Riley v. State

• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware
• Writing for the Court: Holland
• Citation: Riley v. State, 892 A.2d 370 (Del. 2006)
• Decision Date: 09 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 88, 2005.,88, 2005.
• Parties: John A. RILEY, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

892 A.2d 370

John A. RILEY, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

No. 88, 2005.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: December 7, 2005.

Decided: January 9, 2006.

Court Below — Superior Court of the State of Delaware, in and for New Castle County, Cr. I.D. No. 0403004231 Cr.A. No. IN04-03-2740.

Upon appeal from the Superior Court.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

Christopher D. Tease, Esquire, Wilmington, Delaware, for appellant.

Gregory E. Smith, Esquire, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, for appellee.

Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.

HOLLAND, Justice.

The New Castle County grand jury indicted the defendant-appellant, John A. Riley, on the following charges: Possession With Intent to Deliver Xanax;¹ Possession with Intent to Deliver Marijuana;² Using a Vehicle for Keeping Controlled Substances;³ Possession of Xanax not in the Original Container;⁴ Possession of Drug Paraphernalia;⁵ and two counts of Unlawfully Dealing with a Child.⁶

Riley filed a motion to suppress. The Superior Court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion. The Superior Court granted Riley's motion to suppress statements that he made at the time of his seizure by police, but denied the motion to the extent it sought to exclude drugs and drug paraphernalia found on or about Riley's person.

The trial began on December 2, 2004. At the conclusion of the State's case, Riley moved for judgment of acquittal on the two charges of unlawfully dealing with a child. The Superior Court granted the motion and dismissed those two charges. The jury acquitted Riley of the charges of Using a Vehicle for Keeping Controlled Substances and Possession of Xanax not in the Original Container. The jury found Riley guilty of Possession With Intent to Deliver Xanax, Possession With Intent to Deliver marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The Superior Court sentenced Riley to a total of five years at Level V, suspended after six months for probation, on those charges.

Riley appeals from the denial of a suppression motion and his conviction and sentence. In this appeal, Riley contends that the Superior Court erroneously denied his motion to suppress the drugs and drug paraphernalia found on his person and in the vehicles because the police did not have a reasonable articulable suspicion for their initial stop. The record supports Riley's contention. Therefore, we have concluded that the judgments of the Superior Court must be reversed.

Facts

On March 4, 2004, Newark Police Department Officers Young, Anunias, and Bradshaw participated in an undercover "Cops in Shops" program under which they monitored the parking lot of the Suburban Liquor Store for sales of liquor to minors. The officers arrived between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m. and described the parking lot as "well-lit." At approximately 8:00 p.m., a Ford Escort arrived with two female passengers, both of whom appeared underage.

After five to ten minutes, a black Ford Taurus with two passengers parked one or two spaces away from the Escort. Riley exited the vehicle and entered the rear passenger side of the Escort. The officers continued to observe the Escort and noticed the two women turn to face Riley and, while periodically "looking around," apparently engage him in conversation. The officers testified that they believed they saw some type of exchange, although they were unable to identify any particular objects passed by the Escort's occupants.

Based upon these observations and prior investigations of adults providing alcohol to minors, officers believed they might have been witnessing a request by the underage girls for the man to purchase them alcohol or, perhaps, a drug transaction. The officers parked behind the Escort to prevent it from driving away, and then exited their car. Officer Young testified that as they approached the two vehicles, the three officers displayed their badges, shined flashlights into the two cars, and identified themselves as police. Officer Anunias testified as follows:

I approached the rear passenger door [of the Escort], I saw Mr. Riley sitting inside with his hands like he was fiddling with something in his lap, I put my badge up to the window and identified myself as a police officer and asked him to show me his hands. He did not. He kept fiddling with a — whatever it was. That's the time I opened the door and asked him to leave the vehicle.

After the officer opened the door, he smelled marijuana and saw a pill bottle on the Escort's floor. Anunias asked Riley where he had his drugs and Riley showed the officer where he had placed marijuana in his pants.

Standard of Review

Riley argues that the State failed to establish, under both statutory and constitutional law, a threshold of reasonable and articulable suspicion justifying a detention. More specifically, Riley argues that where police, working a "Cops and Shops" detail in Newark, observed Riley enter a vehicle occupied by what appeared to be two underage females outside a liquor store, and observed non-specific movements inside the vehicle, they lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to justify stopping him. Therefore, Riley submits that all evidence obtained following his illegal seizure was inadmissible.

In reviewing an evidentiary hearing on a motion to suppress, this Court will defer to the factual findings of the Superior Court unless those findings are clearly erroneous.⁷ Once the historical facts are established, the legal issue is whether an undisputed rule of law is violated. Accordingly, this Court reviews de novo whether police possessed reasonable articulable suspicion to stop a person.⁸

Investigative "Terry" Detention

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects individuals from "unreasonable searches and seizures."⁹ The United States Supreme Court interpreted the Fourth Amendment in Terry v. Ohio,¹⁰ as allowing "a police officer [to] detain an individual for investigatory purposes for a limited scope and duration, but only if such detention is supported by a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity."¹¹ Thus, law enforcement officers may stop and temporarily detain someone on grounds less than probable cause for an arrest without violating the Fourth Amendment.¹²

Such a stop is justified, however, only if "specific and articulable facts ... together with rational inferences," suggest that a suspect is involved in criminal activity.¹³ Title 11, section 1902 of the Delaware Code codifies the standards for "Terry" stops and temporary detentions under Delaware Law.¹⁴ That section reads, in pertinent part:

§ 1902. Questioning and detaining suspects.

(a) A peace officer may stop any person abroad, or in a public place, who the officer has reasonable ground to suspect is committing, has committed or is about to commit a crime, and may demand the person's name, address, business abroad and destination.

This Court has held that the term "reasonable ground" in the Delaware statute has the same meaning as the words "reasonable and articulable suspicion" as used in Terry by the United States Supreme Court.¹⁵ In order to satisfy the "reasonable and articulable" standard, the officer must point to specific facts, which viewed in their entirety and accompanied by rational inferences, support the suspicion that the person sought to be detained was in the process of violating the law.¹⁶ The totality of circumstances, as viewed through the eyes of a reasonable, trained officer in the same or similar circumstances, must be examined by both the trial judge and appellate courts to determine if reasonable suspicion has been properly formulated.¹⁷

Police Seize Riley

The first question to be answered is: when did the police officers "seize" Riley for purposes of the Fourth Amendment? Under Terry, a seizure occurs "`when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty' of the individual."<sup>18</sup> In California v. Hodari,<sup>19</sup> the United States Supreme Court determined that "even when an officer has manifested a `show of authority,' a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment further `requires either physical force ... or, where that is absent, submission to the assertion of authority."²⁰ In this case, the State's answering brief acknowledges and we conclude that "when police approached the Escort with their badges and flashlights, after having parked their police vehicle behind the Escort so as to prevent it from driving away, a seizure had taken place for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis."²¹

Reasonable Articulable Suspicion

The next question is: did the police officers have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity was taking place when they seized Riley? A reasonable and articulable suspicion is established when an officer can "point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant th[e] intrusion."²² "A determination of reasonable suspicion must be evaluated in the context of the totality of the circumstances as viewed through the eyes of a reasonable, trained police officer in the same or similar circumstances, combining objective facts with such an officer's subjective interpretation of those facts."²³

The United States Supreme Court has rejected attempts by the Circuit Courts of Appeal to evaluate and reject "factors in isolation from each other."²⁴ Both the U.S. Supreme Court and this Court have recognized that "[i]n some instances... lawful and apparently innocent conduct may add up to reasonable suspicion if the detaining officer articulates `concrete reasons for such an interpretation.'"<sup>25</sup> This Court has adopted a two-part test for assessing police conduct.<sup>26</sup> "First, courts must look at the totality of the circumstances, `including objective observations and "consideration of the modes or patterns...