Young v. State
| Decision Date | 10 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 830-2021 |
| Parties | MICHAEL YOUNG v. STATE OF MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case No. 120323028
OPINION [*]
After being identified by a witness as armed and a possible suspect in a homicide case, Michael Young ("Appellant") was in a convenience store in Baltimore City when Baltimore City Police Department ("BCPD") officers stopped him and asked him if he had a firearm. He responded that he did and indicated that it was in his front pocket. BCPD officers recovered a handgun inside a pocket of Appellant's fanny pack. Appellant was charged by indictment with three counts of possession of a regulated firearm after having been convicted of a disqualifying crime, one count of wearing a handgun on his person, one count of wearing a loaded handgun on his person, one count of possession of a handgun within one hundred yards of a place of public assembly, and one count of possession of ammunition after being prohibited from possessing a regulated firearm.
On December 16, 2020, Appellant filed a motion to suppress the fruits of a search of his person, alleging police officers lacked a reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop and search him. On June 23, 2021, Appellant filed a supplemental motion to suppress and the State filed a supplemental disclosure and response to Appellant's supplemental motion to suppress. Following a suppression hearing, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City denied the motion on July 21, 2021.
On August 9, 2021, Appellant pleaded conditionally guilty to one count of possession of a regulated firearm after previously being convicted of a felony in violation of MD. CODE ANN PUB. SAFETY ("PS") § 5-133(c).[1] The conditional plea agreement preserved Appellant's right to appellate review of the denial of his motion to suppress.
In bringing his appeal, Appellant presents one question for appellate review:
I. Did the circuit court err in denying Appellant's motion to suppress?
For the following reasons, this Court answers in the negative and affirms the circuit court's decision.
On October 13, 2020, BCPD Officer Jonathan Harris ( )[2] was on patrol in Baltimore City and found the primary witness for a homicide case, Carrie,[3] in an open parking lot. Ofc. Harris approached Carrie and eventually informed her that she had an open warrant. Carrie tried walking away from Ofc. Harris and "
Ofc. Harris informed her that detectives wanted to talk to her because she was the primary witness in a homicide case. Ofc. Harris asked Carrie why she had given the Baltimore City Police Department ("BCPD") a "false" and "fake" name when she was previously interviewed. Other BCPD officers arrived and Carrie was searched.
While being searched, Carrie continued to talk about "Little Mike." Carrie told Ofc. Harris that she saw "Little Mike" walking with a revolver. The search of Carrie revealed a "stem," which is a hollow tube commonly used as illegal drug paraphernalia and she was arrested. As Carrie was being arrested, she stated that the "[d]ude who stabbed my ex[-boyfriend]" was walking with a revolver in his hand. Ofc. Harris asked Carrie if it was "Mike Young" and she said she did not know his last name, so Ofc. Harris described Appellant's appearance. Carrie and Ofc. Harris understood both were referring to the same individual-Appellant-whom Ofc. Harris had seen earlier that day.
After Carrie was arrested, Ofc. Harris described Appellant to other BCPD officers and directed them to search for him. Ofc. Harris pulled up a picture of Appellant on his phone and remembered him as a robbery suspect in another case. Other BCPD officers checked the street corner where Appellant had been seen earlier in the day and found a man matching Ofc. Harris's provided description. BCPD officers then called Ofc. Harris a few minutes later, stating they had seen an individual matching the description that Ofc. Harris provided. Ofc. Harris arrived at the scene and informed his colleagues that the man they had identified was not Appellant. While he was driving around, Ofc. Harris provided BCPD Dispatch with Appellant's name and date of birth.
Ofc. Harris continued to canvass the area and located Appellant around the intersection of South Highland Avenue and Leverton Avenue in Baltimore City, which he described as a very high crime area. After locating and observing Appellant, Ofc. Harris asked a woman if she had seen Appellant with a handgun. She said "no." Ofc. Harris called for a police helicopter and more police units to arrive for back-up and stayed where Appellant could not see him.
Ofc. Harris described Appellant as having "characteristics of an armed person." Ofc. Harris stated while he was waiting for back up to arrive, he noticed Appellant wearing a "weighted down" fanny pack and walking with a sway or a limp, "belated to the left side." He testified that Appellant was "leaning to the side" and there was a "sway with the bag" that indicated "something heavy."
After the helicopter arrived, Ofc. Harris and other BCPD officers followed Appellant into a convenience store. Other officers guarded the entrance to the store. The police officers approached Appellant and told him to put his hands up and Appellant complied. BCPD officers held Appellant against the shelf in the convenience store. A BCPD officer asked Appellant, The circuit court determined that Appellant's response was unclear. Ofc. Harris testified that he then asked Appellant "Mike, . . . where's the gun?" In response, Appellant motioned that the gun was in the fanny pack with his jacket covering Appellant's fanny pack. Another officer then reached into the front area of Appellant's body and pulled out a silver revolver, which weighed "a couple pounds," from his fanny pack across his chest. When officers discovered the gun, "the hammer was cocked back with a live round in the barrel ready to fire," so Ofc. Harris and other officers worked to render the handgun safe.
Following this encounter, another BCPD officer stated that there was an active warrant out for Appellant's arrest. Ofc. Harris called Appellant a "scumbag" to another BCPD officer.[4] When questioned about it during the suppression hearing, Ofc. Harris responded:
Appellant was charged by indictment with three counts of possession of a regulated firearm after having been convicted of a disqualifying crime,[5] one count of wearing a handgun on his person,[6] one count of wearing a loaded handgun on his person,[7] one count of possession of a handgun within one hundred yards of a place of public assembly,[8] and one count of possession of ammunition after being prohibited from possessing a regulated firearm.[9]
On December 16, 2020, Appellant filed a motion to suppress the fruits of a search of his person, alleging police officers lacked a reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop and search him. On June 23, 2021, Appellant filed a supplemental motion to suppress further alleging that Appellant was "illegally stopped, questioned, searched, and arrested" because Carrie's "non-specific tip" was "unreliable" and Ofc. Harris did not find out about the open warrant until after Appellant's arrest. The supplemental motion also asserts that the handgun recovered from Appellant was "rusty" and "as of the filing of [the] motion[,] no operability report has been turned over . . . proving that [the gun recovered from Appellant's fanny pack] was an operable firearm."
The State also alleged that Appellant's allegations were untimely and without factual or legal merit.
The Circuit Court for Baltimore City held a suppression hearing on July 21, 2021. The circuit court heard testimony from Ofc. Harris, viewed Ofc. Harris's body camera footage from the day of the incident, and a picture of the gun. The circuit court held that: (1) BCPD had reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop and frisk Appellant; (2) BCPD officers did not need to ask if Appellant had anything on his person and took an additional precautionary step to ask for the officers' safety; and (3) the existence of the open warrant and that the officer received the confirmation of the warrant "in a timely manner" made the search lawful. The circuit court denied the motion to suppress the evidence.
On August 9, 2021, Appellant pleaded conditionally guilty to one count of possession of a regulated firearm. The conditional plea agreement preserved Appellant's right to appellate review of the denial of his motion to suppress. Additional facts will be provided as pertinent to the analysis of this case.
In Bowling v. State, 227 Md.App. 460, 466-67 (2016) (quoting...
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