Parker v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1985
• Docket Number: No. 13,13
• Citation: 66 Md.App. 1,502 A.2d 510
• Parties: Willis T. PARKER v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 1

66 Md.App. 1

502 A.2d 510

Willis T. PARKER v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 13, Sept. Term, 1985.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 10, 1986.

Barbara L. Matthews, Assistant Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Nicolette H. Prevost, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Kurt L. Schmoke, State's Atty. for Baltimore City and Ruth Finch, Asst. State's Atty. for Baltimore City, on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before ALPERT and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ., and JAMES S. GETTY, Associate Judge of the Court of Special Appeals (retired), specially assigned.

ALPERT, Judge.

In this appeal we are called upon to determine what constitutes "reasonable grounds to believe that the person [charged with the traffic violation] will disregard [the] traffic citation," and whether subjecting that person to a warrantless arrest for a traffic violation was illegal.

Willis T. Parker, appellant, having been found guilty in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, contends on appeal that:

The court erred in denying appellant's motion to suppress the drugs and money seized from appellant's pocket and from the car.

We disagree and shall affirm.

Transportation Article, § 26-202(a)(2) (1984 Repl.Vol., 1985 Supp.) provides in pertinent part that:

A police officer may arrest without a warrant a person for a violation of the Maryland Vehicle Law, ... if ... the person has committed or is committing the violation within the view or presence of the officer, and either: (i) the person does not furnish satisfactory evidence of identity; or (ii) the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person will disregard a traffic citation.

It was pursuant to subsection (a)(2)(ii) that Officer John J. Fabula arrested the appellant on August 29, 1984, after concluding that he was operating a motor vehicle without an operator's license. Upon a search incident to the arrest, Officer Fabula recovered from the appellant's right pants pocket a small clear plastic bag with some rice and five gelatin capsules containing a white powder which he believed to be cocaine. The officer then conducted a search of the vehicle which the appellant had been operating and recovered a bag which contained a large clear plastic bag with rice and twenty gelatin capsules, again containing a white powder which the officer thought was cocaine. Subsequently, appellant was charged, by criminal information, with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and on February 4, 1985, a suppression hearing was held in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the Honorable Marshall Levin presiding. At that hearing both Officer Fabula and the appellant gave conflicting testimony concerning the arrest and subsequent search and seizure. For reasons more particularly stated in the record, Judge Levin resolved the conflicts in favor of the police officer. As factfinder, he believed the testimony of Officer Fabula over that of the appellant.

The officer's testimony revealed that on August 29, 1984, at about 2:50 p.m., in the 700 block of Cumberland Street in Baltimore City, he observed the appellant driving an automobile without a left rear brakelight. He followed and eventually stopped the car. As he approached the vehicle, he observed the appellant nervously and quickly roll a paper bag and place it in the console of the automobile. When he asked the appellant for his driver's license and registration for the vehicle, the appellant "became somewhat nervous and he exited the car for no reason and walked to the front of the vehicle." The officer further testified:

He had no reason to exit the car like that. I was surprised when he got out and walked fast like that, and for a moment I thought he was going to run so I quickly walked behind him.

Again, Parker was asked for his license and registration and responded that he should not be driving the vehicle and that he had no driver's license or registration. When asked for any other identification, he produced a "prison ID which contained his picture but no address." Appellant continued his nervous behavior, i.e., "he was rubbing his face, and walking to the front of the car and repeating, 'Man, I should not have been driving the car, and all that's stuff, you know, you got me.' " Additionally, the officer thought that the appellant "was on something"--i.e., some type of controlled dangerous substance, because the officer could discern no odor of alcohol, appellant's eyes were watering, he was talking fast and rubbing his eyes and nose. The officer determined via the police radio that the vehicle was not reported stolen and that the appellant had no driver's license. He placed him under arrest, initially testifying that:

Because I didn't think that everything was going together ... as far as his attitude, nervousness, he was placed under arrest for no Maryland driver's license, the ID part of it.

Further on in the hearing, the officer testified that he thought the appellant might not show up for trial, or that he might run away because of "his attitude, your Honor, the nervousness." At an even later point in the hearing, Officer Fabula stated that he arrested the appellant because: "I thought he was not going to make the ticket good, your Honor." When asked by the court why he felt that way, he responded, "Just that one piece of ID, your Honor [the prison card]."

After carefully summing up the testimony and evidence, Judge Levin overruled the motion to suppress, succinctly setting forth his reasons:

So now the question finally is, if I do believe him, was he reasonable when he says that he felt that the defendant would not show up.

Well the defendant, to the officer's mentality, was driving a car when he had no business driving that car. He did not have a license to drive it.

Number two, he was nervous.

Number three, he did not supply that degree of evidence as to his identity, which includes, I find, his address, to put the officer's mind at ease.

Next that he showed him a card which showed he had been in prison.

Next, that he made a suspicious move of putting a bag and attempting to hide from the officer's view, a bag.

Now it is true that the officer did not know what the bag had in it, but I find that all of these factors together furnish objective reasonable ground to believe that he would not show up, that he would disregard the traffic citation.

In asserting that the trial judge erred in admitting the evidence, appellant launches a two-pronged attack claiming first, that the arrest was illegal, and second, that even if the arrest was legal, the "inventory search" of the car was illegal.

I. Legality of the Arrest

Appellant contends that the arrest was illegal because it was not based upon a reasonable belief that the appellant would ignore the traffic citation. He argues that an arrest for a minor traffic violation cannot be used as an investigative tool merely because the police officer suspected that everything was not "going together." What constitutes "reasonable grounds to believe that the person will disregard a traffic citation" has never been interpreted by our appellate courts. In this case of first impression, we have no difficulty in determining the intention of the legislature when it chose those words. We need look no further than the statute itself.

First, we observe that for the more serious offenses, such as driving while intoxicated, driving while under the influence of any drug, failure to stop in the event of an accident and driving on a revoked license, § 26-202(a)(3), a police officer may immediately arrest the alleged offender without regard to concerns of identity or belief that the person will disregard the traffic citation. With that in mind, we observe that the legislature contemplated situations where, in order to enforce less serious traffic laws, it would be necessary to insure the appearance of the defendant at trial. Thus, where the person has not furnished satisfactory evidence of identity or where the officer otherwise had reason to believe that the person would disregard the citation, that is, not appear for trial, the officer could arrest on the spot.

Because we have no difficulty in holding that "reasonable grounds to believe" is tantamount to "probable cause" to believe, Graham v. State, 13 Md.App. 171, 177, 282 A.2d 162 (1971), cert. denied, 264 Md. 748 (1972), we may rely on the definition of "probable cause" as the barometer for determining whether Officer Fabula had "reasonable grounds to believe" that the appellant would not appear for trial. "Probable cause has been defined as a non-technical conception of a reasonable ground for a belief of guilt requiring less evidence for such belief than would justify conviction, but more evidence than mere suspicion." Cuffia v. State, 14 Md.App. 521, 525, 287 A.2d 319 (1972), cert. denied, 265 Md. 736. Its existence, justifying an arrest without a warrant, must be determined by factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent persons, not legal technicians, act. 5 Am.Jur.2d, Appeal and Error § 48 (1962). As the Supreme Court said in Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949), "in dealing with probable cause, ... as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities." Id. at 175, 69 S.Ct. at 1310. And we note that one definition of the word "probable" is "that which is likely to be so, or more likely to occur than not to occur." Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary 1433 (Unabridged 2d ed. 1977).

Returning to the definition set forth in Cuffia, we believe that it is fair to say that the establishment of "probable cause" requires more than mere suspicion but less than belief "beyond a reasonable doubt" (the standard for a finding of guilt). Thus, we find ourselves dealing with a standard that perhaps we could characterize as...