carried only a small tote bag with few contents; (5) he had appeared increasingly nervous during the confrontation with Markonni, and (6) he had denied that anything was concealed in his boots yet refused to lift his trouser leg to enable the officers to verify this.
While this information may have been sufficient to give rise to an *705articulable suspicion that the appellant was transporting contraband, I do not consider it sufficient to establish probable cause for his arrest. As in Reid v. Georgia, 448 U. S. 438, 441 (100 SC 2752, 65 LE2d 890), “[t]he other circumstances describe a very large category of presumably innocent travelers, who would be subject to virtually random seizures were the Court to conclude that as little foundation as there was in this case could justify a seizure.” See also State v. Smith, 164 Ga. App. 142 (2) (296 SE2d 141) (1982); Pullano v. State, 169 Ga. App. 377 (312 SE2d 857) (1983); Del Rio v. State, 171 Ga. App. 381 (1) (320 SE2d 236) (1984).
Decided June 18, 1987
Rehearing denied July 15, 1987
Jerome L. Froelich, Jr., for appellant.
Certainly, the recent case of Reid v. State, 179 Ga. App. 144 (345 SE2d 635) (1986), involved factual circumstances which were similar in many respects to those in the present case; however, it also involved an important additional element which is missing from the present case. In Reid, we held that probable cause existed for the arrest of an airport suspect who, after having previously denied to the arresting officer that he was carrying anything concealed in his sock, voluntarily lifted his trouser leg to reveal a cylinderical object protruding from the sock — an object which the arresting officer described as being “ ‘consistent with a bag containing controlled substances that I have seen many times.’ ” Id. at 145. While the Reid court understandably found probable cause for the suspect’s arrest under these circumstances, it did not, as the majority in the present case implies, suggest that the mere presence of a “suspicious bulge” in a traveler’s clothing, coupled with a refusal on the part of the traveler to explain the bulge to the satisfaction of police officers, would itself constitute probable cause for the traveler’s arrest.
In the present case, Agent Johnson conceded that he never actually saw the package containing the contraband until after Miller’s arrest and that his observations up to that point were consistent with the possibility that the appellant might be transporting such lawful items as cigarettes or currency inside his boots. While the existence of probable cause in Reid was clearly premised on observations which took place prior to the arrest, the existence of probable cause in the present case was established by observations which were not possible until after the arrest had already been made. For this reason, I would hold that the arrest was unlawful and that the search incident to it was consequently violative of the appellant’s rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
I am authorized to state that Judge Sognier joins in this dissent.
*706Robert E. Keller, District Attorney, Clifford A. Sticker, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.