White v. State

• Decision Date: 01 October 2020
• Docket Number: No. 0891, Sept. Term, 2019,0891, Sept. Term, 2019
• Citation: 239 A.3d 837,248 Md.App. 67
• Parties: Ontavius Deshard WHITE v. STATE of Maryland
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

248 Md.App. 67

239 A.3d 837

Ontavius Deshard WHITE

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 0891, Sept. Term, 2019

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

October 1, 2020

Argued by Juan P. Reyes (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.

Argued by Carrie J. Williams (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.

Panel: Fader, C.J., Shaw Geter, Charles E. Moylan, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Moylan, J.

To say that this case deals with a variety of Fourth Amendment issues does not do justice to the breadth and depth of the appeal before us. This omnibus appeal presents us not simply with three different Fourth Amendment problems. Such a merely quantitative accumulation of issues would not be at all unusual. The particular combination of issues before us in this case, however, is one where each of the questions before us engages the gears of an entirely separate and distinct level or plane of Fourth Amendment inquiry. Those absolutely distinct levels or planes of inquiry are:

I. The Coverage or Applicability of the Fourth Amendment

II. The Merits or Substance of the Fourth Amendment

III. The Sanction, If Any, for a Fourth Amendment Violation

Our tripartite inquiry herein touches, in turn, each of those distinct planes or levels of Fourth Amendment involvement.

At the first of these levels, the very threshold of Fourth Amendment applicability, there must be 1) coverage of the place searched or thing seized, 2) coverage of the person of the searcher (state action), and 3) coverage of the person of the defendant under the circumstances of the case (standing to object). Absent such threshold applicability, the subsequent question of whether the Fourth Amendment merits might have been satisfied or might have been violated in some other world where the Fourth Amendment did apply would be absolutely irrelevant.

At the second and more familiar of these dimensions or levels of presence, the actual merits, the ultimate substance, of the Fourth Amendment's command that searches and seizures be reasonable, the territory is largely controlled by the centrality of the warrant requirement and its list of jealously guarded exceptions. This is the home turf of most Fourth Amendment adjudication.

The third and final level of Fourth Amendment inquiry is that of what sanction, if any, should be applied for a particular Fourth Amendment violation. Involved here are the familiar Exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule of 1) attenuation of taint, 2) independent source, and 3) inevitable discovery.

All three of these fundamental levels of Fourth Amendment involvement are before us on the present appeal. "On such a full sea are we now afloat."¹

* * *

For the three-dimensional Fourth Amendment voyage on which we now embark, our Odysseus will be the appellant, Ontavius Deshard White, who was indicted in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and charged with several narcotics and firearms offenses. After his pre-trial motion to suppress evidence was denied, he entered a not guilty plea on an agreed statement of facts to one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a disqualified person. Appellant was then sentenced to five years, without possibility of parole. On this timely appeal, the appellant asks:

Did the lower court err in denying Appellant's motion to suppress the fruits of a warrantless search of the vehicle that Appellant was driving?

Holding that the suppression hearing court did so err, we shall reverse.

Execution Of An Outstanding Arrest Warrant

The testimony at the suppression hearing was as follows. Officer Robert Padgett, an 11 year veteran of the Anne Arundel County Police Department who was then assigned to the Fugitive Apprehension Team, testified that he was detailed with locating and arresting appellant pursuant to an open arrest warrant on charges of armed carjacking, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and other related handgun offenses. On January 16, 2019, Officer Padgett began surveillance in the area of 412 Summer Wind Way in Glen Burnie, Maryland, when, at around 1:33 p.m., he saw an individual matching appellant's physical description walk out of the apartment building and approach a silver Hyundai Elantra. Appellant walked to the vehicle, took a pair of shoes out of the trunk, and then walked back into the apartment building. Officer Padgett checked the license on the Elantra and learned that it was a leased vehicle.

Shortly thereafter, appellant, now wearing a black jacket, returned to the vehicle and proceeded to drive to the Glen Burnie Car Wash, located at 7985 Crain Highway in Glen Burnie. Officer Padgett continued his covert surveillance and saw appellant initially back the Elantra into a vacuum cleaning station. The officer then radioed police dispatch, and informed them that he followed an armed carjacking suspect to the car wash and needed back up units to respond.

The Appellant Was Arrested

Meanwhile, appellant moved the Elantra into the third bay of the car wash. At around that same time, two other officers arrived on the scene and positioned themselves at either side of the bay. Appellant then was apprehended without incident and Officer Padgett positively identified him as the suspect wanted pursuant to the arrest warrant.

After appellant was handcuffed, Officer Padgett asked him about the Elantra, and appellant replied that it belonged to his girlfriend. However, Officer Padgett testified that he knew otherwise, stating, "at that point, I had already ran it. I knew it was a leased vehicle, so I didn't know if it was leased to her or not." Upon further questioning by the court, Officer Padgett testified that the Elantra belonged to "All Car Leasing," and that one "Roxanne Douglas" was the lessee. He also confirmed that the lease had expired one day prior to this stop.

Officer Padgett continued that "at that point, we just did a search based off evidence related to the armed carjacking." The officer confirmed that appellant stood about ten feet behind the vehicle, within the car wash bay, while the search was conducted.

Officer Padgett then explained that the Elantra would need to be towed, testifying as follows:

Q. Okay. And what, if anything, was your plans for this vehicle?

A. At that point, being where it was, we would try to verify a couple things, but at that point, it was -- it was going to be -- have to be removed from that car wash bay because we were blocking business for this car wash.

Q. Do you know whether or not you were planning on towing it?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Objection.

THE COURT: Overruled.

THE WITNESS: Once we verified a couple of things and realized that the vehicle was supposed to be returned the day before, we -- a tow was inevitable, correct.

BY [PROSECUTOR]:

Q. So it was a leased vehicle?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. It was a day late?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And your plan was to tow it?

A. Yes, sir.

Officer Padgett was then asked about police procedures with respect to towing the vehicle under the circumstances, and appellant objected. At the court's behest, the prosecutor explained that "it is partially my argument that this leads to basically an inevitable discovery argument based on an inventory search, based on they were going to tow the vehicle anyway." The court overruled the objection and Officer Padgett testified as follows:

THE WITNESS: So the procedure for the tow is that we inventory any valuables. So we would look through, pretty much, the entire vehicle just to make sure that nothing of value needed to be reported, and to just list the items on the actual Tow Inventory Report.

BY [PROSECUTOR]:

Q. And if Mr. White had owned the vehicle, would you have towed it?

A. If he had owned the vehicle, there's procedures that we have to take. So if he was willing to give it to somebody, and that person had a legal driver's license and everything like that, and they could get there within a reasonable amount of time, then yes, we would. If he provided somebody that couldn't get there within a reasonable amount of time or didn't have a driver's license, then we would have to tow it ‘cause we can't waste time at the car wash. It's a business.

Q. But after checking the records, it was your understanding Mr. White did not own it?

A. He did not own it. No, sir.

Q. And this was a leased vehicle?

A. Yes, sir.

Officer Padgett and another officer then began to search the Elantra. They found the black jacket appellant was seen wearing when he left his apartment building lying across the front passenger seat. When lifted off the seat, the police found a black handgun laying on top of a blue bag adorned with a Dallas Cowboy's logo. Direct examination then concluded as follows:

Q. And you said you were partially searching the vehicle because of the crime that you were arresting him for?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And why would -- what, if anything, made you believe that crimes of -- or fruits of that crime would be in that vehicle?

A. So we had understood there was an armed carjacking where a black handgun was used, and it had never been recovered at that point.

On cross-examination, Officer Padgett testified that he knew that the original charges against appellant for armed carjacking occurred on or around December 29, 2018, or approximately 18 days prior to the arrest at the car wash, at an Extended Stay Hotel located ten miles away in Linthicum, Maryland. The officer also agreed that the original charges only indicated that a "handgun" was used in the crime and simply referred to "a vehicle," as opposed to any specific make or model.²

In addition, Officer Padgett testified that he saw appellant pull the Elantra into a car wash bay, used for self-washes, after parking momentarily at the vacuum station. Appellant also was located outside the vehicle, approximately ten feet away, when he was placed in handcuffs and arrested. The officer agreed that a pat-down of appellant's person did not uncover any weapons or contraband on his person. Following this testimony, the court heard...