Baltimore v. Commonwealth

119 S.W.3d 532, 2003 Ky. App. LEXIS 275, 2003 WL 22462558
Court of Appeals of Kentucky·Decided October 31, 2003·No. 2002-CA-002304-MR·Published·Cited by 56 cases

Opinion

OPINION

HUDDLESTON, Senior Judge.

Robert Lee Baltimore appeals from a Fayette Circuit Court judgment sentencing him to ten years’ imprisonment on a conditional plea of guilty, pursuant to Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 8.09, to several counts of fraudulent use of a credit card and being a persistent felony offender in the first degree. Under the conditional guilty plea, Baltimore preserved his right to challenge the denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized by the police during an investigatory stop.

On April 30, 2002, Officer Sean Ray, one of seven members of the West Sector Special Assignment Unit of the Lexington Police Department, received information from Kelly Grandee that several of her credit cards had been stolen from her vehicle when it was broken into while her family was attending a movie the previous Sunday night. Grandee provided Officer Ray with documents of her account activity showing that the stolen credit cards had been used to purchase merchandise between April 28-29, 2002, at various locations including the K-Mart Store on Nich-olasville Road, and two Wal-Mart Stores. *536 Officer Ray contacted those stores and obtained surveillance videotapes of the illegal purchases, but he was unable to develop a specific identification of the black male suspect because of the poor quality of the videotapes.

On May 3, 2002, Mr. Baker, the loss prevention officer at the Nicholasville K-Mart Store, notified Officer Ray at approximately 4:00 p.m. that the same person who had purchased items at the store earlier using Ms. Grandee’s credit card was at the store with a receipt seeking to receive a cash refund for return of the merchandise. The loss prevention officer videotaped the suspect’s activities using a high quality recorder. When he was told that the store would not refund cash but could only provide a credit to Ms. Grandee’s credit card account, the black male suspect decided to retain the merchandise and left on a bicycle before Officer Ray could arrive at the store. A few hours later at approximately 6:30 p.m., Officer Ray retrieved the videotape of this incident, which was of much better quality than the earlier videotapes.

When the rest of the officers in the unit arrived for duty that evening, they viewed the May 3rd K-Mart videotape and discussed the case. They decided to patrol the area surrounding K-Mart in search of the suspect. At approximately 10:10 p.m., Officers A. Cain and Brian Maynard saw a person fitting the description of the suspect riding a bicycle near Lowry Road. They stopped the person, who identified himself as Robert Baltimore, and Officer Maynard notified Officer Ray that they had stopped the potential suspect. When Officer Ray arrived, he asked for and received from Baltimore voluntary consent to search his person. Officer Ray found a marijuana cigarette in Baltimore’s front shirt pocket and Officer Maynard recovered a K-Mart sales receipt from his wallet. The sales receipt dealt with the April purchase of merchandise and the attempted return of that merchandise to K-Mart earlier that day. Baltimore was then arrested for fraudulent use of a credit card and possession of marijuana.

On July 8, 2002, a Fayette County grand jury indicted Baltimore on four felony counts of fraudulent use of a credit card over $100.00, 2 one misdemeanor count of fraudulent use of a credit card under $100.00, 3 one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree, 4 one misdemeanor count of possession of marijuana, 5 and being a persistent felony offender in the first degree (PFO I). 6

On August 9, 2002, Baltimore’s attorney orally requested a suppression hearing, which was followed by a written motion to suppress involving the stop and search of Baltimore on May 3rd. On September 19, 2002, the circuit court conducted a suppression hearing with Officers Ray and Maynard as the only witnesses. At the end of the hearing, the court denied the motion to suppress after orally making findings of fact and holding that the police action was supported by reasonable suspicion and probable cause.

*537 Given the circuit court’s ruling on the suppression motion, Baltimore decided to enter a conditional plea of guilty pursuant to an agreement with the Commonwealth to three felony counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, the one misdemeanor count of fraudulent use of a credit card, an amended count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the third degree, 7 and PFO I. The Commonwealth moved to dismiss one count of fraudulent use of a credit card and possession of marijuana. Under the plea agreement, the Commonwealth recommended sentences of two years on one count of fraudulent use of a credit card over $100.00 enhanced to ten years for being a PFO I, one year on each of the two remaining felony counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, twelve months in jail on each of both misdemean- or counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the third degree and fraudulent use of a credit card under $100.00, all to run concurrently for a total sentence of ten years. Baltimore reserved his right to appeal the circuit court’s ruling on the suppression motion. On October 30, 2002, the circuit court entered a final judgment sentencing Baltimore to serve ten years’ imprisonment consistent with the Commonwealth’s recommendation. This appeal followed.

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Baltimore v. Commonwealth, 119 S.W.3d 532, 2003 Ky. App. LEXIS 275, 2003 WL 22462558 (Ky. Ct. App. 2003).

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