State v. Crawley

• Decision Date: 24 July 2006
• Citation: 901 A.2d 924,187 N.J. 440
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Saleem T. CRAWLEY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

901 A.2d 924

187 N.J. 440

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Saleem T. CRAWLEY, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued February 15, 2006.

Decided July 24, 2006.

Fruqan Mouzon, Newark, argued the cause for appellant (Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, attorneys).

Daniel I. Bornstein, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Zulima V. Farber, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney).

Gina Mendola Longarzo, Florham Park, submitted a brief on behalf of amicus curiae, Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Hack, Piro, O'Day, Merklinger, Wallace & McKenna, attorneys).

Justice ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case, two police officers on patrol received a dispatch from headquarters that a person was armed with a gun outside a bar. Minutes later, near the bar, the officers sighted a man matching the description given in the dispatch and ordered him to stop for questioning. Instead, the man, later identified as defendant Saleem T. Crawley, ran. After an intense pursuit, the officers arrested defendant. Defendant was convicted of the disorderly persons offense of obstructing "a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight." N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a). Defendant claims in this appeal that because the officers engaged in an unconstitutional investigatory stop, the officers were not "lawfully performing an official function," and therefore he should have been found not guilty.

In upholding defendant's conviction, the Appellate Division determined that the investigatory stop was constitutional, finding that the officers acted based on "a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity." We affirm, but for different reasons. We conclude that in relying on the dispatch from headquarters the officers were "lawfully performing an official function" when they commanded defendant to stop. Defendant's obligation to comply with that command did not depend on how a court at some later time might decide the overall constitutionality of the street encounter. Because the officers acted in good faith and under color of their authority, defendant violated the obstructing statute when he took flight, thus endangering himself, the police, and the public.

I.

At defendant's trial in Newark Municipal Court, the State presented its case through the testimony of Newark police officers Paul Williams and Matthew Milton. Shortly after midnight on March 15, 2002, while on patrol in a marked police car, Officers Williams and Milton received a radio dispatch reporting that there was a man armed with a gun at the Oasis Bar located on South Orange Avenue in Newark.¹ The dispatcher described the suspect as a young black male, 5'5" to 5'7" tall, weighing about 150 pounds, and wearing a green jacket, red shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. Less than two minutes later, while traveling westbound on South Orange Avenue toward the bar, the two uniformed officers observed defendant walking eastbound "at a semi-brisk pace" with his hands in his jacket pockets. Defendant matched exactly the dispatcher's description of the suspect. Officer Williams referred to that part of South Orange Avenue as "[a] very high narcotics area," and to the Oasis as a "notorious bar" known for "[a] lot of weapons offenses."

Without activating the patrol car's siren or overhead lights, the officers made a U-turn and approached defendant from behind. As the patrol car pulled up alongside defendant, Officer Williams rolled down the passenger side window and called out, "Police. Stop. I need to speak with you."² In response, defendant "immediately turned and just started running." Officer Williams then pursued defendant on foot, while Officer Milton circled the block in the patrol car. Williams chased defendant through a parking lot and to an apartment complex, where defendant threw an object to the ground. Williams picked up the object, a small plastic bag, and resumed the pursuit, eventually cornering defendant at the bottom of an apartment complex stairwell. There, for the first time, the officer drew his gun. Williams arrested defendant, but found no weapon on him. The small plastic bag discarded earlier by defendant held twelve smaller plastic bags containing a white powder. A field test conducted by the officers indicated that the powder was cocaine.

Defendant gave an entirely different account of that evening's events. He testified that after leaving the home of a friend, he was walking down South Orange Avenue, when the patrol car made a U-turn. He claimed that both officers "jumped out" of the vehicle with their guns drawn, and because he was frightened, he ran. He denied that he discarded drugs.

II.

A.

Defendant was charged with four disorderly persons offenses: possessing and failing to deliver a controlled dangerous substance (CDS) to a law enforcement officer, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(c); possessing drug paraphernalia, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:36-2; loitering for purposes of obtaining or selling a CDS, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:33-2.1; and obstructing the administration of law or other governmental function, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1.

At defendant's trial, the prosecutor presented only the empty outer bag discarded by defendant and none of the smaller bags allegedly containing cocaine, which apparently were lost. As a result, at the end of the State's case, the municipal court granted defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal on the failing to deliver and loitering charges. In rendering its final verdict, the court found defendant guilty of obstructing the police officers in the lawful performance of their duties and not guilty of possessing drug paraphernalia.³ The court sentenced defendant to a one-year probationary term, along with appropriate fines, assessments, and court costs.

B.

In a trial de novo before the Superior Court, Law Division, defendant argued that because the police officers did not have reasonable suspicion for a constitutional stop, the officers were not "lawfully performing an official function" under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a). He thus contended that his flight could not be the basis for a conviction. In rejecting that analysis, Superior Court Judge John C. Kennedy held that "[p]olice action which is reasonable under the totality of the circumstances, though mistaken from a constitutional perspective, is not `unlawful' under N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a)." Accordingly, Judge Kennedy determined that he was not required to decide whether the police officers conducted "a constitutionally permissible investigatory stop," but only whether their actions were "objectively reasonable."

In reviewing the municipal court record, Judge Kennedy found that (1) the officers received a dispatch of a man with a gun in an area known for weapons offenses and narcotics activity; (2) the officers acted reasonably in investigating a reported crime; (3) defendant exactly fit the description of the suspect in the dispatch; (4) a uniformed police officer "unambiguously" told defendant to stop; and (5) defendant's flight created a "grave risk of injury to both the police officers and others." Judge Kennedy stressed that merely because the police might have stepped over a constitutionally imposed line, that did not allow defendant to ignore a police order and thus "to risk the safety of the officers or others by embarking upon a flight." Under those circumstances, Judge Kennedy concluded that defendant's flight constituted a violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a), and therefore he found defendant guilty of the obstructing charge. Judge Kennedy sentenced defendant to the same probationary term he received in municipal court and imposed appropriate fees and penalties.

C.

In an unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division affirmed defendant's conviction. Unlike the Law Division, the panel directly addressed the constitutionality of the police encounter with defendant and found that the investigatory stop was based on reasonable suspicion. Because the panel held that the stop complied with both the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution, it followed that the police officers were acting "lawfully" under the obstruction statute.

In reaching its decision, the panel first rejected the State's argument that defendant had waived his constitutional claim by failing to challenge the lawfulness of his seizure in a motion to suppress filed pursuant to Rule 3:5-7. The panel noted that the issue on appeal did not concern whether illegally obtained evidence should be suppressed; after all, defendant did not move to suppress any evidence. Rather, according to the panel, the issue concerned "whether defendant's flight from the police can be constitutionally criminalized," a matter properly raised in the context of the trial itself.

Next, the panel accepted that "defendant was detained or `stopped' for investigatory purposes." Because the panel found that the "investigatory stop was based on specific and articulable facts which ... gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity," it concluded that the stop was constitutional and therefore defendant's flight "constituted a proper basis for a violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1a."⁴

We granted defendant's petition for certification. 185 N.J. 297, 884 A.2d 1266 (2005). We also granted the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey leave to participate as amicus curiae.

III.

We must determine whether defendant, when he ran from the police after receiving an order to stop for questioning, violated N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1. That statute provides:

A person commits an offense if he purposely obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental function or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight, intimidation, force, violence, or...