Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 16 May 2023
• Docket Number: 502-2022
• Parties: DUANE COREY JOHNSON v. STATE OF MARYLAND
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

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DUANE COREY JOHNSON v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 502-2022

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland ^[**]

May 16, 2023

Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County Case No C-02-CR-21-001818

Reed Tang, Albright, JJ.

OPINION ^[*]

Albright, J. Duane Corey Johnson was driving in Anne Arundel County when he was stopped for broken taillights. Officers on the scene requested a drug-sniffing dog, or "K-9," which arrived at the scene and alerted. A search of Mr. Johnson's car then revealed crack cocaine. Mr. Johnson filed a motion to suppress, alleging that officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by unreasonably prolonging his traffic stop, which delay caused the stop to extend beyond the point when the K-9 alerted. Mr. Johnson's motion to suppress was denied.

Next, on the morning of trial, but before it started, Mr. Johnson sought to discharge his counsel and postpone his trial date, alleging that he and his attorney disagreed on the strategy to be employed. His motion was denied. Mr. Johnson was then convicted in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County of one count of possessing a controlled dangerous substance.^[1]

Mr. Johnson now appeals, asking us to consider two questions, which we have rephrased:^[2]

1. Did the suppression court err by denying Mr. Johnson's motion to suppress?

2. Did the motions court err or abuse its discretion by denying Mr. Johnson's motion to discharge counsel?

For the reasons below, we conclude that the circuit court did not err in denying Mr. Johnson's motions to suppress and to discharge his counsel. We will affirm the circuit court's judgment.

BACKGROUND

I. The Traffic Stop

We summarize the facts adduced at the suppression hearing.^[3]

Mr. Johnson was driving his vehicle in Anne Arundel County when police officers on patrol, including Det. Shane Fraser, noticed that Mr. Johnson's vehicle did not have working taillights. The officers initiated a traffic stop,^[4] and Mr. Johnson pulled into a nearby parking lot. Two minutes later, two additional officers, including Det. Glenn Wright, arrived to assist. At the same time, a K-9 unit was summoned.

Dets. Fraser and Wright had stopped Mr. Johnson before. About one year earlier, they participated in a traffic stop in which a loaded firearm was recovered from Mr. Johnson's vehicle and he had argued with police. As a result, officers thought it prudent to take additional precautions during this traffic stop.

Officers noticed that Mr. Johnson's vehicle did not display valid registration stickers, and they discovered that there was a "pick-up" order for Mr. Johnson's tags "for an insurance lapse."^[5] After obtaining Mr. Johnson's license, an officer searched Mr. Johnson's information in a law enforcement database, discussing a notification for expired registration tags and a lack of insurance coverage. Mr. Johnson was asked to provide proof of insurance, but he was initially unable to do so. Later, however, Mr. Johnson provided officers with the name of an insurance company and policy number.^[6]One of the officers attempted to locate insurance information for Mr. Johnson from a computer terminal inside one of the patrol cars, but had "some problems[.]" Det. Fraser asked that officer to exit the patrol car, so that Det. Fraser could step in and continue searching for insurance information himself.

Meanwhile, Det. Wright discussed with officers the possibility that Mr. Johnson might try to flee, retrieved a "Piranha" tire deflation device,^[7] and placed the device under one of the tires of Mr. Johnson's vehicle. The conversation about and placement of the Piranha took less than one minute. Separately, Mr. Johnson asked questions of officers about how to obtain a cell phone that, he alleged, was confiscated from him during the previous traffic stop. This led to two brief discussions between officers, lasting fewer than two minutes in total, about the prior stop and the process for retrieving the phone.

While the search for insurance information was ongoing and before citations were issued to Mr. Johnson, a K-9 unit arrived on the scene.^[8] By this time, Det. Wright was close to completing the citations, but had not yet finished. Det. Fraser briefly discussed the situation with the K-9 handler and then resumed the search for insurance information:

[Prosecutor]: Okay. So, once you . . . finished discussing the situation with [the K-9 handler], what did you do next?

[Det. Fraser]: I remained in the vehicle still attempting to find some type of insurance information, just going back through what was on the computer, just making sure I didn't miss anything.

Det. Wright completed the citations and then attempted to print them so that they could be issued to Mr. Johnson.^[9] Immediately after pressing "print," Det. Wright left the vehicle to assist other officers, but there was a problem with the printer and the citations did not print immediately.^[10] Approximately one minute later, the K-9 alerted.^[11]

At the conclusion of the traffic stop, Mr. Johnson was cited for, among other things, driving without insurance. Because he was preoccupied with the search for insurance information, Det. Fraser did not observe the K-9 sweep. After the K-9 alerted, however, Det. Fraser saw that officers were beginning to search Mr. Johnson's vehicle. This search uncovered crack cocaine.

II. The Suppression Court's Ruling

At the conclusion of the suppression hearing, the State argued that the initial stop of Mr. Johnson was valid and that it had not concluded by the time of the dog sniff and alert. The State also emphasized that, at the time, Det. Wright was still working to issue citations and Det. Fraser was still investigating Mr. Johnson's insurance.

Mr. Johnson, however, argued that the dog sniff impermissibly added time to the traffic stop.^[12] In support, he asserted that the officers' discussion of Mr. Johnson's phone added "a measurable amount of time[,]" as did Det. Wright's decision to obtain and deploy the Piranha device to prevent an escape attempt by Mr. Johnson. More specifically, he argued that the Piranha was deployed to facilitate the upcoming dog sweep, rather than for a purpose relevant to the traffic stop. He also asserted that Det. Wright's decision to assist with the K-9 sweep (after beginning to print the citations) impermissibly added about one minute to the traffic stop.

The suppression court then made the following findings and ruling:^[13]

[I]t has been held that the use of . . . a drug sniffing dog is a perfectly legitimate . . . free investigative bonus to a valid traffic stop so long as the traffic stop is still generally in progress when the dog alerts to the presence of narcotics.

So, that indicates to the Court that [there] are two potential issues; whether, first off, this was a valid traffic stop. And I do find that there was reasonable articulable suspicion that crime was afoot . . . to justify the initial stop. And the testimony was that there were no operating tail-lights on the Defendant's vehicle, and that is why the stop was made. So, I believe that that is satisfied.

Now, the . . . second aspect to look at is whether the traffic stop is generally in progress when the dog alerts to the presence of narcotics.

* * *

[T]he stop initially began at 12:11 a.m. By 12:29, . . . the canine sweep had been completed and the K-9 had alerted . . there was approximately 18 minutes and - several seconds.

* * * The testimony was and the body cam video corroborates that the - Officer Wright was - had hit print [on the citations] essentially while the sweep was taking place. And the dog alerted within seconds, or he was notified. You hear the alert, the sound of - spoken words alert within seconds of the ticket being printed[.]

So certainly, the printing of the citation in the officer's vehicle is not the end of the traffic stop because as the testimony indicated, the ticket has to be carried to the operator of the vehicle, and handed to the operator . . . explained at least briefly. So, that would not have occurred within a matter of -the number of seconds between the hitting of print and the alert. So, the Court finds that there was not an unreasonable delay as a result of the K-9 sweep in the traffic stop.

I don't agree . . . that the actions of placing the Piranha behind a tire were an unreasonable delay in the traffic stop attributable to the K-9 sweep. I don't believe that the discussions about the Defendant requesting his cellphone from an earlier stop, or asking to record this stop on his cellphone were delays that were attributable to the K-9 sweep. So for all of those reasons I am going to deny the Defendant's motion to suppress.

DISCUSSION

I. The Circuit Court Did Not Err In Denying Mr. Johnson's Motion To Suppress.

On appeal, Mr. Johnson no longer presses that Det. Wright's decision to facilitate the dog sweep (after attempting to print the citations) prolonged the traffic stop, and he argues instead that the stop was prolonged because officers unnecessarily engaged in a "time-consuming" investigation into Mr. Johnson's insurance. Mr. Johnson also repeats two of the arguments he made to the suppression court: that deploying the Piranha device and the officers' discussions about Mr. Johnson's phone both impermissibly prolonged the traffic stop.

"When reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress we are limited to information in the record of the suppression hearing[.]" Washington v. State, 482 Md. 395, 420 (2022). "We view the evidence and inferences that may be reasonably drawn therefrom in a light most favorable to the prevailing party on the motion-here, the State-and defer to the motions court's factual findings and uphold them unless they are shown to be clearly erroneous." Butler v....