MILLER (GEORGE) VS. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
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RENDERED: FEBRUARY 12, 2010; 10:00 A.M.
TO BE PUBLISHED
Commonwealth of Kentucky
Court of Appeals
NO. 2008-CA-001443-MR
GEORGE MILLER
v.
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM FAYETTE CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE PAMELA R. GOODWINE, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 08-CR-00180
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION
AFFIRMING
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BEFORE: NICKELL AND VANMETER, JUDGES; LAMBERT,1 SENIOR
JUDGE.
LAMBERT, SENIOR JUDGE: This appeal follows Appellant’s conditional guilty
plea to possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and to being a
persistent felony offender in the second degree. Prior to his plea of guilty,
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Senior Judge Joseph E. Lambert sitting as Special Judge by assignment of the Chief Justice
pursuant to Section 110(5)(b) of the Kentucky Constitution and Kentucky Revised Statutes
(KRS) 21.580.
Appellant reserved the right to appeal from the trial court’s denial of his motion to
suppress evidence.
Appellant and his cousin, Timothy Miller, were involved in a minor
automobile accident on New Circle Road in Lexington. The accident occurred in
the vicinity of a traffic signal with Appellant, the driver, striking the rear of another
vehicle. Following the accident, Appellant and his cousin and the other driver
exited their vehicles, and it was determined that no one was injured. While the
parties conferred, Lexington Fayette Urban County Government police officer
Noel arrived on the scene.
What transpired after the police officer’s arrival is somewhat in
dispute. At the suppression hearing, both Appellant and Officer Noel testified.
Officer Noel testified that in the vicinity of Appellant’s vehicle, which had one of
its doors open, he smelled the odor of marijuana. He also stated that Appellant’s
cousin, Timothy, became emotional and said he thought there was an outstanding
warrant for him. In response to questioning by Noel, both subjects stated that they
had smoked marijuana earlier in the day, a statement Appellant denied in his
suppression hearing testimony. Officer Noel then placed Appellant and his cousin
in handcuffs and directed them to sit on the curb. Soon another police officer,
Sergeant Bacon, arrived.
Appellant’s version of the events concerns actions taken by Officer
Noel which led to discovery of crack cocaine on Appellant’s person. According to
Appellant, Officer Noel stopped searching the vehicle and started tugging on
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Appellant’s pants. Appellant disputed any need for the officer to touch his pants
since he was seated and his pants did not need adjustment. The officer’s version is
that Appellant asked permission to stand up and to pull up Appellant’s pants, and
that this resulted in discovery of a plastic baggie hanging out of the corner of the
pocket of Appellant’s sweatpants. The officer suspected that the baggie contained
crack cocaine. Appellant was arrested and given Miranda warnings. The search of
Appellant’s vehicle yielded a minor quantity of marijuana seeds and stems.
The trial court conducted a suppression hearing. In its oral findings,
the trial court disclosed its view of the evidence. The court did not believe that
Officer Noel would interrupt a vehicle search where the odor of marijuana was
present without some prompting from Appellant. The court expressed uncertainty
whether Appellant asked for permission to pull up his own pants or whether
Appellant asked Officer Noel to do it for him but concluded in any event that
Officer Noel’s actions were prompted in some manner by Appellant. The trial
court further found that Officer Noel’s initial approach to the accident scene was
valid; that his search of the vehicle based on the odor of marijuana was valid; and
that his placing Appellant and his cousin in handcuffs was proper for officer safety.
The court concluded as follows:
The only question here is what, is what prompted officer
Mil – officer Noel to go back to Mr. Miller. And again,
the court doesn’t believe it’s reasonable that he just did
that on his own in the middle of a search of a vehicle.
So, something Mr. Miller did or said prompted him to do
that, and it was his testimony that it was the question
about pulling up the pants. Whether he asked to do it
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himself or asked officer Noel to do it himself, to do it for
him. I think is irrelevant. Something the defendant did
prompted Officer Noel to go back there, and it was that
piece of evidence that, in the course of pulling up the
pants that Officer Noel found the, the crack cocaine. So
based on all of that, and the totality of the circumstances,
the court’s going to overrule this motion to suppress.
It is a familiar rule that on a motion to suppress evidence, the trial
court’s findings of fact are reviewed under a deferential standard. Kentucky Rules
of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 9.78 provides that “If supported by substantial
evidence, the factual findings of the trial court shall be conclusive.” It is equally
well settled, however, that upon appellate review, the trial court’s conclusions of
law are subject to a de novo standard of review. Welch v. Commonwealth, 149
S.W.3d 407 (Ky. 2004); Commonwealth v. Neal, 84 S.W.3d 920 (Ky. App. 2002).
With respect to the trial court’s fact-finding as outlined above, we will not linger.
The court heard the testimony of Appellant and of Officer Noel. Either party
would have been at liberty to call other possible witnesses. The parties’ differing
versions of the events centered around the adjustment of Appellant’s pants. The
trial court believed that Appellant did or said something to prompt Officer Noel to
pull up Appellant’s pants and thus reveal the crack cocaine. As this factual
determination is supported by substantial evidence, it is conclusive.
Appellant argues that by virtue of being handcuffed prior to discovery
of the crack cocaine, he was unlawfully and without justification arrested or seized
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. For this proposition, he cites
various decisions including Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60
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L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93
L.Ed. 1879 (1949), and the redoubtable Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503,
20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968). Appellant relies on the Terry test that a seizure occurs
when “a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have understood the
situation to constitute a restraint on freedom of movement of the degree which the
law associates with formal arrest.” Appellant makes his case as follows:
In a humiliating spectacle, he was forced to sit on the
curb on a busy portion of New Circle Road with his
hands cuffed behind his back. He was not even able to
stand up and pull up his own pants; he apparently had to
ask Officer Noel for permission to do that. This was the
type of intrusion into personal liberty that would
“swallow” the Fourth Amendment if it could be
accomplished with anything less than probable cause.
As we understand Appellant’s argument, he was unlawfully arrested
or seized by means of the handcuffs and the seizure required him to seek Officer
Noel’s assistance in adjusting his pants, resulting in discovery of the crack cocaine.
Appellant acknowledges, however, that the police are permitted to temporarily
detain a suspect based on reasonable suspicion but reminds us that the seizure
cannot continue for an excessive period of time or resemble a traditional arrest
without probable cause.
Officer Noel’s justification for handcuffing Appellant was as follows:
At that point, I’d been by myself, we were on a heavily
traveled road, based on the emotion of the one subject,
possible marijuana in the vehicle, I didn’t want to be
sticking my head in a vehicle with two subjects out there
on New Circle Road by myself.
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Contrary to Appellant’s contention, we do not believe this justification
is “specious.” This Court’s decision in Poe v. Commonwealth, 201 S.W.3d 37
(Ky. App. 2006), is instructive although the factual circumstances are notably
different. After being called to a residence in response to a domestic violence
event, the officers handcuffed and placed the uncooperative defendant in a police
cruiser. The defendant was intoxicated, belligerent and threatening. On appeal,
the defendant claimed that the officers employed more force than was reasonably
necessary to investigate the incident, thus changing the detention of Poe from an
investigatory stop to an arrest. For its analysis of the case, the Poe court first
determined that the police were on the premises for a legitimate purpose. The
Court next determined that upon arrival, the officers had a duty to use all
reasonable means to prevent other domestic violence and that they had a duty to
remain as long as they suspected further danger to the physical safety of persons
present. Summarizing its view, the court said:
It is important that a police officer be able to contain
potentially dangerous situations in a short period of time,
using the least intrusive means to verify or to dispel their
suspicions. At the point when Poe was handcuffed and
placed in the police cruiser, the officers had been unable
to get the whole story as to the events that led up to their
visit to the Poes’ residence that evening. The restraint
used by the officers was no more than that necessary to
protect the safety of Poe, others, and themselves, while
attempting to obtain the necessary information.
Id. at 42 (citation omitted).
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To be sure, there are differences between the Poe case and the case at
bar. However, in this case, there is a suggestion that Appellant’s cousin was
agitated, but otherwise there was no particular evidence of unruly behavior. On the
other hand, this encounter was between a single police officer and two citizens on a
busy highway where there had been a traffic accident, where the presence of
marijuana was suspected, and where a vehicle search was intended. This
circumstance was sufficient to authorize reasonable means to prevent flight,
assault, injury or other untoward conduct. The Supreme Court of Kentucky has
recently recognized that cases involving illegal drugs bring “into play the
indisputable nexus between drugs and guns” and “creates a reasonable suspicion of
danger to the officer.” Owens v. Commonwealth, 291 S.W.3d 704, 710 (Ky. 2009)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Terry v. Ohio recognized that police officers
are not required to take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties. The
Poe court concluded that
Pursuant to United States v. Hensley, a police officer may
conduct an investigatory stop if he has a particularized
and objective basis for suspecting the particular
individual being stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in
criminal activity or is wanted for past criminal conduct.
In considering whether a reasonable suspicion exists, the
totality of the circumstances must be taken into account.
Poe, 201 S.W.3d at 43 (citations omitted).
In our view, the “totality of the circumstances,” based on the facts
found by the trial court at the suppression hearing, was sufficient to justify
handcuffing Appellant and his cousin. We note from Houston v. Clark County
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Sheriff Deputy John Does 1-5, 174 F.3d 809, 815 (6th Cir. 1999), that the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held “[n]or does the use of
handcuffs exceed the bounds of a Terry stop, so long as the circumstances warrant
that precaution.” Under the circumstances that prevailed on the side of New Circle
Road, the manner of detention, although undoubtedly intrusive, was not
unreasonable and did not constitute a seizure or arrest under the Fourth
Amendment.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Fayette Circuit Court is
affirmed.
ALL CONCUR.
BRIEFS FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:
Thomas M. Ransdell
Frankfort, Kentucky
Jack Conway
Attorney General of Kentucky
Michael L. Harned
Assistant Attorney General
Frankfort, Kentucky
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