STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. KARON A. LATTIE

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

KARON A. LATTIE, a/k/a

ANTHONY KARON LATTIE,

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

July 7, 2016

Submitted May 24, 2016 Decided

Before Judges Fisher and Rothstadt.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Indictment Nos. 14-01-0410 and 15-02-0400.

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Al Glimis, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the brief).

Robert Lougy, Acting Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Jenny M. Hsu, Deputy Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant Karon A. Lattie appeals from the Law Division's judgment of conviction, entered after defendant pled guilty to a second-degree weapons offense. He pled guilty after the court denied his motion to suppress, in which he argued that police did not have probable cause to arrest him. After conducting a hearing, the trial court disagreed, finding that the information supplied to police by an unidentified citizen, combined with defendant's own statements when police entered a restaurant where defendant was located, provided the probable cause necessary to arrest and search him. Defendant challenges the court's determination, arguing the information police received from the unidentified witness was not reliable because it did not come from a "citizen-informant." We disagree with defendant's contention and affirm.

A Camden County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging defendant with three offenses involving the possession and carrying of a handgun and prohibited ammunition, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b), N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a), and N.J.S.A. 2C:39-3(f)(1). After being charged, defendant moved to suppress the evidence, and the court conducted an evidentiary hearing on October 6, 2014. At the hearing, the arresting officer and defendant testified. The officer testified to the events leading up to defendant's arrest, and defendant testified denying the officer's version and ever having a weapon. The court found the officer's testimony to be credible and defendant's denial of the officer's version to be not credible because it found defendant was motivated to be untruthful based upon the seriousness of the charges against him, which "justif[ied] any denial" by him.

The facts as found by the court can be summarized as follows. On October 14, 2013, Officer Robert MacFarland was in his patrol car when he was flagged down by a woman who identified herself as a corrections officer. MacFarland provided a description of the woman and her vehicle, but did not obtain any other identifying information from her.

The woman told MacFarland that she had just been driving and saw a man standing in the middle of a street blocking her way, and that, when she sounded her vehicle's horn, he "pulled up his hoodie sweatshirt revealing . . . a handgun." She then backed up her vehicle and turned to drive in the opposite direction. According to MacFarland, the woman gave a description of the man as being a black male approximately five-feet-eight-inches tall wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and dark jeans.

MacFarland radioed the information to other police vehicles, and shortly thereafter was contacted by another officer who stated he had just seen an individual matching the description go into a restaurant. MacFarland proceeded to the restaurant and entered the establishment with other officers, including the one who notified him about the suspect's location.

Upon the officers' entry into the restaurant, defendant saw them, raised his hands, and said words to the effect of, "you got me," and informed the officers he was carrying a weapon. Defendant also complained that he could not believe the woman to whom he brandished his weapon actually called the police. The officer arrested defendant and removed the weapon from his waistband.

The court found that the State proved police had probable cause to arrest and search defendant. In doing so, the court reviewed the applicable law regarding a determination as to probable cause, including the weight given to information supplied by a "citizen directly," as compared to an "anonymous tipster." It addressed defendant's testimony contradicting MacFarland's as to the color of defendant's hoodie on the day of his arrest, and determined that, regardless of the color, "the description given by the unidentified witness was generally consistent" with the descriptions of defendant's clothing by both the officer and defendant himself. The court also found that the information supplied by the unidentified witness was essentially corroborated by defendant's complaint about her having called the police, thereby confirming "some knowledge of the incident" described by the witness. The court found no fault in the officer's failure to secure the witness's identity because of the exigencies of the circumstances presented by a report of an individual brandishing a weapon.

The court found probable cause existed based upon the combination of the unidentified witness's statement and MacFarland's credible description of what occurred in the restaurant. It also determined, in the alternative, that even if the police did not have probable cause based upon the unidentified witness's information alone, the police were justified to conduct a Terry1 frisk of defendant because the totality of the circumstances gave rise to a "reasonable suspicion . . . that defendant was armed and dangerous." The court concluded by finding no issue with defendant's arrest or the police's search of his person incident to that arrest.

After the court denied defendant's motion, he pled guilty to one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon in exchange for the dismissal of the indictment's other two counts and for the prosecutor's recommendation of a sentence of five years imprisonment with a forty-two month period of parole ineligibility. Before sentencing, defendant also pled guilty to an unrelated accusation charging him with a third-degree drug offense, in exchange for the prosecutor's agreement to dismiss other charges and to recommend a concurrent five-year sentence. On March 12, 2015, the court sentenced defendant in accordance with his plea agreements. This appeal followed.

On appeal defendant argues

THE COURT BELOW ERRED IN DETERMINING THAT THE TIP CAME FROM A "CITIZEN-INFORMANT" AND THAT THE POLICE HAD PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST DEFENDANT.

We find defendant's argument to be without sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(2). Suffice it to say, this case did not involve an anonymous tipster, as argued by defendant, but rather a face-to-face encounter between a police officer and a citizen reporting a crime, which is deemed reliable regardless of the officer not securing the reporting individual's identity. See State v. Hathaway, 222 N.J. 453, 471 (2015) ("[A]n objectively reasonable police officer may assume that an ordinary citizen reporting a crime, which the citizen purports to have observed, is providing reliable information." (quoting State v. Basil, 202 N.J. 570, 586 (2010)). We affirm substantially for the reasons expressed by the motion judge in his oral decision.

Affirmed.

1 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968).