State v. Copeland

949 S.W.2d 227, 1997 Mo. App. LEXIS 1093, 1997 WL 331887
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided June 16, 1997·No. No. 21408·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

SHRUM, Judge.

This interlocutory appeal by the State pursuant to § 547.200 1 charges that the trial [228] court erred when it sustained the motion of Diane Copeland (Defendant) to suppress evidence. The evidence suppressed included marijuana seized from Defendant’s person. Defendant’s motion challenged the initial stop and the legality of the search. In sustaining Defendant’s motion, the court did not give its reasons for suppressing the evidence.

On appeal, the State first contends that the “quantum of suspicious facts” compels a finding that “the arresting officer had reasonable suspicion to detain [Defendant;]” hence, the investigatory stop was valid. Second, the State argues that “[sjpecific [and] articula-ble” facts in the record require a finding that the policeman’s search of Defendant’s purse and diaper bag were “lawful as a weapons search.” r

The record supports a finding that the investigatory stop was invalid; therefore, it is not necessary to reach the question of whether the search was legal. We affirm.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the State had the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the motion to suppress should have been overruled. § 542.296.6; State v. Franklin, 841 S.W.2d 639, 644 (Mo.banc 1992). Our review is limited to a determination of sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the trial court’s conclusion about whether the stop violated Defendant’s rights. State v. Warrington, 884 S.W.2d 711, 715 (Mo.App.1994). We will reverse only if the trial court’s judgment is clearly erroneous. State v. Milliorn, 794 S.W.2d 181, 183[5] (Mo.banc 1990). If the trial court’s ruling is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, this court may not reverse the ruling even though convinced that had it been sitting as trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Id. at 184. We defer to the trial court’s vantage point for assessing the credibility of witnesses and weighing the evidence. State v. Villa-Perez, 835 S.W.2d 897, 902[9] (Mo. banc 1992). We are free to disregard evidence and inferences contrary to the trial court’s ruling. Franklin, 841 S.W.2d at 641[1],

At approximately 1:00 p.m. on December 8, 1994, a Rolla police dispatcher directed officers to a building at 701 East 10th Street that contained ten apartments. Both policemen who testified at the suppression hearing said they were told that “an assault was in progress” in apartment C. Neither policeman provided other details about the content of the radio dispatch.

Policeman Dillard (Dillard) was the first to arrive on the apartment building parking lot. He was in a “marked patrol car with lights.” As Dillard drove into one end of a “C” type driveway and stopped, he saw a blue Ford pickup truck leaving the lot in a normal fashion through the other end of the driveway. Thereon, Dillard yelled at the driver of the pickup to stop. After the second shout, the driver stopped, got out, and walked toward Dillard per Dillard’s instructions. Defendant, who was a passenger, remained in the truck as Dillard ordered. Dillard testified that his first inquiry to the driver was whether he could search the truck. At the suppression hearing, Dillard said that his request to search was “to make sure there was [sic] no weapons and to secure the scene[,]” yet neither the driver nor Defendant were subjected to a “pat down” search until a supervisory policeman arrived later and suggested the pat down.2

The driver consented to the vehicle search, whereon Dillard searched and found a baseball bat and ammunition for firearms. Dillard agreed that this search was made without first asking the occupants of the pickup about apartment C or inquiring about “the assault in the apartment [to] assist in the investigation ]” of that alleged incident.

As Dillard found the ammunition, he told other officers who had arrived what he was finding. By this time, Defendant was again out of the truck. She was holding an infant child, her purse, and a diaper bag. Inquiries by Lieutenant Day prompted policeman Nichols (Nichols) to search Defendant. [229] While handling a small purse taken by Nichols from Defendant’s larger purse, he “felt hard objects” inside. Believing the “hard objects” might be a knife or gun, Nichols opened the smaller purse. Inside he found marijuana, “roaches,” “a small wooden dugout,” and other drug paraphernalia. Next, Nichols took the diaper bag from Defendant and searched it. In it he found additional marijuana.

The State charged Defendant with possession of a controlled substance, § 195.211, and first degree child endangerment, § 568.050. Defendant then filed a motion to suppress the marijuana, the drug paraphernalia, $978.79 in cash, and all other evidence seized, directly or indirectly, from the search. The trial court sustained her motion. This appeal followed.

In its first point, the State insists that the trial court erred in sustaining Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence because the arresting officer “had reasonable suspicion to detain [Defendant] and the resulting search was a lawful search.” The State’s argument relies on a line of United States Supreme Court and Missouri appellate court opinions, emanating from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), that deal with “investigative stops.”

The Supreme Court of Missouri stated the investigative stop rule regarding motor vehicles as follows:

“[T]he Fourth Amendment [is not] offended when a law enforcement officer briefly stops a moving automobile to investigate, founded upon a reasonable suspicion that the occupants are involved in criminal activity, if the suspicion is supported by specific and articulable facts.”

Franklin, 841 S.W.2d at 641[3] (citing United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 882, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2580, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975)).

In United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), the United States Supreme Court discusses the Terry requirement that an officer have “a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot.”

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State v. Copeland, 949 S.W.2d 227, 1997 Mo. App. LEXIS 1093, 1997 WL 331887 (Mo. Ct. App. 1997).

949 S.W.2d 227 (State v. Copeland) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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