Bentley v. State
| Decision Date | 27 November 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 49A02-0202-CR-160.,49A02-0202-CR-160. |
| Parties | Robert BENTLEY, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Susan D. Rayl, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Zachary J. Stock, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Robert Bentley brings this interlocutory appeal from the denial of his Motion to Suppress. He raises the following issues on appeal:
1. Whether the officer seized Bentley for investigatory purposes.
2. Whether the officer had reasonable suspicion to justify the stop under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
We affirm.
On October 10, 2001, Indianapolis Police Officers Charles Martin and Steve Walters were patrolling in the 3000 block area of North Capitol Avenue in Marion County. Officer Martin, a twenty-year veteran of the police department, described the area as being known for narcotics possession and dealing. While he was patrolling, Officer Martin saw Bentley and another man kneeling down in front of a truck. Bentley was holding a pair of socks and a plastic bag with items inside. Officer Martin recognized Bentley because he believed he had arrested him in the past for a narcotics crime. He also later testified that, in the past, he had arrested narcotics dealers who used a plastic bag containing not only drugs, but other common items like clothing or groceries. The officer stopped his vehicle, blocking a lane of traffic, and turned on his emergency lights. Officers Martin and Walters both exited the vehicle and approached Bentley.
Officer Martin asked Bentley what he was doing, and Bentley responded that he was selling the other man a pair of socks. Officer Martin had not seen Bentley in this part of town in over a year, and he thought it was unusual to see someone kneeling down and giving away an item from a plastic bag. He then asked Bentley for his identification, and Bentley produced his Social Security card. Officer Martin asked Bentley if he had any identification with his photo and birth date, and Bentley gave the officer his probation identification card. The officer ran Bentley's information through his portable lap top computer in his vehicle and discovered that Bentley had two outstanding arrest warrants. Officer Martin placed Bentley under arrest, and during a search incident to arrest, discovered heroin in his wallet.
The State charged Bentley with Dealing in a Narcotic Drug, as a Class B felony, and Possession of a Narcotic Drug, as a Class D felony. Bentley filed a motion to suppress and argued that Officer Martin discovered the heroin as a result of an unlawful seizure. Following a hearing, the trial court denied his motion and stated in relevant part:
[W]hat we've got is ... an officer in an area that he patrols, that he's familiar with the defendant, that he sees the defendant crouched down passing something that as he approaches he determines to be socks .... I think that all leads to why he stopped this [sic] car, got out of his car, turned his lights on, and started to investigate. He comes up and sees that they're socks and he's got a bag. His training and experience tells him that there may be more going on here.
Now, if he'd have gotten them both up, put their arms on the car, searched him, gone through the bag, we wouldn't be here, okay. That's not what he did. He walked up, said, hey, what's going on? I'm selling these socks to this guy. Oh, well, you got any ID? Yeah, here it is. I think that those are nonintrusive. I think ... he had articulable reasons to investigate a situation and that while he's doing it, he has the ability to identify the parties and then check them for warrants. I think that there is no requirement... that he has to advise a person that they are free to go.... I think that ... asking a person for their ID is minimally intrusive; that he then finds that he has two warrants, arrests him, and here we sit. So, I'm going to show the motion to suppress is denied.
This appeal ensued.
We review the denial of a motion to suppress in a manner similar to other sufficiency matters. Overstreet v. State, 724 N.E.2d 661, 663 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied. We do not reweigh the evidence, and we consider conflicting evidence most favorable to the trial court's ruling. Id. However, unlike the typical sufficiency of the evidence case where only the evidence favorable to the judgment is considered, we must also consider the uncontested evidence favorable to the defendant. Id.
Issue One: Was Bentley seized for Fourth Amendment purposes?
The first issue disputed by the parties is whether the officers "seized" Bentley when they stopped and questioned him. It is well established that "not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves `seizures' of persons." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); see also Chappel v. State, 591 N.E.2d 1011, 1014 (Ind.1992)
. As this court explained in Overstreet, 724 N.E.2d at 663:
[T]here are three levels of police investigation, two which implicate the Fourth Amendment and one which does not. First, the Fourth Amendment requires that an arrest or detention for more than a short period be justified by probable cause. Probable cause to arrest exists where the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officers are sufficient to warrant a belief by a person of reasonable caution that an offense has been committed and that the person to be arrested has committed it. Second, it is well-settled Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that police may, without a warrant or probable cause, briefly detain an individual for investigatory purposes if, based on specific and articulable facts, the officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity "may be afoot." Accordingly, limited investigatory stops and seizures on the street involving a brief question or two and a possible frisk for weapons can be justified by mere reasonable suspicion. Finally, the third level of investigation occurs when a law enforcement officer makes a casual and brief inquiry of a citizen which involves neither an arrest nor a stop. In this type of "consensual encounter" no Fourth Amendment interest is implicated.
(Citations omitted).
The question presented in this case is whether Officers Martin and Walters engaged in an investigatory stop, thereby implicating the protections of the Fourth Amendment, or whether their encounter with Bentley is better characterized as consensual. Bentley argues that the officers stopped to investigate him and that he was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes. The State responds that the Fourth Amendment was not implicated because Bentley was free to leave at any time. After a review of all the facts and circumstances, we agree with Bentley.
In Terry, 392 U.S. at 19 n. 16,88 S.Ct. 1868, the United States Supreme Court stated that "[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a `seizure' has occurred." Moreover, "in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter." Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 439, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991). Our supreme court applies this same standard. See Heald v. State, 492 N.E.2d 671, 675 (Ind.1986)
() (citation omitted).
As the Court noted in Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 100 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988), "[t]he test is necessarily imprecise, because it is designed to assess the coercive effect of police conduct, taken as a whole, rather than to focus on particular details of that conduct in isolation." The Court further stated that "what constitutes a restraint on liberty prompting a person to conclude that he is not free to `leave' will vary, not only with the particular police conduct at issue, but also with the setting in which the conduct occurs." Id. But because the test utilizes an objective standard, that is, it looks to the reasonable person's interpretation of the conduct in question, it "allows the police to determine in advance whether the conduct contemplated will implicate the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 574, 108 S.Ct. 1975.
There are a number of factors we may consider to determine whether a person has been seized for Fourth Amendment purposes. In Chesternut, for example, the Court listed the following as possible actions an officer could take which a reasonable person would interpret as an intrusion upon freedom of movement: use of a siren or flashers, a command that the person halt, display of weapons, or operation of a police vehicle in an aggressive manner to either block the person's course or otherwise control the direction or speed of the person. Id. at 575, 108 S.Ct. 1975. Similarly, as this court stated in Overstreet, 724 N.E.2d at 664:
Examples of circumstances under which a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave include the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by the officer, some physical touching of the person..., or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer's request might be compelled.
Bentley argues that the circumstances as a whole show that he was seized by Officers Martin and Walters. Specifically, he points...
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