Ott v. State

600 A.2d 111, 325 Md. 206, 1992 Md. LEXIS 10
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedJanuary 13, 1992
Docket31, September Term, 1991
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 600 A.2d 111 (Ott v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ott v. State, 600 A.2d 111, 325 Md. 206, 1992 Md. LEXIS 10 (Md. 1992).

Opinions

ROBERT M. BELL, Judge.

This case presents for resolution the questions whether Thomas E. Ott, III, the petitioner, was illegally detained and/or illegally arrested and, if he was, whether the evidence seized by reason of the detention or arrest should have been suppressed. The latter question requires a determination of petitioner’s standing to challenge the seizure of the evidence. The Circuit Court for Frederick County ruled in favor of petitioner, finding that: (1) he had standing by virtue of his occupation of the driver’s seat in the automobile; (2) “the officers had [no] probable cause in the first place to go in like they did;” and (3) the search of the car’s glove box was not incident to petitioner’s arrest “and cer[209]*209tainly not for the presence of weapons.” The court, therefore, suppressed the evidence and the State appealed.1

The intermediate appellate court reversed. State v. Ott, 85 Md.App. 632, 584 A.2d 1266 (1991). Assuming arguendo that petitioner had standing, the court held that the initial encounter between petitioner and the police did not rise to a Fourth Amendment violation. It further held that the petitioner’s arrest, albeit pursuant to an invalid arrest warrant, was effected in good faith. “Thus, the warrant-less search of the vehicle was valid as a search incident to a lawful arrest...,” 85 Md.App. at 646-47, 584 A.2d at 1273, notwithstanding that the petitioner had been handcuffed and placed outside the automobile before the glove box was searched.

We granted petitioner’s petition for writ of certiorari and the State’s conditional petition to address the important questions presented. For the reasons hereinafter set forth, we will reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.

1.

The facts are not in dispute. Consequently, we will adopt the statement of facts as set out in the opinion of the Court of Special Appeals:

On January 5, 1990, Cpl. Fogle
Fogle asked the two individuals their names and also asked what they were doing there. They identified themselves as Thomas Ott (seated in the driver’s seat) and Sandra Sorenson (seated in the passenger’s seat), and said that they were just talking. After Fogle obtained identification from each one, he radioed police headquarters to run a computer check to determine whether either of them was the subject of an outstanding warrant. Nothing in Fogle’s testimony suggested that Ott’s or Sorenson’s responses to his initial questions were suspicious in any manner; likewise, Fogle appears to have requested written identification to run a computer check as a matter of routine.
The computer check indicated that an outstanding warrant existed for Ott because of his failure to appear in a civil “non-payment” case. Fogle subsequently arrested Ott on this basis. Fogle then asked Sorenson — the car owner — to step out of the car so that the other officers on the scene could conduct a search incident to Ott’s arrest. As Sorenson exited the car, Cpl. Johnson spied a Twenty-dollar bill rolled up into a straw that fell from her lap. Fogle confiscated the bill as evidence, recognizing that it could be used to ingest controlled dangerous substances. The officers proceeded to search the car. They discovered in the glove compartment three bags of a white powdery substance that Fogle recognized to be cocaine. In addition they found under the passenger seat a small round mirror with a white powdery residue on it. The officers handcuffed Ott and Sorenson, and transported them both to the police station. After Ott signed a waiver of rights form he told Cpl. Smith that he was trying to sell the cocaine to get out of debt. [211]*211Cpl. Fogle later determined that, in fact, no outstanding warrant existed for Ott because the bench warrant had been satisfied on December 29, 1989. Another sheriff apparently had served the warrant, but had not removed it from the computer before January 5, 1990. At the suppression hearing, the State introduced a computer printout which showed that there was an active warrant when Cpl. Fogle ran the computer search.

85 Md.App. at 634-35, 584 A.2d at 1267-68.

2.

Petitioner did not present any evidence. He argued, however, that, since the warrant on the basis of which the arrest was made was invalid, he was illegally arrested. Petitioner also contended that he had standing, by virtue of his being seated in the driver’s seat of the car.

A.

It is undisputed that petitioner was arrested on the basis of an outstanding arrest warrant which had been satisfied seven days earlier. Thus, unless Cpl. Fogle’s subjective good faith reliance on the outdated information supplied by the Frederick County sheriff’s computer mandates a different result, petitioner’s arrest was illegal. The State argued below, and the Court of Special Appeals agreed, that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies to the case sub judice. The court reasoned that the policy underlying the exclusionary rule, “a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved,” United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3412, 82 L.Ed.2d 677, 687 (1984), quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561, 571 (1974), and, in particular, “to deter police misconduct”, id., 468 U.S. at 917, 104 S.Ct. at 3417, 82 L.Ed.2d at 694, is not furthered by suppressing evidence when, rather than acting in bad faith, the police act in complete good faith. 85 Md.App. at [212]*212643-44, 584 A.2d at 1272, citing Leon, 468 U.S. at 919, 104 S.Ct. at 3418, 82 L.Ed.2d at 696 (citing United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 539, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2318, 45 L.Ed.2d 374, 382 (1975)). As the Peltier Court put it:

If the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter unlawful police conduct, then evidence obtained by a search should be suppressed only if it can be said that the law enforcement officer had knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

Id. The Court of Special Appeals recognized the applicability of the “collective knowledge/collective ignorance” rule, see Albo v. State, 477 So.2d 1071, 1075 n.

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Bluebook (online)
600 A.2d 111, 325 Md. 206, 1992 Md. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ott-v-state-md-1992.