Rodney Eugene Hopkins v. Commonwealth of Virginia ( 2000 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Bumgardner, Frank and Humphreys
Argued at Richmond, Virginia
RODNEY EUGENE HOPKINS
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 1909-99-2 JUDGE ROBERT J. HUMPHREYS
OCTOBER 17, 2000
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF HENRICO COUNTY
Buford M. Parsons, Jr., Judge
Darryl A. Parker for appellant.
Susan M. Harris, Assistant Attorney General
(Mark L. Earley, Attorney General; Richard B.
Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, on
brief), for appellee.
Rodney Eugene Hopkins appeals his conviction after a bench
trial of possession of heroin with intent to distribute, in
violation of Code § 18.2-248.1. Appellant contends that the trial
court erred in denying his pretrial motion to suppress heroin
seized from his vehicle, as well as statements he made to police.
"In reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress,
'[t]he burden is upon [the defendant] to show that th[e] ruling,
when the evidence is considered most favorably to the
Commonwealth, constituted reversible error.'" McGee v.
Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 193, 197, 487 S.E.2d 259, 261 (1997)
* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code
§ 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated for publication.
(en banc) (citation omitted). "[W]e review de novo the trial
court's application of defined legal standards such as probable
cause and reasonable suspicion to the particular facts of the
case." Hayes v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 647, 652, 514 S.E.2d
357, 359 (1999) (citation omitted). "In performing such analysis,
we are bound by the trial court's findings of historical fact
unless 'plainly wrong' or without evidence to support them and we
give due weight to the inferences drawn from those facts by
resident judges and local law enforcement officers." McGee, 25
Va. App. at 198, 487 S.E.2d at 261 (citing Ornelas v. United
States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996)). We have also recognized that
great deference should be afforded to the "peculiar fact finding
capability of the trial court" since it is "not limited to the
stark, written record," but "has before it the living witnesses
and can observe their demeanors and inflections." Satchell v.
Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 641, 648, 460 S.E.2d 253, 256 (1995).
A "police officer may lawfully stop and detain an
individual if the officer possesses a reasonable suspicion,
based on articulable facts, that the individual is or is about
to be engaged in criminal activity." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1,
30 (1968). "The standard for conducting such a detention is
less than probable cause, but more than an 'inchoate and
unparticularized suspicion or "hunch."'" Gregory v.
Commonwealth, 22 Va. App. 100, 105, 468 S.E.2d 117, 120 (1996).
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In order to determine what cause is
sufficient to authorize police to stop a
person, cognizance must be taken of the
"totality of the circumstances - the whole
picture." Assessing that whole picture,
"the detaining officers must have a
particularized and objective basis for
suspecting the particular person stopped of
criminal activity."
Jacques v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 591, 593, 405 S.E.2d 630,
631 (1991).
Here, Hopkins was stopped after Officer Maxwell, of the
Henrico County Police Department, received detailed information
from a known informant that Hopkins would be transporting a
quantity of heroin in his vehicle. The informant had provided
reliable information on two prior occasions, which led to the
arrest of suspects in drug cases.
This Court has recognized that an anonymous tip, standing
on its own, is insufficient to support a reasonable, articulable
suspicion. See Harris v. Commonwealth, 33 Va. App. 325, 332,
533 S.E.2d 18, 21 (2000); see also Florida v. J. L., 120 S. Ct.
1375 (2000). However, in this case we do not have such a
situation. Officer Maxwell testified that the informant who
gave him the information was known to him and in fact, Officer
Maxwell had worked with this individual before on two separate
occasions, both of which led to the arrest and conviction of the
subjects involved.
The facts in this case are similar to those in Johnson v.
Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 49, 455 S.E.2d 261 (1995). In Johnson
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we held that where an informant was known and had worked with
the police previously (providing information that resulted in
arrests and successful prosecutions), and where the informant
provided detailed, predictive information that the officers were
able to corroborate, the officers possessed a reasonable,
articulable suspicion which was required to validly stop the
defendant and investigate potential criminal activity. In this
case, the officers were also given detailed, predictive
information, from a known source, that they were able to
corroborate. Thus, we find that the stop and the resulting
investigation were reasonable and did not constitute a violation
of Hopkins' constitutional rights.
Hopkins next contends that the statements he made to the
officers at the scene of the stop should have been suppressed by
the trial court as they were given in violation of Miranda, as
well as his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. 1 Following the
stop of appellant's vehicle, Officer Maxwell asked appellant to
1
We presume that Hopkins refers to his statements made to
police before the Miranda rights were read to him. Any
statements made thereafter were valid as they were given after
he was properly advised of his rights. Furthermore, Hopkins has
not argued that his statements, either before or after he was
given Miranda warnings were coerced. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470
U.S. 298, 309 (1985) ("It is an unwarranted extension of Miranda
to hold that a simple failure to administer the warnings,
unaccompanied by any actual coercion or other circumstances
calculated to undermine the suspect's ability to exercise his
free will, so taints the investigatory process that a subsequent
voluntary and informed waiver is ineffective for some
indeterminate period.").
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step to the rear of his vehicle. He called for a drug canine
unit, told Hopkins he had received information that Hopkins was
carrying heroin, and asked Hopkins to cooperate. In response,
Hopkins told Officer Maxwell, "[y]ou need to do what you need to
do."
As the dog was being brought toward Hopkins' vehicle, another
officer once again asked Hopkins if there were drugs in the car.
Hopkins told him at that time that there was some heroin in the
small black box between the seats. The drug dog "alerted" to the
area between the seats of the vehicle, and a small black box was
recovered from this area. The box contained heroin in twelve
individually wrapped packages.
Miranda warnings are required whenever a suspect is
subjected to "custodial interrogation" and every detention does
not necessarily constitute custodial interrogation for purposes
of Miranda. A person is in custody for Miranda purposes only
when the person's "freedom of action is curtailed to a 'degree
associated with formal arrest.'" Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S.
420, 440 (1984). Whether a suspect is "in custody" turns upon
"how a reasonable man in the suspect's position would have
understood his situation." Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442.
"If an officer has a reasonable, articulable basis to
suspect that an individual has committed or is about to commit a
crime, the officer is justified in briefly detaining the suspect
and asking him a limited number of questions without giving
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Miranda warnings in order to quell or confirm the officer's
suspicion of criminal activity." Cherry v. Commonwealth, 14 Va.
App. 135, 140, 415 S.E.2d 242, 245 (1992). Moreover, we have
held that "'drawing weapons, handcuffing a suspect, placing a
suspect in a patrol car for questioning, or using or threatening
to use force does not necessarily elevate a lawful stop into a
custodial arrest for Miranda purposes.'" Harris v.
Commonwealth, 27 Va. App. 554, 566, 500 S.E.2d 257, 263 (1998)
(quoting United States v. Leshuk, 65 F.3d 1105, 1109-10 (4th
Cir. 1995)).
As we have noted above, the officers had more than a valid
reasonable suspicion that Hopkins was about to, or had already
committed a crime. Accordingly, the officers had reason to
detain him and ask him a limited number of questions in order to
"quell or confirm" their suspicions. In light of the above
precedent, we cannot find that the trial court was plainly wrong
in finding that Hopkins was not "in custody" when the officers
questioned him about the heroin in his vehicle.
Nevertheless, even if we were to assume that Hopkins was
"in custody" once the officers asked him to step to the back of
the vehicle, the statement made by Hopkins was of no
consequence. The officers had probable cause to search the
vehicle regardless of the statement. It is well settled that
"[o]ne of the established exceptions to the warrant requirement
is that if a search without a warrant is made of an automobile
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or other vehicle on the highway upon probable cause and if it is
not practicable to secure a warrant because the motor vehicle
can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in
which the warrant must be sought, the search is valid." Taylor
v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 816, 820, 284 S.E.2d 833, 836 (1981)
(citing Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 149, 153
(1925)).
"[P]robable cause exists when the facts and circumstances
within the officer's knowledge, and of which he has reasonably
trustworthy information, alone are sufficient to warrant a
person of reasonable caution to believe that an offense has been
or is being committed. In order to ascertain whether probable
cause exists, courts will focus upon 'what the totality of the
circumstances meant to police officers trained in analyzing the
observed conduct for purposes of crime control.'" Id. at
820-22, 284 S.E.2d at 836 (citations omitted).
It is clear that the facts in this case were sufficiently
corroborated to give the officers reason to believe that a crime
had been, or was about to be, committed. The officers,
therefore, had probable cause to search Hopkins' vehicle, and
exigent circumstances existed which allowed the search to take
place without a warrant. Thus, even if the initial statement
made by Hopkins was suppressed, the conviction would still stand
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as the search of the vehicle was independently valid, regardless
of the statements made by appellant.
Affirmed.
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