State v. Gibbons
| Decision Date | 30 March 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. A00A1885.,A00A1885. |
| Citation | 547 S.E.2d 679,248 Ga. App. 859 |
| Parties | The STATE v. GIBBONS et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
T. Joseph Campbell, Dist. Atty., Donald S. Smith, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellant.
White, Choate & Watkins, Jay Choate, Cook & Connelly, Bobby Lee Cook, Summerville, Rex B. Abernathy, Cartersville, for appellees.
Pursuant to OCGA § 5-7-1(a)(4), the State appeals the trial court's grant of a motion to suppress filed by Michael Stinemetz and Vincent Gibbons. The State contends the trial court erred by finding that the state trooper impermissibly expanded the scope of the traffic investigation and also erred by failing to find that the trooper had a reasonable suspicion to request Stinemetz's consent to search his person. We disagree and affirm.
1. In reviewing a trial court's decision on a motion to suppress, an appellate court's responsibility is to ensure that there was a substantial basis for the decision. Morgan v. State, 195 Ga.App. 732, 735(3), 394 S.E.2d 639 (1990). Our Supreme Court has established three guiding principles for reviewing such rulings:
Id. at 56(3), 440 S.E.2d 646.
2. Construed most favorably toward upholding the trial court's findings and judgment, the evidence shows that a Georgia State Trooper pulled over Stinemetz and Gibbons for a seat belt violation. The traffic stop was recorded by a video camera in the trooper's cruiser, and the trial court viewed this videotape during the motion to suppress hearing. This tape shows that the state trooper immediately asked Stinemetz "twenty questions" that were unrelated to the reason he pulled him over. A transcript of their encounter follows:
Q. How ya doing? May I see your driver's license please? I stopped you because you didn't have your seat belt on, but I see you got it on now.
A. [Unintelligible.] ... better put it on.
Q. Y'all didn't have `em on did you? Where are y'all heading to?
Q. Where you been?
A. We went down to Atlanta to visit some friends. They had a Memorial Day party down there.
Q. Step back. [Unintelligible.] ... I can't hardly hear you.
Q. Take your hand out of your pocket for me. You work where now?
A. Mine, well, it's in my Mom's, but it's just mine.
Q. Who is this gentleman you have with you?
A. Uh, he's just a friend of mine. We went down to visit some friends today.
A. High school. I mean I been out for awhile. I known his cousin. I just known him about a year.
A. Just a couple of hours. Down there visiting some friends. Did I do something wrong or something?
Q. Well, you're not wearing your seat belt. Georgia's got a seat belt law.
A. Yeah. [Unintelligible.] ... he had his on. [Unintelligible.] ... we saw you [Unintelligible.] ... so I put it on.
Q. That's what you did wrong. But, on the seat belt violation, that's the reason I stopped you.
A. Okay.
Q. Do you have business with these people in the other car? Do y'all know them?
A. No, uh, uh. I think the cop had them pulled over when we pulled up here.
Q. It's for my safety and yours too. Do you have anything in your pockets?
Q. You don't have a hypodermic in there or nothing do you?
After placing Stinemetz in the patrol car, the state trooper questioned Gibbons' about their trip and how they knew each other. Gibbons' answers agreed substantially with what Stinemetz had said. The trooper then arrested Gibbons for possession of the substance in the vial found in Stinemetz's left pants pocket. The trooper then performed an inventory of Stinemetz's car and found a package of cocaine in the trunk.
In a preliminary hearing held three months after the appellants' arrest, the trooper's testimony about his encounter with the appellants varied from both the videotape and his later testimony in the motion to suppress hearing. The trooper initially claimed that Stinemetz could not produce a valid driver's license, but later admitted in the motion to suppress hearing that he had. He also testified in the preliminary hearing that he asked for Stinemetz's consent to search the car and his person after questioning Gibbons about their itinerary and getting a "completely different" story. The videotape shows the trooper never asked for consent to search the car, that he did not question Gibbons before asking for consent to search Stinemetz's pockets, and that the appellants' stories were substantially similar. In the preliminary hearing, the trooper claimed that he asked to search Stinemetz for officer "safety," but when asked what made him believe he was in jeopardy, the officer replied, In the later motion to suppress hearing, the officer claimed that he asked to search because he saw bulges in Stinemetz's pockets and he "didn't know if it was a knife or a gun."
The trial court found that by asking questions unrelated to the seat belt violation, the trooper exceeded the authorized scope of the original stop. Therefore, the trial court found that the trooper's detention of appellants was impermissible because he had no reasonable articulable suspicion for starting the new investigation. Because the evidence was seized during the unlawful detention, the trial court granted the motion to suppress.
An officer who questions and detains a suspect for reasons other than those connected with the original purpose of the stop exceeds the scope of permissible investigation unless he has "reasonable suspicion" of other criminal activity. Simmons v. State, 223 Ga.App. 781, 782(2), 479 S.E.2d 123 (1996). This reasonable suspicion must be based on more than a subjective, general suspicion or hunch. Holden v. State, 241 Ga.App. 524, 525, 527 S.E.2d 237 (1999). The detention must be justified by specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the detention, and the trooper must have some basis from which the court can determine that the detention was neither arbitrary nor harassing. Id.
In this case, the trooper admitted that he held Stinemetz's driver's license while asking questions that were not related to the seat belt violation.1 According to the trooper, Stinemetz was "not free to go" while he asked these questions. The tape shows that when Stinemetz, who was obviously puzzled by the trooper's detailed quizzing about his whereabouts, asked what he had done wrong, the trooper reminded him about the seat belt violation and then launched into his unrelated investigation once again.
The trial court did not err by concluding that the detention was unauthorized. Simmons v. State, supra, 223 Ga.App. at 782, 479 S.E.2d 123; Smith v. State, 216 Ga.App. 453, 454-455(2), 454 S.E.2d 635 (1995). Because Stinemetz's consent to search his person was the product of this illegal detention, it was not valid. VonLinsowe v. State, 213...
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