Roderick Harvey v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: July 9, 2014
• Docket: A14A0550
• Status: Published

Opinion

SECOND DIVISION ANDREWS, P. J., MCFADDEN and RAY , JJ.

NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be physically received in our clerk’s office within ten days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed. http://www.gaappeals.us/rules/

July 9, 2014

In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A14A0550. HARVEY v. THE STATE.

MCFADDEN, Judge.

We granted interlocutory review of the trial court’s order denying Roderick

Harvey’s motion to suppress evidence of a gun found on the ground five feet away

from him during an encounter between him and police officers. He argues that the

police detained him in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Finding no violation, we

affirm.

“On reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, evidence is

construed most favorably to uphold the findings and judgment and the trial court’s

findings on disputed facts and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous.”

Wright v. State, 294 Ga. 798, 801 (2) (756 SE2d 513) (2014) (citation and

punctuation omitted). This “means that we sustain all of the trial court’s findings that are supported by any evidence.” Ansley v. State, 325 Ga. App. 226 (750 SE2d 484)

(2013) (citation omitted). Because, at the hearing on the motion to suppress, Harvey

directly challenged the credibility of the police officer who allegedly illegally

detained him, “we do not apply a de novo standard of review, which applies only

where the facts are undisputed.” Id. at 227 (citation omitted). Compare State v.

Underwood, 283 Ga. 498, 500-501 (661 SE2d 529) (2008) (applying de novo

standard where evidence is uncontroverted and credibility is not challenged).

Moreover, “in reviewing a trial court’s decision on a motion to suppress we may

consider all relevant evidence of record, wherever located,” Tyre v. State, 323 Ga.

App. 37, 42 (4) (a) (747 SE2d 106) (2013) (citation and punctuation omitted), which

in this case includes the transcript of an earlier bond hearing. See Sanders v. State,

235 Ga. 425, 431-432 (II) (219 SE2d 768) (1975) (testimony adduced at pre-trial

commitment hearing could be considered in determining whether trial court erred in

ruling on motion to suppress), superseded in part by statute on other grounds as noted

in State v. Dempsey, 290 Ga. 763, 765 (1) (727 SE2d 670) (2012).

Construed most favorably to uphold the judgment, the evidence showed that

around 1 a.m. on October 16, 2012, a man called 911, identified himself, and reported

that his adult son had asked him to pick him up at a gas station and to come “ready

2 for trouble.” The caller described his son as a white man, 44 years old, six feet one

inch tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. A police officer responding to the

“suspicious activity” call spotted three men near the gas station, walking on the road

away from the station. One of the men was a white man who appeared to be about

five feet eleven inches tall. The officer activated the blue lights of her patrol car and

stopped next to the three men, one of whom was Harvey. The officer testified that she

stopped “because I thought I saw someone who matched the description of the son

that the father had provided to the 911 call-taker.” She also testified that she believed

the dispatch “said something about a group of males – or a group of people, I believe,

and I didn’t know if this was part of the group.”

The officer asked the men where they had been and they responded that they

had been at the gas station. She attempted to determine if they either were or were

familiar with the 911 caller’s son. She also asked for their identification. Harvey did

not have identification but provided his name. The officer asked the men to sit on the

curb while she checked this information in her patrol car. As she did so, another

officer arrived and spotted a silver handgun on the ground in a ditch about five feet

behind the men. The officers separated and handcuffed the three men.

3 One of the men then told the officers that he had been talking with Harvey and

the other man about selling a cellular phone when Harvey pointed a silver gun at him,

forced him to walk down the road with them, and demanded the phone. The other

man confirmed that story. The officers arrested Harvey, and the state indicted him for

kidnapping, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, and aggravated assault.

Harvey moved to suppress evidence of the gun, arguing that its discovery was

the fruit of an illegal detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The trial court

denied the motion, and we granted Harvey’s motion for interlocutory review of this

ruling.

“Our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence recognizes three tiers of police-citizen

encounters: (1) communication between police and citizens involving no coercion or

detention and therefore without the compass of the Fourth Amendment, (2) brief

seizures that must be supported by reasonable suspicion, and (3) full-scale arrests that

must be supported by probable cause.” Walker v. State, 323 Ga. App. 558, 558-559

(1) (a) (747 SE2d 51) (2013) (citation omitted).

Pointing to the officer’s activation of her vehicle’s blue lights as she

approached the men and her request that they sit on the curb while she checked their

names, Harvey argues that the trial court erred in ruling that the encounter was first

4 tier. Assuming without deciding that these actions by the officer escalated the

encounter to second tier, however, the evidence showed a basis for the stop. “[A]

temporary, investigative detention is reasonable if the officer is aware of specific and

articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,

provided a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person

stopped of criminal activity.” Culpepper v. State, 312 Ga. App. 115, 119 (717 SE2d

698) (2011) (citations and punctuation omitted). The officer in this case had been

dispatched to investigate suspicious activity at a particular gas station involving a

white man slightly over six feet tall and possibly other people. She testified that, on

a road near the gas station, she saw a group of men that included a man she believed

matched the description given in the suspicious activity call. Based on this evidence,

the officer had a reasonable, articulable suspicion for making a second-tier,

investigatory stop of the men. See Kinsey v. State, __ Ga. App. __, __ (1) (a) (__

SE2d __) (Case No. A13A2062, decided March 27, 2014) (totality of circumstances

gave officers reasonable, articulable suspicion to make investigative stop where car

and its occupants matched description given by dispatch of suspects involved in

criminal activity at nearby apartment complex at time of day where there was very

little traffic on road near complex). Compare Walker, 232 Ga. App. at 561 (officer

5 testified that he did not stop defendant based on any observation that defendant

matched description of person involved in call to which officer was responding).

Judgment affirmed. Andrews, P. J., and Ray, J., concur.