{ "id": 6140205, "name": "Lester BROOKS v. STATE of Arkansas", "name_abbreviation": "Brooks v. State", "decision_date": "1993-01-27", "docket_number": "CA CR 92-542", "first_page": "208", "last_page": "212", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "40 Ark. App. 208" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "845 S.W.2d 530" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark. Ct. App.", "id": 13370, "name": "Arkansas Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "496 U.S. 325", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12122945 ], "year": 1990, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/496/0325-01" ] }, { "cite": "34 Ark. App. 227", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark. App.", "case_ids": [ 6140955 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1991, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "230" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark-app/34/0227-01" ] }, { "cite": "304 Ark. 610", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1880847 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1991, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/304/0610-01" ] }, { "cite": "392 U.S. 1", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6167798 ], "year": 1968, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/392/0001-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 481, "char_count": 7776, "ocr_confidence": 0.895, "pagerank": { "raw": 6.074765978970164e-08, "percentile": 0.37519426808281103 }, "sha256": "09f770df8af34690c64b41fec1d32585f209236f6a162eedc06df26a816225ba", "simhash": "1:cbe6fc9681630063", "word_count": 1346 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T22:00:57.058600+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Jennings, C.J., and Pittman, J., agree." ], "parties": [ "Lester BROOKS v. STATE of Arkansas" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Melvin Mayfield, Judge.\nLester Brooks was a passenger in an automobile stopped by Little Rock police after a tip that the occupants of the car were \u201cdoing dope.\u201d A search of the car produced rock cocaine, drug paraphernalia, and a pistol. As a result appellant was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of a firearm, possession of drug paraphernalia, and being a habitual criminal. Appellant was convicted in a bench trial only of possession of drug paraphernalia, and he was sentenced as a habitual offender to ten years in the Arkansas Department of Correction with four years suspended. Appellant filed a pretrial motion to suppress all the physical evidence seized from the car alleging that the officers did not have \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d to stop it. The motion was denied.\nLittle Rock police officer Sammy Gately testified that on May 29, 1991, at approximately 8:30 p.m., he was flagged down by a citizen and informed of criminal drug activity associated with a car. Specifically, the citizen told the officer that there were three people in the car and that all of them were smoking crack cocaine. The citizen gave a description of the people in the car, and while this was being told to the officer, the vehicle drove by. The officer followed it to Roosevelt and Wolfe where a \u201cuniform police car\u201d stopped the vehicle. According to Officer Gately, when the driver got out, a small rock that appeared to be crack cocaine was lying on the driver\u2019s seat, and a plastic baggie containing a white powder residue believed to be cocaine was visible on the floorboard. As appellant exited the vehicle on the passenger\u2019s side, Officer Gately said he observed the grip of a pistol and a clear \u201ccrack smoking pipe\u201d partially under the passenger seat. The officer said he retrieved both items and that the gun had five live rounds in it. He also related that a female passenger in the back seat had her feet on a \u201cmetal crack smoking pipe\u201d and that a check of the serial number of the gun showed it to be stolen.\nThe following dialogue then took place:\nQ. So, you stopped and you talked to this citizen. Did you get a name of this citizen?\nA. No, ma\u2019am.\nQ. Had you ever talked with the citizen before?\nA. No.\nQ. Did you know whether the citizen was a reliable informant?\nA. No.\nQ. Okay. And you didn\u2019t know the citizen from anybody else?\nA. Unh un. .\nQ. Okay. When you pulled this vehicle over - You said you followed it and you pulled it over at Roosevelt and Wolfe Street. You pulled it over based on that information. Is that correct?\nA. Yes, ma\u2019am.\nQ. You didn\u2019t pull it over based on anything that you saw in that vehicle?\nA. No.\nQ. So, at the time that you pulled that vehicle over you had not seen any kind of suspicious activity going on in the vehicle. Had not seen any criminal activity.\nA. No, ma\u2019am.\nQ. Nothing to make you believe or cause you reasonable suspicion to believe that there was any criminal activity going on in that vehicle?\nA. I did not witness any criminal activity in the vehicle.\nQ. Is that citizen here today to testify in this case?\nA. Not to my knowledge.\nBased on the citizen\u2019s information and on his observation that the vehicle was driving back through a neighborhood it had just left, Officer Gately said he radioed a patrol car to pull the vehicle over. Officer Gately elaborated on redirect:\nA. The citizen described the vehicle, gave us a license number off the vehicle, described the occupants of the vehicle. When the vehicle came back through, he said, \u201cThere is the vehicle.\u201d When I saw the vehicle, there was three occupants just like he described. The license number was the same as he gave us.\nQ. Okay. So, he actually pointed it out?\nA. Yes, ma\u2019am.\nIn Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the United States Supreme Court held that the police can briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity \u201cmay be afoot.\u201d This policy has been adopted in this state as Arkansas Criminal Procedure Rule 3.1 which provides in pertinent part as follows:\nA law enforcement officer lawfully present in any place may, in the performance of his duties, stop and detain any person he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed, or is about to commit (1) a felony or (2) a misdemeanor involving danger or forcible injury to persons or of appropriation of or damage to property, if such action is reasonably necessary either to obtain or verify the identification of the person or determine the lawfulness of his conduct.\nRule 2.1 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure defines \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d as follows:\n\u201cReasonable suspicion\u201d means a suspicion based on facts or circumstances which of themselves do not give rise to the probable cause requisite to justify a lawful arrest, but which give rise to more than a bare suspicion; that is, a suspicion that is reasonable as opposed to an imaginary or purely conjectural suspicion.\nWe think the trial court was correct in refusing to suppress the evidence seized from the car in which the appellant was riding. Criminal Procedure Rule 3.1 permits an officer to stop and detain a person the officer \u201creasonably suspects\u201d may be engaged in criminal conduct, and we think under \u201ca consideration of the total circumstances\u201d there were \u201cparticularized, specific reasons for a belief\u2019 that appellant might be engaged in criminal activity. See Stout v. State, 304 Ark. 610, 804 S.W.2d 686 (1991).\nAppellant argues that the physical evidence should have been suppressed based on Lambert v. State, 34 Ark. App. 227, 808 S.W.2d 788 (1991), which he interprets as holding that \u201can anonymous tip in and of itself was not sufficient reasonable suspicion\u201d to warrant the stop. In Lambert the Arkansas State Police received a tip on July 27,1989, on their \u201cDrug Hot Line\u201d that at approximately 3:00 p.m. a vehicle would be leaving Hot Springs headed for Little Rock, carrying about ten pounds of marijuana. The vehicle was described by the tipster as being a truck with a black tractor with \u201cWoodline Motor Freight\u201d in orange letters on the side carrying a short-bed trailer and would be driven by a man named Jerry. Surveillance was set up, and at 3:50 p.m. a truck identical to the description was spotted and was pulled over by a state trooper. The driver\u2019s name was Jerry Lambert. Appellant was asked if there was marijuana in the truck. He replied that there was and got a large bag of marijuana out of the truck and gave it to the officer.\nThis court held:\n[ W] e cannot hold that the facts corroborating the tip in the case at bar are sufficient in quality or quantity, under the totality of the circumstances test, to give rise to reasonable suspicion.\n34 Ark. App. at 230.\nWe do not consider Lambert to be controlling in the instant case. Here a citizen was speaking face to face with the officer, relating criminal activity that he had observed. He supplied the officer with the description of the vehicle, its occupants and its license number. Furthermore, as they were speaking the car passed and the citizen pointed it out to the officer. Under these circumstances we think there was \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d for the officer to stop the car. We think the \u201cindicia of reliability\u201d to justify the investigatory stop in this case was as great as that approved in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990).\nAffirmed.\nJennings, C.J., and Pittman, J., agree.", "type": "majority", "author": "Melvin Mayfield, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "William R. Simpson, Jr., Public Defender, by: Thomas B. Devine, Deputy Public Defender, for appellant.", "Winston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Clementine Infante, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Lester BROOKS v. STATE of Arkansas\nCA CR 92-542\n845 S.W.2d 530\nCourt of Appeals of Arkansas Division I\nOpinion delivered January 27, 1993\nWilliam R. Simpson, Jr., Public Defender, by: Thomas B. Devine, Deputy Public Defender, for appellant.\nWinston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Clementine Infante, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." }, "file_name": "0208-01", "first_page_order": 236, "last_page_order": 240 }