Jamerson v. State

• Decision Date: 31 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 49A02-0608-CR-779.,49A02-0608-CR-779.
• Citation: 870 N.E.2d 1051
• Parties: Sarail JAMERSON, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

870 N.E.2d 1051

Sarail JAMERSON, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 49A02-0608-CR-779.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

July 31, 2007.

William F. Thoms, Jr., Thoms & Thoms, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant.

Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Jodi Kathryn Stein, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

OPINION

SULLIVAN, Judge.

Following a bench trial, Appellant-Defendant, Sarail Jamerson, challenges his conviction and sentence for Carrying a Handgun Without a License as a Class A misdemeanor.¹ Upon appeal, Jamerson claims the trial court erred in admitting certain evidence in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.

We reverse and remand.

On June 18, 2006, Officers Jeremy Gates, Michael Douglass, and Jerry Townsend of the Indianapolis Police Department received a request from a county detective over dispatch to locate Sarail Jamerson, described to be a black male who was reportedly sitting in a vehicle behind a specific residence on East 34th Street.² The report from dispatch indicated that Jamerson was wanted in connection with a carjacking incident at Lafayette Square Mall. According to Officer Gates, individuals living at the residence in question had notified authorities with the information that Jamerson was there. Gates subsequently discovered an individual matching the reported description sitting inside a car parked near an alley³ behind a house at 2140 East 34th Street.⁴ Officer Townsend, who was on the scene approximately a minute prior to Officers Gates's and Douglass's arrival, approached the car from the alley in back of the house. According to Officer Gates, he and Officer Douglass approached the car from the front of the house by cutting across the front lawn. Upon approaching the vehicle, an officer requested identification, and Jamerson, who was sitting in the passenger seat, handed his identification to Officer Gates. It appeared that Jamerson and another individual sitting in the driver's seat were about to begin eating a plate of food. Jamerson stepped outside of the vehicle. Officer Gates testified that he informed Jamerson he was being detained for investigative purposes until the officers heard back from the county detective who had made the initial report. Jamerson asked whether this detention was going to "take a while." Tr. at 20. Officer Gates did not recall indicating that it would, but he permitted Jamerson and his companion to sit back down inside the car and eat their plates of food while they waited for dispatch to relay the information to the reporting detective and for the detective to respond. Officer Gates testified that Jamerson and his companion had stood outside the car approximately three to five minutes before they were permitted to get back into their car. Approximately thirty to forty-five seconds after Jamerson and his companion got back into their car, Officer Gates observed a black handgun protruding in plain view from underneath Jamerson's car seat. Officer Gates indicated to the other officers that Jamerson and his companion needed to be secured, so the officers removed them from the car, handcuffed them, and then Officer Douglass read Jamerson his Miranda rights. Officer Douglass testified that he asked Jamerson whether the gun was his, and Jamerson stated that it was. Both Officers Gates and Townsend testified that they also heard valid gun permit to carry the weapon, and Jamerson indicated he did not. The gun was subsequently entered into evidence as State's Exhibit 1.

Jamerson was charged on June 19, 2006 with carrying a handgun without a license. The matter proceeded to a bench trial on August 10 and August 17, 2006, after which Jamerson was found guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced Jamerson to 365 days in Community Corrections Jail with 275 days suspended to probation. Jamerson filed his notice of appeal on September 15, 2006.

The sole issue Jamerson presents for our review is whether testimony regarding the discovery of the gun and the gun itself constituted inadmissible evidence under Fourth Amendment principles. Specifically, Jamerson contends the officers did not have the necessary reasonable suspicion to detain him in an investigatory stop.

Our standard of review of rulings on the admissibility of evidence is the same whether the challenge is made by a pretrial motion to suppress or by a trial objection. Ackerman v. State, 774 N.E.2d 970, 974 (Ind.Ct.App.2002), trans. denied. We look for substantial evidence of probative value to support the trial court's decision. Swanson v. State, 730 N.E.2d 205, 209 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied. We consider the evidence most favorable to the court's decision and any uncontradicted evidence to the contrary. Id.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Jefferson v. State, 780 N.E.2d 398, 403 (Ind.Ct.App.2002). For purposes of determining whether a defendant's rights against such searches and seizures were violated, we must determine which level of police investigation occurred. There are three levels of police investigation, two of which implicate the Fourth Amendment and one of which does not. State v. Augustine, 851 N.E.2d 1022, 1025 (Ind.Ct.App.2006) (citing Overstreet v. State, 724 N.E.2d 661, 663 (Ind.Ct.App. 2000)). First, the Fourth Amendment requires that an arrest or detention that lasts longer than a short period of time be justified by probable cause. Id. Second, pursuant to Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the police may briefly detain an individual for investigatory purposes without a warrant or probable cause if, based upon specific and articulable facts, the officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has or is about to occur. Id. The third level of investigation occurs when a police officer makes a casual and brief inquiry of a citizen involving neither an arrest nor a stop. Id. Such is a consensual encounter and does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. Id.

The parties agree that the level of police investigation involved in this case was an investigatory stop. As Officer Gates indicated during trial, upon locating and identifying Jamerson, he informed Jamerson he was "being detained for investigative purposes until [they] could hear back from the county detective." Tr. at 20. Reasonable suspicion to justify an investigatory stop must be based upon specific and articulable facts known to the officer at the time of the stop that lead the officer to believe that "`criminal activity may be afoot.'" Finger v. State, 799 N.E.2d 528, 533-34 (Ind.2003) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)). Facts supporting the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory stop must satisfy "`some minimum level of objective justification'" for the temporary detention of a person to be valid. Bridgewater v. State, 793 N.E.2d 1097, 1099-1100 (Ind.Ct.App. 2003) (quoting Reeves v. State, 666 N.E.2d 933, 936 (Ind.Ct.App.1996)), trans. denied. In order to establish reasonable suspicion, law enforcement officers need not have the level of suspicion necessary for probable cause, but they must have more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch. State v. Belcher, 725 N.E.2d 92, 94 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied. Reasonable suspicion is determined on a case-by-case basis by looking at the totality of the circumstances. Bridgewater, 793 N.E.2d at 1100. "`[A]n investigative detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.'" Finger, 799 N.E.2d at 535 (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983)).

In denying Jamerson's motion to suppress, the trial court stated the following:

"Officer is responding along with a couple of partners is responding to this radio transmission that says that individual with the specific description was a suspect, person of interest, interest wanted to be questioned regarding a carjacking and they're also given a specific location along with a specific description. Officer testified credibly you understand the defendant matched the description. Excuse me, officer then travels through a path that is clearly marked in defendant's exhibit A, a path where there are no fences are shown and he travels through that path from the front of the house to the alley way. And the picture clearly shows again there's no fences there, it's, it looks like brick, a brick path with no obstruction and case law is pretty clear that officers may travel where ever the public may go for purpose of the entrance of the structure. And clearly if you look at this picture there is a, what appears to be an entrance way at the back portion of the house. It's on the side towards the back of the home. And it's clearly permissible under current case law for the officer to travel through that path way to go directly to the alley where it has been testified the vehicle was. Again I then take a look at defendant's exhibit B and I'm looking at where the officer marked and this evidence is controverted but the officer marked the vehicle was at while the defendant and his buddy sat in it and based upon my observations of the pictures I can't say that it was even on that property. In fact based upon this picture it looks like it was away from the property. Nevertheless it was in an alley way and alley ways normally are not owned by the property owners. Alley ways are just that, they're roads and they're not owned by the property owners so the court finds that the contact was made outside of the defendant's property but in the event that the contention is that it was the officers were properly there because they got to the alley way through this walkway that was open, clearly open to the public. Now this wasn't a consent, this wasn't a consensual encounter by any stretch of the imagination. The...