Patdown during a traffic stop was not justified

Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and the officer ordered him out of the car and frisked him. There were no safety concerns, and the frisk was invalid. Howard v. State, 862 N.E.2d 1208 (2007):

Assuming without deciding that Officer Kajmowicz’s initial stop of Howard was reasonable, see Scott v. State, 855 N.E.2d 1068, 1073-74 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), the officers were not permitted to order Howard from his car and conduct a Terry pat-down search. Prior to ordering Howard from his car, Officer Vantlin recognized that the driver was Howard, not Baker. He could see Howard’s hands and the interior of the car, but he did not testify that either raised officer safety concerns. Neither officer testified that, when Howard exited his vehicle, they feared for officer safety or that they had any weapons drawn when they approached Howard. See id. (purpose of a Terry search is not to discover evidence of crime, but rather to allow an officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence). Officer Vantlin testified that he knew Howard from prior drug arrests, but there is no evidence that Howard was armed on these prior occasions, resisted arrest, or otherwise presented concerns for officer safety. Perhaps creating the most significant concern regarding the legality of this search was the point that Officer Vantlin testified that he had previously told Howard he was going to search him every time he saw him. Tr. at 57. These circumstances did not warrant a pat-down search incident to a Terry stop. We conclude that the seizure of Howard’s person and thereby his possessions was illegal. See Sanchez v. State, 803 N.E.2d 215, 221 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied (citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 485, 83 S. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441 (1963) (the exclusionary rule, also known as the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ doctrine, bars from trial physical, tangible materials obtained during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion)). As such, the trial court should have suppressed the evidence.

Collective knowledge showed cause for stop, and the fact that the officer making the stop did not know about it “is of no import.” Commonwealth v. Quinn, 68 Mass. App. Ct. 476; 862 N.E.2d 769 (2007):

The judge concluded that Donahue acted on a hunch rather than a reasonable suspicion, as he received no report that a motor vehicle was involved in the break-in or seen near the vicinity of the gas station. It appears to us that stopping the only motor vehicle on the road, which was being driven from the direction of a crime, within minutes of that crime, was proper. Having to make a rapid decision, the officer acted permissibly. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 63 Mass. App. Ct. 88, 90-91 & n.3 (2005). See also Commonwealth v. Berment, 39 Mass. App. Ct. 522, 529-530 (1995) (Kass, J., dissenting) (“The Fourth Amendment is concerned with the right of ‘the people to be secure in their persons … against unreasonable searches and seizures'” [emphasis supplied]).

There is, however, even more here when the collective knowledge of the police officers is taken into consideration. “Where a cooperative effort is involved, facts within the knowledge of one police officer have been relied on to justify the conduct of another.” Commonwealth v. Riggins, 366 Mass. 81, 88 (1974). Thus, the information discovered by Harvey — that there were “fresh tire tracks … pulling out from the side of the road next to the Texaco station … heading towards Route 18” and footprints leading from the tire tracks to the gas station and back — was imputed to Donahue. The officers were engaged in a cooperative effort to investigate the break-in at the gas station, so “it is unnecessary for the detaining officer to know all the information pertaining to the incident …. [T]he knowledge of one [police officer] … [is] the knowledge of all.” Commonwealth v. Zirpolo, 37 Mass. App. Ct. 307, 311 (1994), quoting from Commonwealth v. Lanoue, 356 Mass. 337, 340 (1969). See also Commonwealth v. Andrews, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 324, 327-328 (1993) (based on the collective knowledge doctrine, the officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop). That this information was not heard by Donahue is of no import.

Circumstances of the stop were such that defendant would not have felt free to leave or terminate the encounter, so the trial court did not err in suppressing. State v. Dixon, 218 S.W.3d 14 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007).*