Ricks v. State

GARRITY, Judge. The appellant, Gilbert Hood Ricks, was convicted in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County (Simpson, J.) of possession and possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use it in conjunction with a controlled dangerous substance. Prior to trial, the appellant moved to suppress evidence which he contended had been illegally seized from him at the time of his arrest. After an evidentiary hearing, that motion was denied.

The case then proceeded on an agreed statement of facts. On appeal, the appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. Factual Background Trooper First Class Steven L. Aaron of the Maryland State Police Narcotics Division testified that during the week of October 10,1988, he received a tip in the form of an anonymous call. The caller stated that an individual named Gilbert Ricks would be arriving in Salisbury, Maryland, from Baltimore on a Trailways bus on Friday, October 14, 1988.

The caller advised that Ricks had previously come to the Salisbury area on Fridays on a Trailways bus, arriving between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m., and that each time he carried a brown to maroon colored soft, fold-over luggage bag containing cocaine. According to the caller, Ricks would then sell the cocaine in the Salisbury area over the course of the weekend, residing with an unidentified Salisbury couple at their home. The caller further described Ricks as a black male, approximately five foot, seven inches tall, weighing approximately 160 pounds, and sporting a close-cut graying haircut and beard. As a result of receiving this information, Officer Aaron ran a criminal check on Ricks and found that there was an individual named Gilbert Ricks from Baltimore who matched the tipster’s description of Ricks, and that Ricks had prior CDS and robbery convictions.

On the afternoon of October 14, 1988, Officer Aaron and members of the ³⁷² Wicomico County Narcotics Task Force went to the Salisbury Trailways bus terminal and confirmed that a bus would be arriving from Baltimore at 6:05 p.m. The officers then established a surveillance operation in the vicinity of the terminal. 1 At approximately 6:10 p.m. Officer Steven W. Bacon of the Maryland State Police, one of the surveillance units in the area, advised Officer Aaron that a Trailways bus was approaching the area from off of Route 50, that it had stopped near an Arby’s Restaurant, and that a man matching the description of Ricks had exited the bus carrying a fold-over luggage bag. Officer Bacon then stopped the appellant and identified himself as a police officer.

Bacon asked the appellant for identification, and the appellant produced a Maryland driver’s license bearing the name Gilbert Hood Ricks. Bacon then phoned Trooper Aaron, advising him of the appellant’s name, to which Aaron responded, “[t]hat’s him.” Bacon then performed a protective “pat down” search on Ricks, and engaged in a conversation with him while waiting for Trooper Aaron, who arrived on the scene approximately one and one-half minutes later. 2 After Aaron arrived, accompanied by two other officers, Ricks was advised of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The appellant was told of the reason he had been stopped, and was asked for consent to search his person and his bag. When the appellant refused, he was told by the officers that if he did not consent they could bring in their assistant, ³⁷³ “Dusty,” the canine narcotics dog, to sniff for CDS in the bag.

When the appellant again refused to consent to a search, Dusty was brought to the scene and the appellant’s bag was placed on the ground. Dusty sniffed the luggage and scratched at one end of it, the means by which the dog signaled that it detected the presence of illegal drugs. The appellant’s bag was then searched. The search revealed approximately 8.4 grams of cocaine, 2.3 grams of marijuana, and a variety of distribution paraphernalia, all found in the part of the bag that Dusty had scratched.

The appellant was then formally placed under arrest. 3 The appellant moved to suppress the CDS found in his bag, arguing that the police lacked probable cause to either detain him or search the contents of his luggage. The circuit court disagreed, stating: THE COURT: In this case, there was a call from an anonymous caller giving a detailed description of somebody who was going to arrive at a specific time, carrying a specific type bag in which it was stated that there were controlled dangerous substances. This was a prediction, a very detailed prediction of future activity. The police observed when this was supposed to have occurred, and what the description was, and the prediction was, the prophecy was fulfilled.

A person fitting that exact description, carrying that same bag did arrive. I believe certainly they were justified in stopping. They asked for the search, permission to search the bag. According to the evidence, that was denied.

The Defendant acted nervous at that point. Certainly, as set forth in Grant v. State, 55 Md.App. 1 [ 461 A.2d 524 (1983) ], it would have been sheer folly, as stated in that case to allow the Defendant to leave with his bag at that point in time. ³⁷⁴ A dog was called. I think there was probable cause to detain the Defendant for the limited purpose of having the dog come. I believe there is sufficient evidence that the dog did have training.

He had over a hundred finds of cocaine. He never had a false. I believe that once the dog scratched the bag indicating there was narcotics in there, that there was probable cause for the arrest ... Accordingly, the court denied the appellant’s motion.

Discussion The appellant first contends that the State lacked probable cause to stop him initially for investigatory purposes under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 , 88 S.Ct. 1868 , 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and later arrest him. In Millwood v. State, 72 Md.App. 82 , 527 A.2d 803 (1987), Judge Bloom observed on our behalf: Unquestionably, the reasonable suspicion that will justify a Terry stop may be founded on some lesser degree of reliability than would be required for the probable cause to support an arrest, search or seizure. An anonymous tip may serve as a basis for a reasonable articulable suspicion if it is sufficiently detailed and corroborated that a reasonable person would regard it as reliable____ we are persuaded that an anonymous tip that a suspect is presently engaged in criminal activity will afford a sufficient basis for an investigatory stop if the tip includes details, confirmed by police observation, which strongly indicate that the informant is sufficiently well-acquainted with the individual identified in the tip to know he may be involved with criminal activity. That is the type of information which, if verified, tends to create a reasonable belief that the informant is credible and his information is reliable.

Id. at 92-93 , 527 A.2d 803 (citations omitted). Clearly, the facts communicated to the police by the anonymous tipster were sufficiently detailed and later corroborated to indicate to the police that the informant knew the appellant well enough to know that he might be engaged in criminal ³⁷⁵ activity. The police were acting on information that included a very detailed description of the appellant, when and how he would arrive in Salisbury, and the means by which he allegedly would transport CDS. The appellant’s identity was then corroborated as well as his prior criminal record involving controlled dangerous substances.

The police additionally had a positive signal from their narcotics dog that the appellant’s luggage contained a controlled substance. 4 The facts before us are strikingly similar to those before the Supreme Court in Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329 , 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). In Draper , a federal narcotics agent received information from an informant that Draper was selling narcotics in Denver. Four days later the informant told the agent that Draper had gone to Chicago the day before by train, that he was going to bring back three ounces of heroin, and that “he would return to Denver either on the morning of the 8th of September or the morning of the 9th of September also by train.” The informant further gave to the agent a detailed description of Draper, including the clothing he was wearing, and related that he would be carrying a “tan zipper bag” and that he characteristically “walked real fast.” The agent, together with a Denver police officer, went to the train station on the morning of September 9th and watched all incoming trains from Chicago. They observed a person having the physical attributes and wearing the clothing described by the informant leave an incoming Chicago train and walk fast.

Draper was carrying a tan zipper bag. The officers apprehended Draper, searched his person, and found two packets of heroin clutched in his left hand in his raincoat pocket. In upholding the detention and arrest of Draper, Justice Whittaker, writing for the majority, stated: ³⁷⁶ Nor can we agree with petitioner’s second contention that Marsh’s [the narcotics officer] information was insufficient to show probable cause and reasonable grounds to believe that petitioner had violated or was violating the narcotic laws and to justify his arrest without a warrant. The information given to narcotic agent Marsh by “special employee” Hereford [the informant] may have been hearsay tó Marsh, but coming from one employed for that purpose and whose information had always been found accurate and reliable, it is clear that Marsh would have been derelict in his duties had he not pursued it.

And when, in pursuing that information, he saw a man, having the exact physical attributes and wearing the precise clothing and carrying the tan zipper bag that Hereford had described, alight from one of the very trains from the very place stated by Hereford and start to walk at a “fast” pace toward the station exit, Marsh had personally verified every facet of the information given him by Hereford except whether petitioner had accomplished his mission and had the three ounces of heroin on his person or in his bag. And surely, with every other bit of Hereford’s information being thus personally verified, Marsh had “reasonable grounds” to believe that the