People v. Waits, 27890
| Decision Date | 26 June 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 27890,27890 |
| Citation | 580 P.2d 391,196 Colo. 35 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jimmy Lee WAITS, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Dale Tooley, Dist. Atty., Brooke Wunnicke, Chief Appellate Deputy Dist. Atty., Denver, for plaintiff-appellant.
Lozow & Lozow, Jon P. Lozow, Denver, for defendant-appellee.
The People brought this interlocutory appeal after the trial court suppressed certain stolen property and a pair of pliers discovered on the floor of the appellee's automobile and beneath its seat. We reverse the suppression ruling and remand for further proceedings.
At approximately 7:45 p. m. on February 11, 1977, Officers Mueller and Quinlan of the Denver Police Department were seated in their marked patrol car preparing reports and observing traffic. Their police cruiser, equipped with overhead red lights, was parked on an East Denver street, partially in the roadway and partially on the shoulder.
Looking into the rearview mirror, Officer Mueller noticed an automobile approaching the police car at a distance of seventy-five to one hundred yards. As the automobile neared the patrol car, it stopped suddenly, backed up at high speed, quickly turned around and drove rapidly away from the police cruiser.
The police officers turned their car around, pursued the automobile, pulled up behind it, and turned on their overhead red lights. As the driver pulled to the curb, the officers saw him lean down to his right as if reaching under the right front seat.
Both officers testified that they had not observed any traffic law violations. Rather, they stated that they had followed and stopped the vehicle because the driver's abrupt, apparently evasive action upon confronting their police car had aroused their suspicions. In addition, Officer Mueller testified, based on his experience patrolling that area of Denver for one and one-half years, that the vicinity had a higher-than-average crime rate. During the time period preceding this arrest, he stated, numerous burglaries had been committed in the early evening hours. Officer Mueller stated that his experience combined with his knowledge of the neighborhood and suspicions aroused by the appellee's conduct led him to stop the appellee's car in order to determine the driver's identity and ask him to explain his actions.
After the appellee stopped and got out of his automobile, Officer Mueller met him at the rear of his car. Mueller requested and examined his driver's license. Then, without asking any further questions, the officer stepped forward and shined his flashlight into the window of the appellee's car. On the right front floor, he saw the handle of a large pair of "vise grip" pliers protruding from under the front seat, and three pillowcases bulging with objects of varying sizes and shapes. Officer Mueller testified that he recognized the pliers as a type commonly used by burglars to twist lock bolts out of their sockets. He admitted, however, that the pliers were of a common type and that he owned a similar pair himself. He further testified that it was a familiar practice of burglars to stuff the fruits of their crimes into pillowcases for easy transport.
Officer Mueller next opened the car door and reached in to retrieve and inspect the pliers. Upon doing so, he noticed a jewelry box protruding from one of the pillowcases. His examination of the pliers revealed that their teeth were covered with gold-colored metallic shavings which he recognized from experience as particles of the type that would be left on such a tool after it had been used to force a lock. At that point, Officer Mueller arrested the appellee for investigation of burglary. Some time later a detective who had been called to the scene removed the pillowcases from the car and discovered items later identified as having been taken in a house burglary earlier that evening.
The trial court held that the appellee's suspicious actions justified the officers in making an investigatory stop, but that there was no justification for Officer Mueller's flashlight "search" of the vehicle or the subsequent seizure of the pliers and stolen goods. Accordingly, the trial court suppressed the use in evidence of all the items found in the appellee's car.
On appeal, the People contend (1) that the officers were justified in making the initial stop for investigatory purposes, (2) that it was lawful for Officer Mueller to look through the windows into the appellee's automobile, and (3) that the pliers and stolen items were lawfully seized pursuant to the "plain view" rule.
We address the issues in the order stated.
The first issue presented is whether the initial stop of the appellee's automobile was lawful. The appellee argues that his actions were insufficient to justify the officers in pursuing and stopping his vehicle. We do not agree.
The standards for determining the legality of an investigatory stop were established in Stone v. People, 174 Colo. 504, 485 P.2d 495 (1971):
"In order lawfully to detain an individual for questioning, (1) the officer must have a reasonable suspicion that the individual has committed, or is about to commit, a crime; (2) the purpose of the detention must be reasonable; and (3) the character of the detention must be reasonable when considered in light of the purpose." 174 Colo. at 509, 485 P.2d at 497.
We have previously applied these standards to investigatory stops involving automobiles. People v. Mangum, Colo., 539 P.2d 120 (1975).
Although the police officers in this case did not directly observe the commission of a crime, or even a traffic violation, the appellee's abrupt, evasive maneuver upon confronting their marked police cruiser was clearly sufficient to raise a "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity. Without dwelling on the obvious, it is sufficient to observe here that the clear inference to be drawn from the appellee's sudden change of course was that he wished to avoid any police contact. Similarly, the obvious implication of that desire was that the appellee had recently been involved in illegal activity, and feared recognition or that his crime would be detected.
Based on these reasonable inferences and the officers' experience in law enforcement, we cannot say that their actions in stopping the appellee's vehicle, for limited investigatory procedures, was unreasonable. 1 To the contrary, in this situation, failure to investigate further might have been considered inconsistent with good police practice.
The next question concerns the lawfulness of Officer Mueller's "flashlight search" of the vehicle. Appellee contends that the only purposes for the stop were to identify the driver and question him about his evasive actions, and that Officer Mueller could have obtained that information without looking into the car. Therefore, he argues, anything discovered as a result of the "flashlight search" was properly suppressed. Again, we disagree.
Since Officer Mueller had reasonable grounds to justify an investigative stop of the automobile, it was not unlawful for him to be standing next to the car's window or to look at whatever could be observed through the window from where he had a right to be. Since he was entitled to look through the windows, he was entitled to use a flashlight to be able to see in the dark. People v. Mangum, supra; People v. Haggart, 188 Colo. 164, 533 P.2d 488 (1975); People v. Shriver, 186 Colo. 405, 528 P.2d 242 (1974); People v. Ramey, 174 Colo. 250, 483 P.2d 374 (1971); People v. Teague,173 Colo. 120, 476 P.2d 751 (1970).
People v. Apodaca, supra, upon which the appellee relies for his contention, involved a special fact situation and is inapplicable here. In that case, police conducted an exploratory flashlight search of the defendants' car even though they had no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed. Moreover, the car was parked in a carport behind the defendants' house. Given those facts, we held that the police search violated the defendants' reasonable expectation of privacy.
Here, on the other hand, the police had reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity, and thus were justified in making the initial stop of the appellee's car. Furthermore, the car was stopped on a public street where, given the ready visibility of an automobile's interior, the appellee's reasonable expectations of privacy were considerably diminished. At that point the situation was comparable to the right of an officer to see what is in plain view in a car parked on a public street....
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