Ingram v. StateIngram v. State
The issue before this court is whether or not the Court of Record for Broward County, Florida, committed reversible error by denying the appellant‘s motion to suppress a .38 caliber revolver which was offered and received in evidence against him.
The appellant was charged by information with unlawfully carrying a concealed firearm in violation of
It appears from the record that about 1:00 a.m. on the morning of 11 January 1971, Officers Samuel Pagano and Richard Barrett, deputy sheriffs from the Broward County Sheriff‘s Department, were directed to investigate an abandoned automobile found in the Carver‘s Ranch area of West Hollywood, Florida. At the scene, they noticed that the vehicle was stripped of the steering wheel, transmission, and drive shaft. In search of a possible witness, Officer Pagano and his partner cruised the area. Within a short distance, they came upon the defendant. He was standing on the side of the street looking into a parked automobile and talking to the sole occupant, another male, who was seated in the automobile. Officer Pagano approached the defendant on foot for the purpose of inquiring of him whether he had any knowledge of the abandoned vehicle. When Officer Pagano came within several feet of the defendant, he recognized him as Willie Ingram. The officer had previously received reports from no less than eight persons indicating that Ingram had at different times been armed with a revolver. Without further ceremony, Officer Pagano told Ingram to put his hands on the top of the car and proceeded to pat him down. The search revealed a .38 caliber revolver under the belt of Ingram covered by his shirt. The officer testified that because of the previous reports he had received, he was in fear of his life and, therefore, undertook the search. The officer testified that Ingram did nothing which made him apprehensive.
The appellant contends that the hearsay reports which led Officer Pagano to believe Ingram to be armed and dangerous did not justify the officer in stopping Ingram and searching him. Because of that, the appellant contends the search was illegal and the evidence revealed as a result thereof inadmissible. The appellant calls the court‘s attention to
We think that the issue in this case need not turn on the provisions of
An analysis of the constitutional issue in a parallel fact situation was undertaken by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. State of Ohio, 1968, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. In Terry the facts recited in the opinion indicate that a Cleveland police officer observed two men pacing back and forth along a city street periodically peering into a store window. It was during business hours. Further observation led the officer to detect that the two men were apparently in confederacy with a third man. The
The issue before the Court was posed as follows:
“... whether it is always unreasonable for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is probable cause for arrest.” (Page 1877.)
In resolving the issue, the Court stressed that the determinative consideration under the
“... it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search `warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that the action was appropriate?” (Page 1880.)
The Court of course pointed out that where a protective search was justified without probable cause, the search must be limited in scope to the justification of the search. In other words, the search should not go beyond what is required to protect the officer.
By applying the principles expressed in Terry v. State of Ohio, we conclude that under the facts of the present case, the police officer had a reasonable ground under the circumstances of his encounter with the defendant to believe the defendant to be armed and dangerous and made a reasonably limited search for the purpose of neutralizing such danger. For us to hold that the officer was required to disregard the reports he had received because they were of a hearsay nature is not reasonable. Prudent people act on “hearsay” in countless matters.
Justice Harlan‘s concurring opinion in Terry points out what we believe is implicit in the majority opinion. That is, that before a protective search may be undertaken, the encounter between the police officer and the citizen must be justified. Justice Harlan states:
“In the first place, if the frisk is justified in order to protect the officer during an encounter with a citizen, the officer must first have constitutional grounds to insist on an encounter, to make a forcible stop. Any person, including a policeman, is at liberty to avoid a person he considers dangerous. If and when a policeman has a right instead to disarm such a person for his own protection, he must first have a right not to avoid him but to be in his presence. That right must be more than the liberty ... to address questions to other persons, for ordinarily the person addressed has an equal right to ignore his interrogator and walk away ... I would make it perfectly clear that the right to frisk in this case depends upon the reasonableness of a forcible stop to investigate a suspected crime.” (pp. 1885, 1886.)
The aspect of the present case which most troubles us is suggested by the quote from Justice Harlan‘s concurring opinion. On the record before us, the officer did not have probable cause to arrest the defendant. The defendant did nothing to indicate hostility of purpose. Did the officer, therefore, have a right to force an encounter with the defendant? If the facts in our case had indicated that the officer
The judgment and sentence is affirmed.
MAGER, J., concurs.
WALDEN, J., dissents, without opinion.