Cartnail v. State

HARRELL, Judge. Mr. Rondorian Wayne Cartnail, Petitioner, was found guilty at a bench trial, following a not guilty plea and upon an agreed statement of facts, in the Circuit Court for Frederick County of driving with a revoked license. Immediately prior to trial, Petitioner unsuccessfully moved to suppress evidence obtained by the police as a result of a traffic stop. The trial judge sentenced Cartnail to one year in prison, suspended all but four months of the term of incarceration, and directed a two year probation upon his release.

Petitioner appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, arguing that the Circuit Court erred in denying the motion to suppress. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed. We granted Petitioner’s request for a writ of certiorari which presented the following question: Did a police officer have reasonable suspicion to stop a gold Nissan occupied by two black men approximately one hour and fifteen minutes after the report of an armed robbery in a different section of the city of Frederick where the report indicated that a gold or tan Mazda with unknown tags and ²⁷⁷ occupied by three black men had fled in “no known direction”? We reverse and hold that the police did not have reasonable suspicion to stop and seize Petitioner.

I. The relevant facts of this case, proffered by counsel at the suppression hearing, are not in dispute. What to make of those facts, however, is the crux of the case. At approximately 1:49 a.m. on 26 August 1997, the City of Frederick police investigated a reported robbery of the Quality Inn hotel at 420 Prospect Avenue, located near the interchange of Interstate 70, Interstate 270, Route 15, and Route 340 in Frederick. Information supplied to the police from unidentified sources was that three black male suspects had fled from the scene in an unknown direction driving a gold or tan Mazda.

That also was the extent of the information made available to the patrol officer who later encountered Petitioner. At approximately 3:05 a.m. of the same morning, Petitioner was observed by a patrol officer driving a vehicle in the vicinity of West 7th Street and the Frederick Memorial Hospital, an area of the City of Frederick northeast of where the Quality Inn is located. 1 He was pulled over by the officer. The officer stopped Petitioner based on the information he had ²⁷⁸ received regarding the Quality Inn robbery. At the time, Petitioner was driving a gold Nissan and had one passenger with him.

Both Petitioner and his guest are black men. The officer requested Petitioner’s driver’s license and registration. Petitioner volunteered that he was driving on a revoked driver’s license. After apparently requesting a computer check of Petitioner’s driving record, the officer confirmed that he was in fact driving with a revoked license. 2 Petitioner was arrested and charged based on the information obtained pursuant to the traffic stop.

At the suppression hearing, Petitioner moved to suppress “any statements [he made] after the stop or any resulting information” because the officer did not stop him due to suspicion of having committed a traffic violation, nor did the officer have a reasonable, articula-ble suspicion of any other criminal activity. The State responded that the police officer had articulable suspicion based on the information obtained about the robbery earlier that morning and, even if that- information did not support an articulable suspicion, the officer would have obtained the disputed evidence by inevitable discovery. 3 The Circuit Court concluded that the officer had an articula-ble suspicion to pull over Petitioner and denied the motion to suppress. In addition to noting that the roads in the early morning hours are sparsely populated, the trial judge stated: [w]ell, what impresses me in this case is the—apparently there was not the exact identification of the first car that indicated it might have been a Mazda. You said gold or tan Mazda with unknown tags occupied by three people.

Well, you don’t have to be a genius to figure that if there was three people, one or more could have been let out in an hour and 15 minutes. Considering the time that was involved and certainly the similarity between a—I’m familiar with ²⁷⁹ both types of cars, a Mazda and a Nissan, and one was described as a gold or tan Mazda and then the other was, when they found the Nissan, it was gold in color and occupied by two black males, and black males, three in number, had been described by the officer at the time of the investigation of the suspected robbery. Under those circumstances, I think certainly that’s an articulable reason for the officer to check on that vehicle ... After denial of the motion, the parties proceeded on a not guilty plea and an agreed statement of facts, the latter comprised of Petitioner’s trial counsel reading from the arresting officer’s Statement of Probable Cause.

Petitioner was found guilty of driving with a revoked license. He appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which, affirming the Circuit Court’s judgment, held: [I]n this case, the color of the vehicle was the same as that reported, the vehicle type was similar, it was in the same metropolitan area, and it had multiple occupants. The stop occurred in the early morning hours when there were few vehicles on the street. See Watkins v. State, 90 Md.App. 437 [ 601 A.2d 1115 ] (1992) (A police officer responding to a robbery was advised that the robbers were two black men who left in a small compact car.

One of the men was described as wearing a grayish sweat jacket, and the other was described as having a thin beard, a mustache, and large eyes. The officer stopped three black men in a Hyundai car approximately thirty minutes after the incident. One of the occupants had characteristics similar to one of the robbers described by the witnesses. The stop was held to be lawful.) While presenting a closer question than that in Watkins , we conclude that the motion to suppress was properly denied.

We granted certiorari to decide whether the police stop of Petitioner was lawful. ²⁸⁰ II. Petitioner contends essentially that the only description of the robbery suspects, used by the police officer to pull him over, was that they were three black men who drove away from the robbery scene in an unknown direction in a gold or tan Mazda over an hour and fifteen minutes before Petitioner was stopped. He asserts that such information does not support a reasonable and articulable suspicion for the police officer to stop his vehicle simply because he was driving in another part of Frederick later that same morning, that he and his passenger are black men, and that he was driving a gold Nissan. In sum, he believes the police officer was operating on a “hunch.” The State argues that the police officer had a reasonable and articulable suspicion to stop Petitioner based on the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time.

It argues: There had been an armed robbery in the area and a description of the suspects’ car was broadcast as “a gold or a tan Mazda ... [with] three black males in the vehicle.” [Petitioner] quibbles that his car did not exactly match the description broadcast over the police radio. His car was a gold Nissan and he had only one other person in the car. However, as the trial judge suggested, cars made by Nissan and Mazda, both Japanese manufacturers, are similar in appearance and could have been easily confused by a witness. As the trial judge also observed, [Petitioner] could have dropped a third passenger off at any time subsequent to the robbery.

A gold Nissan with two black males substantially matched the description with which the police were working and [Petitioner’s] vehicle was hardly selected at random or on a “hunch” as he insists. Furthermore, the fact that the robbery took place at 1:49 a.m. and the car was stopped at 8:05 a.m. on August 26, 1997, a Tuesday, means that there would have been very few cars on the road, making the gold Nissan stand out even more. [Petitioner] also complains that the stop, which occurred an hour and sixteen minutes after the robbery, was too ²⁸¹ remote in time and in a “completely different section of Frederick.” First of all, [Petitioner] cannot have it both ways. He cannot simultaneously complain that, after an hour and sixteen minutes, a suspect car would have both remained at the scene of the crime and been long gone. In any case, the trail was hardly cold after a little more than an hour.

Prospect Avenue, where [Petitioner’s] car was stopped, is about a mile from the interchange of Interstates 70 and 270 where the armed robbery took place. [Petitioner’s] car was located where one might expect to find it: away from the scene of the crime, but still within the general area. As the suppression judge noted, he would not have expected to find a robber within a half block of where the robbery took place. The State contends that several factors must be considered when determining whether the totality of the circumstances suffices to establish reasonable suspicion, including whether the description of the suspects was sufficient to narrow the class of persons who could be stopped, the size of the area where the suspects might be located, and the number of persons that are in the area at the time the police make the stop. It elaborates as follows: Assessing these facts in light of the factors relevant to similar stops, the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop [Petitioner].

First, the description was sufficient to narrow the class of persons who could be legitimately stopped. The lookout was for a gold or tan Mazda with three black males. As LaFave notes, “in the last analysis the most important consideration is whether the description is sufficiently unique to permit a reasonable degree of selectivity from the group of all potential suspects” [citation omitted]. Although the description was somewhat general, it narrowed the class of persons to a single race and gender, and the type of car by color and manufacturer.

The next factor, size of the area, also increases the reasonableness of the stop. The question is whether the person stopped was “within the range of possible flight.” [citation omitted]. Here, of course, [Petitioner’s] car was stopped near the reported crime scene ²⁸² of the robbery within an hour and 15 minutes of the crime. The third factor, number of persons in the area, also supports the stop.

At 3:05 in the morning on a weekday, in an area such as Frederick, there obviously would be very few cars on the road, particularly ones matching the description contained in the lookout ... Given the sum total of information, the officer’s stop of [Petitioner’s] car was reasonable. We disagree with the State that the stop of Petitioner was reasonable. To the contrary, the police action in this case trespassed into unconstitutional territory.

III

A. Our review of a circuit court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence under the Fourth Amendment ordinarily is limited to information contained in the record of the suppression hearing. See Ferris v. State, 355 Md. 356, 368 , 735 A.2d 491, 497 (1999); In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. 484, 488 , 701 A.2d 691, 693 (1997); Simpler v. State, 318 Md. 311, 312 , 568 A.2d 22, 22 (1990); Trusty v. State, 308 Md. 658, 670 , 521 A.2d 749, 755 (1987). We do not look at the trial record for additional information, nor do we engage in de novo fact-finding. See Trusty, 308 Md. at 670 , 521 A.2d at 755 .

As the State was the prevailing party on the motion, we consider the facts as found by the trial court, and the reasonable inferences from those facts, in the light most favorable to the State. See Ferris, 355 Md. at 368 , 735 A.2d at 497 ; In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. at 488 , 701 A.2d at 693 ; Riddick v. State, 319 Md. 180, 183 , 571 A.2d 1239, 1240 (1990); Simpler, 318 Md. at 312 , 568 A.2d at 22 . Issues of law and mixed questions of law and fact are reviewed de novo. See Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696-98, 699 , 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1661-63, 1663 , 134 L.Ed.2d 911, 919-20 (1996).

See also Ferris, 355 Md. at 368 , 735 A.2d at 497 . If the Fourth Amendment is implicated by State action, this Court makes an independent determination of whether the State has violated an individual’s constitutional ²⁸³ rights by applying the law to the facts. See In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. at 489 , 701 A.2d at 693 ; Riddick, 319 Md. at 183 , 571 A.2d at 1240 ; Whiting v. State, 125 Md.App. 404, 406 , 725 A.2d 623, 625 (1999). See also Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 696-97 , 116 S.Ct. at 1661-62 , 134 L.Ed.2d at 919-20 .

B. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. It has long been said that “[n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9 , 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1873 , 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 898-99 (1968) (citing Union Pac. R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 , 11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001 , 35 L.Ed. 734, 737 (1891)). “To this end, its main import is the protection against invasions of the sanctity of one’s person, home, and the privacies of life.” In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. at 490 , 701 A.2d at 693 . The protections of the Fourth Amendment are applicable to the State of Maryland through the Fourteenth Amendment.

See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 , 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691 , 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 1090 (1961); Owens v. State, 322 Md. 616, 622 , 589 A.2d 59, 61 (1991). “The Fourth Amendment is not, of course, a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only against unreasonable searches and seizures.” United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 682 , 105 S.Ct. 1568, 1573 , 84 L.Ed.2d 605, 613 (1985). See also In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. at 490 , 701 A.2d at 693 . It is fundamental, under Federal and Maryland jurisprudence, that the detention ²⁸⁴ of a motorist pursuant to a police traffic stop is a seizure encompassed by the Fourth Amendment. See Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 682 , 105 S.Ct. at 1573 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 613 ; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881 , 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2580 , 45 L.Ed.2d 607, 617 (1975); United States v. Mallides, 473 F.2d 859, 861 (9th Cir.l973)(a “person whose vehicle is stopped by police and whose freedom to drive away is restrained” is seized under the Fourth Amendment); Ferris, 355 Md. at 369 , 735 A.2d at 497 ; Derricott v. State, 327 Md. 582, 587-88 , 611 A.2d 592, 595-96 (1992); Pryor v. State, 122 Md.App. 671, 679 , 716 A.2d 338, 342 (1998); Goode v. State, 41 Md.App. 623, 629-30 , 398 A.2d 801, 805 (1979); Williams v. State, 19 Md.App. 204, 210 , 310 A.2d 593, 597 (1973).

The reasonableness of an investigative traffic seizure is evaluated under a dual inquiry: “whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 682 , 105 S.Ct. at 1573 , 84 L.Ed.2d at 613 (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 20 , 88 S.Ct. at 1879 , 20 L.Ed.2d at 905 ). In the case sub judice, it is the first part of the Terry dual inquiry that concerns us. . A number of legal theories can justify motorist seizures, including the execution of a valid warrant or warrantless situations harnessed by probable cause, such as traffic violations or evidence of criminal activities. See generally In re Tariq A-R-Y, 347 Md. at 490-91 , 701 A.2d at 693-94 ; Pryor, 122 Md.App. at 678-82 , 716 A.2d at 342-44 .

Absent a warrant or probable cause, the forced stop of a motorist may be had under the Fourth Amendment when the police officer is “able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from these facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” 4 Ferris, 355 Md. at 384 , 735 A.2d at ²⁸⁵ 506. The Supreme Court has held that this standard can be constitutionally applied to seizures based on suspicion of past criminal activity. United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229 , 105 S.Ct. 675, 680 , 83 L.Ed.2d 604, 612 (1985). See also Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439 , 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3150 , 82 L.Ed.2d 317, 334 (1984); Pryor, 122 Md.App. at 679 , 716 A.2d at 342 (noting that “[i]t is well settled ... that the forcible stop of a motorist may be based on reasonable articulable suspicion that is insufficient to establish probable cause”).

Under such circumstances, the police are permitted to stop and briefly detain a person to investigate the suspicion. See Derricott, 327 Md. at 587 , 611 A.2d at 595 . In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145-46 , 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923-24 , 32 L.Ed.2d 612, 616-17 (1972), the Supreme Court elaborated on the need for some lesser standard than probable cause to effect a constitutional stop: In Terry this Court recognized that ‘a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest.’ The Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. ²⁸⁶ On the contrary, Terry recognizes that it may be the essence of good police work to adopt an intermediate response. A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time, (citations omitted).

In Quince v. State, 319 Md. 430, 434 , 572 A.2d 1086, 1088 (1990), this Court recognized the Terry stop as an effective crime fighting tool: Although the necessity to strike a proper balance between the interests of the person and those of the government may require the imposition of additional restraints when the Terry stop is made solely to investigate a past crime, the Supreme Court has made it clear that strong concerns for public safety and for effective crime prevention and detection clearly justify the application of Terry principles where there exists reasonable suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity. There is no standardized litmus test that governs the “reasonable suspicion” standard, and any effort to compose one would undoubtedly be futile. See Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 695 , 116 S.Ct. at 1661 , 134 L.Ed.2d at 918 (noting that it is impossible to articulate, with precision, what “reasonable suspicion” means). The concept of reasonable suspicion purposefully is fluid because “like probable cause, [it] is not ‘readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.’ ” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 , 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585 , 104 L.Ed.2d 1, 10 (1989).

See also Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 695-96 , 116 S.Ct. at 1661 , 134 L.Ed.2d at 918 . It is a common sense, nontechnical conception that considers factual and practical aspects of daily life and how reasonable and prudent people act. See Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 695 , 116 S.Ct. at 1661 , 134 L.Ed.2d at 918 . Despite its fluidity, the Supreme Court “characterized ‘reasonable suspicion’ as ‘one of the relatively simple concepts embodied in the Fourth Amendment.’ ” State v. Lemmon, 318 Md. 365, 378 , 568 A.2d 48, 55 (1990) (discuss ²⁸⁷ ing Sokolow).

The Court has tiered various standards to provide more guidance to federal and state courts: The officer ... must be able to articulate something more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch.’ ” The Fourth Amendment requires “some minimal level of objective justification” for making the stop. That level of suspicion is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence. We have held that probable cause means “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found,” and the level of suspicion required for a Terry stop is obviously less demanding than that for probable cause. Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7 , 109 S.Ct. at 1585 , 104 L.Ed.2d at 10 (citations omitted).

See also Derricott, 327 Md. at 593 , 611 A.2d at 598 ; Quince, 319 Md. at 433-34 , 572 A.2d at 1088 ; Anderson, 282 Md. at 707, 387 A.2d at 285. In a later case, the Supreme Court elaborated: [reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause ... [An] unverified tip from [a] known informant might not have been reliable enough to establish probable cause, but nevertheless found it sufficiently reliable to justify a Te'try stop. Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependent upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factors—quantity and quality—are considered in the “totality of the circumstances—the whole picture,” that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion.

Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 , 110 S.Ct. 2412, 2416 , 110 L.Ed.2d 301, 308-09 (1990) (citations omitted). See also Lem-mon, 318 Md. at 377, 568 A.2d at 54; Watkins v. State, 90 Md.App. 437, 441 , 601 A.2d 1115, 1117 (1992). ²⁸⁸ As former Chief Justice Burger explained in United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418 , 101 S.Ct. 690, 698 , 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 629 (1981), the totality of the circumstances test contains two interdependent analytical techniques: The idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion contains two elements, each of which must be present before a stop is permissible. First, the assessment must be based upon all the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports, if such are available, and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers.

From these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions—inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person. The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same—and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of