State Of North Carolina v. Hopper

• Decision Date: 06 July 2010
• Docket Number: No. COA09-1211.,COA09-1211.
• Citation: 695 S.E.2d 801
• Parties: STATE of North Carolinav.Waddell Johnson HOPPER, Jr., Defendant.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

695 S.E.2d 801

STATE of North Carolinav.Waddell Johnson HOPPER, Jr., Defendant.

No. COA09-1211.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

July 6, 2010.

Appeal by defendant from judgment entered 7 May 2009 by Judge William Z. Wood, Jr. in Forsyth County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 24 February 2010.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General J. Joy Strickland, for the State.

S. Hannah Demeritt, Durham, for defendant-appellant.

HUNTER, ROBERT C., Judge.

Defendant Waddell Johnson Hopper, Jr. appeals from the trial court's order denying his motion to suppress evidence seized during a traffic stop. Defendant contends that the police officer that stopped him lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop, and thus the evidence seized was the product of an unconstitutional search and should have been suppressed. We conclude, however, that the officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that defendant committed a traffic violation supporting the traffic stop. We, therefore, affirm.

Facts

On 28 April 2008, Officer T.S. Mabe of the Winston-Salem Police Department was on routine patrol in Piedmont Circle, an apartment complex in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Piedmont Circle, also the name of a street in the complex, “goes around some inner apartments, and then there's some outer apartments on the other side of the circle[.]” Corporal Mabe was contacted by investigators in the police department's narcotics unit and was told that defendant, who was driving in front of him in a white Chevrolet SUV, was driving with a revoked license.

At the time of the call from the narcotics officers, it was “raining excessively heavy” and Corporal Mabe needed his windshield wipers on their highest setting to see out of his front windshield. Corporal Mabe saw defendant's white SUV in front of him and noticed that defendant did not have his taillights on despite the heavy rain. Corporal Mabe activated his blue lights and siren and stopped defendant's car. The narcotics officers arrived at the scene and defendant was cited for failing to have his vehicle's taillights in proper working order. During the traffic stop, defendant's vehicle was searched and the police found approximately 10 grams of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a 9mm handgun. Defendant was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana with the intent to sell or deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Defendant filed a pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the traffic stop on the ground that Corporal Mabe did not have reasonable suspicion to stop defendant's vehicle. After conducting a hearing on 4 May 2009, the trial court entered an order on 7 May 2009, in which it concluded that Corporal Mabe had reasonable suspicion to conduct the traffic stop based on defendant's failure to have his taillights on while driving with his windshield wipers operating. Consequently, the trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress and defendant pled guilty to all charges, expressly reserving his right to appeal from the denial of his motion to suppress. The court consolidated the offenses into one judgment and sentenced defendant to a presumptive-range term of 16 to 20 months imprisonment. Defendant timely appealed to this Court.

Discussion

Defendant's only argument on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, the appellate court determines whether the trial court's findings of fact are supported by competent evidence and whether those findings, in turn, support the court's conclusions of law. State v. Cooke, 306 N.C. 132, 134, 291 S.E.2d 618, 619 (1982). The court's findings of fact are binding on appeal if they are supported by competent evidence, even if the evidence is conflicting. State v. Buchanan, 353 N.C. 332, 336, 543 S.E.2d 823, 826 (2001). The trial court's conclusions of law, however, “are fully reviewable on appeal.” State v. Hughes, 353 N.C. 200, 208, 539 S.E.2d 625, 631 (2000).

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Traffic stops are permitted under the Fourth Amendment if the officer has “ ‘reasonable suspicion’ to believe that a traffic law has been broken.” State v. Styles, 362 N.C. 412, 415, 665 S.E.2d 438, 440 (2008) (quoting United States v. Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d 392, 396 (3d Cir.2006)). Reasonable suspicion requires that “[t]he stop ... be based on specific and articulable facts, as well as the rational inferences from those facts, as viewed through the eyes of a reasonable, cautious officer, guided by [the officer's] experience and training.” State v. Watkins, 337 N.C. 437, 441, 446 S.E.2d 67, 70 (1994) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879-81, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906 (1968)).

Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause State v. Barnard, 362 N.C. 244, 247, 658 S.E.2d 643, 645 cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 264, 172 L.Ed.2d 198 (2008), and only requires a “minimal level of objective justification, something more than an ‘unparticularized suspicion or hunch[,]’ ” State v. Steen, 352 N.C. 227, 239, 536 S.E.2d 1, 8 (2000) (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1, 10 (1989)) cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1167, 121 S.Ct. 1131, 148 L.Ed.2d 997 (2001). “A court must consider ‘the totality of the circumstances-the whole picture’ in determining whether a reasonable suspicion” exists. Watkins, 337 N.C. at 441, 446 S.E.2d at 70 (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 629 (1981)).

With respect to whether Corporal Mabe had reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop of defendant's SUV on 28 April 2008, the trial court found:

4) It was raining hard and Corporal Mabe had to put his windshield wipers on the highest setting so that he could see out the front windshield of his patrol car.

5) When Corporal Mabe pulled behind the defendant's white SUV on the road known as Piedmont Circle, he observed that the defendant's vehicle did not have its taillights on as required by G.S. 20-129 at a time when Officer Mabe believed that the defendant's windshield wipers were operating.

6) Corporal Mabe believed Piedmont Circle was a public road.

7) Corporal Mabe issued the defendant a citation for failing to have taillights in proper working order pursuant to G.S. 20-129.

Based on its findings, the trial court concluded that “Piedmont Circle is a public road or highway within the meaning of G.S. 20-129”; that “Corporal Mabe reasonably believed that the defendant was required to have his taillights operating under the given weather conditions”; and that “Corporal Mabe had reasonable articulable suspicion to stop the defendant's vehicle for failing to have taillights in proper working order.” Consequently, the court determined that the evidence seized pursuant to the traffic stop was “lawfully obtained” and denied defendant's motion.

N.C. Gen.Stat. § 20-129 (2009) provides in pertinent part that “[e]very vehicle upon a highway within this State” is required to have its headlights and taillights on

[a]t any ... time when windshield wipers are in use as a result of smoke, fog, rain, sleet, or snow, or when inclement weather or environmental factors severely reduce the ability to clearly discern persons and vehicles on the street and highway at a distance of 500 feet ahead, provided, however, the provisions of this subdivision shall not apply to instances when windshield wipers are used intermittently in misting rain, sleet, or snow.

N.C. Gen.Stat. § 20-129(a)(4). In turn, N.C. Gen.Stat. § 20-4.01(13) (2009), provides that “[t]he terms ‘highway’ and ‘street’ and their cognates are synonymous[,]” and include “[t]he entire width between property or right-of-way lines of every way or place of whatever nature, when any part thereof is open to the use of the public as a matter of right for the purposes of vehicular traffic.”

Defendant argues that “[t]he trial court's conclusion that Piedmont Circle is a public road is not supported by the findings of fact or the evidence of record and is incorrect as a matter of law.” We note, as an initial matter, that the issue regarding whether a street is public or private is a question of fact. See State v. Mark, 154 N.C.App. 341, 345-46, 571 S.E.2d 867, 870 (2002) (addressing whether evidence was sufficient to support “reasonable inference” that road on which defendant was driving was public or private road) aff'd per curiam, 357 N.C. 242, 580 S.E.2d 693 (2003); State v. Bowen, 67 N.C.App. 512, 514-15, 313 S.E.2d 196, 197-98 (holding trial court could not determine as a “matter of law” that driveway into condominium complex was public vehicular area where evidence was conflicting but concluding that evidence was “sufficient to take the case to the jury”) appeal dismissed, 312 N.C. 79, 320 S.E.2d 405 (1984); see also State v. Mikolinski, 56 Conn.App. 252, 261, 742 A.2d 1264, 1270 (1999) (“The question of whether a roadway is a public highway is a question of fact.”) aff'd, 256 Conn. 543, 775 A.2d 274 (2001); State v. Guillet, 3 Conn. Cir. Ct. 380, 382, 215 A.2d 685, 687 (1965) (“Whether the defendant was operating a motor vehicle on a public highway, as the [DWI] statute requires is a question of fact....”); State v. Scott, 61 Or.App. 205, 208, 655 P.2d 1094, 1095 (1982) (holding that issue of whether streets in privately-owned condominium complex were open to the public was a question of fact). The trial court's determination, labeled as a conclusion of law, that Piedmont Circle is a “public road or highway,” is thus more properly considered a finding of fact rather than a conclusion of law. See In re Helms, 127 N.C.App. 505, 510, 491 S.E.2d 672, 675 (1997) (defining conclusions of law as “any determination requiring the exercise of judgment...