Banks v. State, 76504
| Decision Date | 27 May 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 76504,76504 |
| Parties | BANKS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Lawrence L. Aiken, Riverdale, for appellant.
Robert E. Keller, Dist. Atty., Clifford A. Sticher, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
After a bench trial, appellant was found guilty of trafficking in cocaine, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, and felony obstruction of a police officer. He appeals from the judgments of conviction and sentences entered by the trial court on its findings of guilt.
1. Appellant enumerates as error the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress.
At the hearing on appellant's motion, the State introduced the following evidence: Appellant arrived at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport as a passenger on a flight from Miami. Miami is a known drug source city. Previous to appellant's arrival, Atlanta agents of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been notified by DEA agents in Miami that a Mr. Brown had purchased, under suspicious circumstances, a one-way ticket from Miami to Raleigh via Atlanta. Brown had paid for the ticket in cash and had listed a Miami hotel as the location of his call-back number. The Atlanta DEA agents called the number given by Brown and discovered that, contrary to Brown's information, it was not the number of a hotel. Based upon the description of Brown supplied by the DEA agents in Miami, two Atlanta DEA agents approached appellant in a casual manner as he deplaned. The agents displayed their credentials to appellant and identified themselves as police officers. One agent asked if appellant would speak with him, and appellant agreed. The agent then asked to see appellant's airline ticket, and appellant retrieved the ticket from a small tote bag which he was carrying. The agent testified that the name listed on the ticket was Greg Brown and that there were no luggage claim checks affixed to the ticket. Appellant stated that his name was Greg Brown but he could produce no identification whatsoever. Appellant became very nervous during the conversation and experienced a noticable difficulty in breathing. Appellant stated that he was without identification because he had lost his wallet. Appellant then spontaneously offered conflicting explanations concerning his purchase of the ticket. Without any mention by the agents of the tote bag, appellant suddenly stated that it did not belong to him but belonged to a Jamaican woman who had been seated a few rows in front of him on the flight from Miami. As a result of appellant's suspicious behavior, the two agents asked appellant to accompany them for further discussion of the situation. Appellant did not indicate that he wished to discontinue the conversation and started to accompany the two agents. However, he suddenly turned and bolted into a run. He was then seized and placed under arrest. In a subsequent search of appellant's person and the tote bag which was conducted pursuant to his arrest, the agents discovered a small quantity of marijuana and over 250 grams of cocaine.
Appellant urges that his motion to suppress the evidence seized during the search should have been granted on the ground that there existed no probable cause for his arrest by the agents. Cook v. State, 136 Ga.App. 908, 909 (1), 222 S.E.2d 656 (1975). Appellant's flight from the agents, in conjunction with the existence of the numerous other suspicious circumstances to which the arresting agents testified (see generally State v....
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