Causey v. State

• Decision Date: 15 October 2015
• Docket Number: No. A15A0831.,A15A0831.
• Citation: 778 S.E.2d 800,334 Ga.App. 170
• Parties: CAUSEY v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

334 Ga.App. 170

778 S.E.2d 800

CAUSEY

v.The STATE.

No. A15A0831.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Oct. 15, 2015.

Robert Christian Rutledge, for Appellant.

Randall Carl Schonder, Leigh Ellen Patterson, for Appellee.

Opinion

BRANCH, Judge.

Following a stipulated bench trial, Michael Van Causey was convicted on one count of possession of methamphetamine. On appeal, he contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand with direction.

On review of a ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial judge's findings of fact should not be disturbed if there is any evidence to support them; determinations of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous; and the evidence must be construed in favor of the trial court's findings and judgment.Tate v. State,264 Ga. 53, 54(1), 440 S.E.2d 646 (1994); Jackson v. State,258 Ga.App. 806, 807–808(2), 575 S.E.2d 713 (2002). “In all cases, [appellate courts] independently apply the law to the facts.” Drake v. State,296 Ga. 286, 288(2), 766 S.E.2d 447 (2014)(citation omitted).

The evidence presented at the hearing on the motion to suppress shows that Deputy William Schwartz and at least three other officers of the Floyd County Sheriff's office, who were seeking to execute an arrest warrant for one Jesse Powell, went to Causey's home based on a tip that Powell could be found there; Powell did not reside at that address and the officers did not have a warrant to search Causey's home. Officers Schwartz and Salter went to a position where they could observe the side door of the house; Corporal Whitfield and Deputy Burt approached the front door of the home and were able to observe Powell sitting on a couch. When the officers knocked and announced that it was the police, the officers at the front door saw Powell get up and run through the house. Schwartz then saw Powell run past the side door and saw “a couple other flashes go by”; he clarified that he recognized one of the “flashes” as a fellow officer, apparently Corporal Whitfield. Schwartz kicked in the side door, entered the premises with Deputy Salter, and, along with Whitfield and yet another officer (Watkins), chased Powell into a bathroom where a struggle ensued. Powell was eventually subdued and placed in hand restraints. Whitfield and Powell were injured in the struggle, an ambulance was called, and ultimately, Whitfield was taken to the hospital to get stitches. Causey and a guest were handcuffed and sitting on a sofa during this time.

While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Schwartz walked through the house to “clear[ ] the house,” or “to make sure there's nobody else hiding in a closet or anything else, to make sure it's safe.” He did so “as a safety precaution to ourselves while we're there,” and “to make sure the scene is safe especially before bringing in other public safety personnel,” meaning in this case, medical personnel. He testified that such a search was especially necessary in a “fast moving” situation. Schwartz further testified that given that Causey was a known drug user, that Causey's guest also had a pending warrant for a violent offense, and that Powell was fleeing law enforcement, “[i]t wouldn't be a far stretch of the imagination for someone to be there in a closet.” Schwartz later added that the officers “had to be there”; read in context and construed in favor of the trial court's ruling, this statement refers to the officers remaining at the house until the ambulance arrived to care for Whitfield. Finally, Schwartz testified, “You've got everybody known to be drug users. You know, people that have tried to cause harm to police before ... [and therefore] I would have reason to believe, in a place like that, there would be more people that may possibly be wanted for warrants.”

While clearing the house, Schwartz looked into a bedroom and observed what he suspected was methamphetamine in plain sight on a dresser. Schwartz did not collect the suspected contraband; rather he went to the living room, found Causey handcuffed and sitting on a sofa, and read Causey his Mirandarights. Causey then consented to a search, signed a consent form, and answered questions in which he admitted that the drugs were found in his bedroom and that the drugs did not belong to the guest. Schwartz then collected the suspected contraband and searched the remainder of the house for other illegal substances, but none were found.

Although the trial court's order denying the motion to suppress does not include findings of fact, at the hearing the trial court reasoned as follows:

You've got to look at this in all the totality of the circumstances. The officer saw Mr. Powell running from the living room towards the bathroom. He's fleeing towards the back of the house and shutting the door to close—to get into the bathroom.

The officers have every reason to believe that if he was running to secure himself in the back of the house[, w]ho else might have secured themselves in the back of the house? It doesn't have anything to do with these fellow[s'] reputations or criminal records. It has to do with the circumstances at the time. A wanted fugitive was running and trying to hide from the police when they entered the house.... The fact that there was an injury, and a severe injury—it wasn't just a scratch. It required stitches to the officer. Required them to stay and be there and wait on EMTs and have Mr. Powell treated as well as the deputy treated. He would be derelict in his duty if he did not check to see if anybody else had gone to hide in that house somewhere given the circumstances at the time.

Based on the above facts and on Causey's stipulation to venue and to the facts that the contraband was methamphetamine, that the methamphetamine was found in Causey's room, and that Causey denied it belonged to his guest, Causey was convicted of possession of methamphetamine.

1. We first comment on an issue not argued on appeal. “[A]bsent exigent circumstances, the Fourth Amendment prohibits police from searching an individual's home or business without a search warrant even to execute an arrest warrant for a third person.” Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati,475 U.S. 469, 474(I), 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986), citing Steagald v. United States,451 U.S. 204, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 68 L.Ed.2d 38 (1981). Here, in the trial court, the State asserted that the officers at the front door had exigent circumstances to enter Causey's home, the trial court agreed that the officers had a right to enter the home, and Causey has not contested that issue on appeal. That question, therefore, is not before us.

2. “A ‘protective sweep’ is a quick and limited search of premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others.” Maryland v. Buie,494 U.S. 325, 327, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990). Protective sweeps force courts to balance the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable search and seizure against an officer's interest “in taking steps to assure [herself] that the house in which a suspect is being, or has just been, arrested is not harboring other persons who are dangerous and who could unexpectedly launch an attack.” Id. at 333(III), 110 S.Ct. 1093. In striking a balance between these interests, the United States Supreme Court has held that incident to an arrest in a home, officers may “as a precautionary matter and without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrestfrom which an attack could be immediately launched.” Id. at 334(III), 110 S.Ct. 1093(emphasis supplied).¹But to search beyond the immediately adjoining spaces,

there must be articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.

Id. A “mere inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch” that the home may harbor an individual posing a danger to the officers is insufficient to support a warrantless sweep. Id. at 332(III), 110 S.Ct. 1093(citation and punctuation omitted).²

At first blush, this appears to be a close case and that some evidence supports the trial court's findings, which is all that is required by the standard of review. But, as shown below, the State presented no evidence to support the conclusion that a reasonable officer could have reasonably believed that additionaldangerous individuals were in the home. The trial court found that because the officers were pursuing a felon fleeing toward the back of the house, they could reasonably believe that there might be another person in the back of the house thereby warranting a protective sweep while they waited for medical personnel to arrive.

The “fast moving” nature of the situation is also relevant. And “[a]lthough we review police actions from the standpoint of a hypothetical ‘reasonable’ officer, we must measure those actions from the foresight of an officer acting in a quickly developing situation and not from the hindsight of which judges have benefit.” State v. Brannan,222 Ga.App. 372, 373(1), 474 S.E.2d 267 (1996)(citation and punctuation omitted).

Nevertheless, Schwartz never testified to any facts to support a belief that there were more than three people in the house before the officers arrived. Nor did he testify to any facts that developed after the officers arrived that support an inference that there were more than three people, other than officers, in the house when the officers actually entered the house. Although he testified that he saw two “flashes” after Powell ran by (one of whom he recognized as a fellow officer), Schwartz never testified that he thought the other flash was someone other than an officer, and the facts show that at least one more officer who entered through the front door ended up in the bathroom subduing...