Fletcher v. Com., No. 2004-CA-002181-MR.

• Decision Date: 04 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2004-CA-002181-MR.
• Citation: 182 S.W.3d 556
• Parties: Michael Lamont FLETCHER, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

182 S.W.3d 556

Michael Lamont FLETCHER, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

No. 2004-CA-002181-MR.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

November 4, 2005.

Discretionary Review Denied by Supreme Court February 15, 2006.

V. Gene Lewter, Lexington, KY, for Appellant.

Gregory D. Stumbo, Attorney General of Kentucky, James C. Shackelford, Assistant Attorney General, Frankfort, KY, for Appellee.

Before COMBS, Chief Judge; McANULTY, Judge; PAISLEY, Senior Judge.¹

OPINION

COMBS, Chief Judge.

Michael Lamont Fletcher appeals from a Fayette Circuit Court judgment sentencing him to a term of one year in prison, probated for three years. Fletcher was arrested after a stop and a pat-down search of his person that revealed a .38 caliber handgun. A subsequent search conducted incident to his arrest turned up nearly two grams of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Fletcher entered a conditional plea of guilty to the resulting charges pursuant to the provisions of Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 8.09. Under his conditional guilty plea, Fletcher reserved the right to challenge the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress the evidence recovered during the two separate searches. We affirm.

The sole issue before us is whether the trial court erred by concluding that the searches and seizure were lawful. The provisions of RCr 9.78 govern the procedure for conducting suppression hearings and establish the standard for our review of the trial court's decision on the motion.

We conduct a de novo review to determine whether the decision is correct as a matter of law, but we defer to the trial court's findings of fact if they are supported by substantial evidence. Commonwealth v. Whitmore, 92 S.W.3d 76 (Ky. 2002). Inherent in our review is the reality that police officers may draw inferences of illegal activity from facts that may appear innocent to a lay person. Accordingly, we must give due deference to the trial court in assessing the credibility of the officers and the reasonableness of their inferences. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996).

Officer Franz Wolff of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Division of Police, testified at the suppression hearing regarding the circumstances surrounding his encounter with Fletcher. Officer Wolff recounted that during the early morning hours of July 10, 2004, he and Officer Falconbury began a surveillance of a house located on Wilgus Avenue in Lexington, a high-crime area where they suspected that drug activity was occurring. The officers were on foot and were positioned a short distance from the house under surveillance. They observed a great number of people walking back and forth between the house and a large conversion van parked across the street.

After the officers had observed the house and Fletcher for approximately ten minutes, Fletcher began walking toward the officers' hidden location. The officers emerged and inquired about Fletcher's intentions. They also asked him for his name, date of birth, and Social Security number. As Officer Wolff radioed Fletcher's information through police channels for confirmation, Officer Falconbury stepped into view of the people congregated at the house. They dissipated at once.

As Officer Wolff watched people fleeing from the scene, he asked Fletcher to sit down on the ground while they awaited information to confirm Fletcher's identity. Radio communication revealed that the information provided by Fletcher was inconsistent with the information that he had relayed to Officer Wolff, and Officer Wolff asked him once again to provide his name and Social Security number. After Fletcher gave a second Social Security number, Officer Wolff decided to conduct a pat-down search for weapons. He asked Fletcher to stand up and turn around. Wolff then inquired, "Do you have anything on you I need to know about?" Fletcher indicated to Officer Wolff that he had a pistol in his back pocket. Fletcher was handcuffed, a loaded pistol was recovered, and Fletcher was placed under arrest for carrying a concealed deadly weapon. During a search conducted incident to the arrest, Officer Wolff recovered cocaine and drug paraphernalia from Fletcher.

After he was arraigned on several charges, Fletcher moved the trial court to suppress the incriminating evidence as the fruits of an illegal stop and search. The trial court conducted a hearing and denied the motion, finding that the police officers had articulated their reasonable suspicion that illegal activity was occurring sufficient to justify the stop. Fletcher was sentenced following entry of his conditional guilty plea, and this appeal followed.

On appeal, Fletcher claims that the initial stop and search were conducted in violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Fletcher contends that at the time that he was approached, Officer Wolff did not have a reasonable, articulable basis for believing that he either had committed or was in the process of committing a crime. Thus, the stop and search were improper. We disagree.

As we observed in Baltimore v. Commonwealth, 119 S.W.3d 532, 537 (2003), there are three types of interaction between the police and citizens: consensual encounters, temporary detentions (generally referred to as Terry stops), and arrests. The prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure provided by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution applies only to Terry stops and arrests. Id. The Fourth Amendment dictates that an official detention of a person must be supported by probable cause — even if no formal arrest of the person is made....