State v. Hill

• Decision Date: 01 November 1996
• Citation: State v. Hill, 690 So.2d 1201 (Ala. 1996)
• Parties: Ex parte State of Alabama. (Re STATE of Alabama v. Charlie HILL). 1951365.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 1201

690 So.2d 1201

Ex parte State of Alabama (Re STATE of Alabama v.Charlie HILL).

1951365.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Nov. 1, 1996.

Jeff Sessions, Atty. Gen., and John J. Park, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for Petitioner.

Joseph McNamee Tucker, Lafayette, for Respondent.

SHORES, Justice.

We granted the State's petition for certiorari review to determine whether a police officer was justified in conducting an investigatory stop of an automobile based on an informant's tip that two named suspects had been selling crack cocaine from the vehicle approximately two hours earlier.The Court of Criminal Appeals, with an unpublished memorandum, held that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment as applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and, therefore, that the evidence should have been suppressed.State v. Hill, 683 So.2d 1074(Ala.Crim.App.1996)(table).We conclude that the stop in this case was consistent with the principles of the Fourth Amendment.We reverse and remand.

Charlie Hill was indicted by the Grand Jury of Chambers County on one count of possession of cocaine and one count of possession of marijuana, in violation of §§ 13A-12-212and13A-12-214,Ala.Code 1975, respectively.Arguing that the police had found the drugs that formed the basis for the charges only as a result of an illegal seizure, Hill moved to suppress the evidence.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Jerome Bailey, a narcotics investigator for the Chambers County Sheriff's Department, was the only witness to testify.He stated that since November 1994, he and the Lafayette Police Department had received information regarding illegal activities by Hill although he did not specify the sources.Bailey testified that on the evening of February 24, 1995, a confidential informant told him that Hill was selling crack cocaine "from a blue Hyundai that was tinted down from the front row at Hilltop Apartments, here in Lafayette."The informant told Bailey that Hill was in the company of a man named Traco Heard and that the crack cocaine was in a plastic bag in Hill's right front pocket.Bailey testified that the informant had previously furnished information that had led to "probably 8 or 9 arrests.It could have been a little less."Approximately three days earlier, three other people, who used drugs and who had purchased crack cocaine in the past, told Bailey that Hill had offered to sell them "a 50-dollar rock."The record is silent regarding the past reliability of these three people or the circumstances under which they made their accusations.

After receiving information from his confidential informant, Bailey drove toward Hilltop Apartments.While Bailey was en route, the Lafayette Police Department received a report of a shooting, which appears to have also occurred somewhere at Hilltop Apartments.Because he was already in the area, Bailey broke off to assist the other officers on the call.Later, when Bailey reached the location at the apartments where Hill was supposedly selling crack cocaine, the blue Hyundai automobile was gone.Bailey's informant, however, was still at Hilltop Apartments.He told Bailey that the Hyundai was "going down by Southside" or "by Southside Elementary School."Bailey proceeded to that area, but his attempts to locate the vehicle there were fruitless.

In the early morning of February 25, about two hours after the contact with his informant at the apartments, Bailey was at a Chevron gasoline station in downtown Lafayette.There he saw a blue Hyundai with tinted windows "coming through Lafayette, headed toward Lafayette Street, North."Bailey testified that although he knew both Hill and Heard on sight, he could not discern the identity or number of people who were in the Hyundai when it went by, because the windows were darkly tinted.However, he also stated that he"recogniz[ed] the car immediately as being that of Hill."Bailey pulled the blue Hyundai over for an investigatory stop.He had not observed any traffic violations, and he acknowledged that the sole basis upon which he decided to stop Hill's car was the information furnished to him by the informant and the earlier complaints from the three other people.

Bailey testified that once he approached the automobile, he recognized Charlie Hill as the driver and Traco Heard as the passenger.When Bailey asked Hill for his driver's license, he smelled burning marijuana coming from inside the car.Bailey asked Hill to step out of the car and told him about the reports that he had been selling crack cocaine.During this conversation, Bailey smelled marijuana on Hill's breath.

Bailey then asked Hill for permission to search the car.Hill told him to go ahead.In the glove compartment, Bailey found a plastic bag containing four rocks of crack cocaine and a plastic bag containing marijuana.Hill was arrested and given his Miranda rights.

At the suppression hearing, Hill conceded that there might possibly have been grounds to stop and investigate him if police, acting on the tip, had found the blue Hyundai at the Hilltop Apartments as indicated by the informant.But he argued that the justification no longer existed at the time of the actual stop, because approximately two hours had elapsed since Bailey last spoke with his informant and the stop occurred randomly at a location the informant had never specified.The court agreed and held that the marijuana and crack cocaine were due to be suppressed on the basis that the police officer had lacked the requisite grounds to conduct the initial investigatory stop that directly led to the seizure of the evidence.From the transcript of the hearing, it appears that the trial court believed that the State was required to show that the officer possessed a reasonable suspicion that Hill was engaged in ongoing or imminent criminal activity when the stop was made and that the court was also concerned about police overreaching.¹

The State appealed the suppression ruling, under Rule 15.7(a)(1), Ala.R.Crim.P.The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed.Its unpublished memorandum would suggest that the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed that the stop of the vehicle was not justified because the police did not have sufficient reason to believe that the car was currently being used in an illegal endeavor.The Court of Criminal Appeals stated, in pertinent part, "The officer who stopped the appellee's vehicle did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that the occupants of the car were engaged in criminal activity."Thus, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed that the evidence was illegally seized and therefore had to be suppressed.We disagree.

As a preliminary matter, we note that there has been some debate regarding the applicable standard of appellate review.In its unpublished memorandum, the Court of Criminal Appeals showed great deference to the trial court's decision to suppress the evidence of the cocaine and marijuana.It stated:

"[A]trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress will not be disturbed unless it is 'palpably contrary to the weight of the evidence.'Patterson v. State, 659 So.2d 1014(Ala.Cr.App.1995).The trial court is in a far better [sic] than this court to rule on the merits of a motion to suppress.Sullivan v. State, 23 Ala.App. 464, 127 So. 256(1930).The trial court's ruling[on] the motion to suppress was not palpably wrong."

The State contends that the deference of the Court of Criminal Appeals to the judgment of the trial court was unwarranted.It claims that an appellate court should review de novo the trial court's finding that "reasonable suspicion" was lacking, because the facts in the case are not in dispute.We agree.

The trial judge made his ruling following a hearing at which he heard oral testimony only from Officer Bailey.We stated in Ex parte Agee, 669 So.2d 102(Ala.1995):

"Where evidence is presented to the trial court ore tenus in a nonjury case, a presumption of correctness exists as to the court's conclusions on issues of fact; its determination will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous, without supporting evidence, manifestly unjust, or against the great weight of the evidence.Odom v. Hull, 658 So.2d 442(Ala.1995).However, when the trial court improperly applies the law to the facts, no presumption of correctness exists as to the court's judgment.Ex parte Board of Zoning Adjustment of the City of Mobile, 636 So.2d 415(Ala.1994)."

669 So.2d at 104."Where the evidence before the trial court was undisputed the ore tenus rule is inapplicable, and the Supreme Court will sit in judgment on the evidence de novo, indulging no presumption in favor of the trial court's application of the law to those facts."Stiles v. Brown, 380 So.2d 792, 794(Ala.1980)(citations omitted).The trial judge's ruling in this case was based upon his interpretation of the term "reasonable suspicion" as applied to an undisputed set of facts; the proper interpretation is a question of law.

Hill counters with the argument that some facts are disputed, and he argues that the judge's assessment of credibility was a key factor in his decision to suppress.It is true that, absent clear error, the trial court's credibility choices on issues of fact at suppression hearings are binding on this Court.Powell v. State, 624 So.2d 220(Ala.Cr.App.1993).However, Hill has not indicated what facts are in dispute.He presented no evidence at the hearing, and there was no evidence that conflicts with or tends to undermine the testimony given by Bailey.Hill also adopted the statement of facts as set out in the State's brief, under Rule 39(k), Ala.R.App.P, adding only that the car was actually owned by Hill's brother and that when it appeared that Heard might attempt to flee Bailey told Heard that he had a police dog in his vehicle, although Bailey had no such dog.But these two facts are not relevant to the question whether the officer had a ...