State v. Jackson
| Citation | 368 N.C. 75,772 S.E.2d 847 |
| Decision Date | 11 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 183A14.,183A14. |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Tiyoun Jimek JACKSON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
Roy Cooper, Attorney General, by Derrick C. Mertz, Assistant Attorney General, for the State-appellant.
Staples S. Hughes, Appellate Defender, by Constance E. Widenhouse, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.
Defendant Tiyoun Jimek Jackson was stopped and searched on 9 April 2012 by Officer Timothy Brown of the Greensboro Police Department outside a shop known for drug activity. Based on evidence obtained as a result of this stop, defendant was indicted for possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, and conspiracy to possess with intent to sell or deliver marijuana. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the initial stop on the basis that Officer Brown lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop of defendant. The trial court denied this motion and the Court of Appeals reversed. Because we conclude that the trial court's unchallenged findings of fact establish that Officer Brown possessed reasonable suspicion to stop defendant, we now reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
On the evening of 9 April 2012, Officer Timothy Brown was assigned to patrol the area of Greensboro surrounding Kim's Mart, a shop known to police, including Officer Brown personally, as the site of frequent hand-to-hand drug transactions. At approximately 9:00 p.m., as Officer Brown approached the store in his marked patrol vehicle, he witnessed defendant standing near the store's newspaper dispenser with another individual named Curtis Benton. Upon seeing the police vehicle, defendant and Benton dispersed, with defendant walking east into Kim's Mart and Benton walking in the opposite direction to the west.
Officer Brown continued down the road past Kim's Mart, made a U-turn, and started back toward Kim's Mart. As he approached the store a second time, he saw that defendant and Benton had returned and were again standing in front of Kim's Mart, approximately twenty feet from where Officer Brown first saw them. For a second time, defendant and Benton separated and began walking away from each other in opposite directions. As defendant walked by Officer Brown's patrol car, Officer Brown stopped defendant to ask him about drug activity; he then told defendant to place his hands on the car so he could frisk defendant for weapons. Officer Brown then asked defendant for consent to search his person, and defendant agreed. As Officer Brown was patting down defendant, defendant placed a loaded handgun on the hood of the patrol car and told Brown that he had found the weapon in the woods two weeks earlier. Officer Brown placed defendant under arrest and handcuffed him. A separate search of Benton yielded marijuana packaged in a number of small plastic bags.
Based on the evidence obtained from the stops of defendant and Benton, including the handgun seized from defendant and the marijuana and plastic bags seized from Benton, defendant was indicted on 11 June 2012 for possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, and conspiracy to possess with intent to sell or deliver marijuana. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the original seizure on the basis that Officer Brown lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop of defendant. The trial court denied this motion in an order dated 5 December 2012. On 7 January 2013, defendant pleaded guilty to the offenses for which he was indicted while reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. In a divided opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, holding that the facts and circumstances did not establish reasonable suspicion for Officer Brown to conduct an investigatory stop of defendant. State v. Jackson, ––– N.C.App. ––––, ––––, 758 S.E.2d 39, 46 (2014). The State appealed to this Court as a matter of right.
The sole issue presented in this appeal is whether the unchallenged facts found by the trial court sufficiently establish reasonable suspicion for the initial investigatory stop of defendant. Because we conclude that they do, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
As a general matter, "[b]oth the United States and North Carolina Constitutions protect against unreasonable searches and seizures." State v. Otto, 366 N.C. 134, 136, 726 S.E.2d 824, 827 (2012) ). However, the United States Supreme Court has long held that the Fourth Amendment permits a police officer to conduct a brief investigatory stop of an individual based on reasonable suspicion that the individual is engaged in criminal activity. See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30–31, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1884–85, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). As that Court has recently described, reasonable suspicion requires specific, articulable facts indicating present, ongoing criminal activity and will not allow a stop based on a mere inchoate suspicion or "hunch":
The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigative stops ... when a law enforcement officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. The reasonable suspicion necessary to justify such a stop is dependent upon both the content of information possessed by [the officer] and its degree of reliability. The standard takes into account the totality of the circumstances—the whole picture. Although a mere "hunch" does not create reasonable suspicion, the level of suspicion the standard requires is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence, and obviously less than is necessary for probable cause.
Navarette v. California, ––– U.S. ––––, ––––, 134 S.Ct. 1683, 1687, 188 L.Ed.2d 680 (2014) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). This same standard—reasonable suspicion—applies under the North Carolina Constitution. See, e.g., Otto, 366 N.C. at 136–37, 726 S.E.2d at 827 (). Therefore, when a criminal defendant files a motion to suppress challenging an initial investigatory stop, the trial court can deny that motion only if it concludes, after considering the totality of the circumstances known to the officer, that the officer possessed reasonable suspicion to justify the challenged stop.
When a motion to suppress is denied, this Court employs a two-part standard of review on appeal: " ‘The standard of review in evaluating the denial of a motion to suppress is whether competent evidence supports the trial court's findings of fact and whether the findings of fact support the conclusions of law.’ " Id. at 136, 726 S.E.2d at 827 (quoting State v. Biber, 365 N.C. 162, 167–68, 712 S.E.2d 874, 878 (2011) ). At the Court of Appeals, defendant challenged only finding of fact number five on the basis...
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......2 Likewise, defendant's mere presence in a high-crime area does not solely provide the officer with the necessary reasonable suspicion to authorize the officer to order defendant to exit the vehicle so that the officer can look for weapons. See State v. Jackson , 368 N.C. 75, 80, 772 S.E.2d 847 (2015). Similarly, defendant's nervousness does not in and of itself amount to reasonable suspicion when displayed to a detaining officer. State v. Pearson , 348 N.C. 272, 276, 498 S.E.2d 599 (1998). However, we do not assess each of these factors, specifically ......
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...evidence supports the trial court's findings of fact and whether the findings of fact support the conclusions of law." State v. Jackson , 368 N.C. 75, 78, 772 S.E.2d 847, 849 (2015) (citation and quotation marks omitted). The trial court's legal conclusions "are fully reviewable on appeal."......