Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-4794-14T1
01-05-2016
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MATTHEW EICHE, Defendant-Respondent.
Joseph D. Coronato, Ocean County Prosecutor, attorney for appellant (Samuel Marzarella, Supervising Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel; Nicholas D. Norcia, Assistant Prosecutor, on the brief). Michael H. Schreiber, attorney for respondent.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Guadagno and Vernoia. On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Ocean County, Indictment No. 13-08-2116. Joseph D. Coronato, Ocean County Prosecutor, attorney for appellant (Samuel Marzarella, Supervising Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel; Nicholas D. Norcia, Assistant Prosecutor, on the brief). Michael H. Schreiber, attorney for respondent. PER CURIAM
By our leave granted, the State appeals from the Law Division's order granting Matthew Eiche's motion to suppress evidence seized without a search warrant. For the reasons expressed below, we now reverse and remand the matter to the Law Division for further proceedings.
The following facts are drawn from the testimony presented at the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress. On September 12, 2012, Detective Gregory Martinez of the Barnegat Township Police Department (BTPD) was conducting surveillance at the Big Lots shopping center, a strip mall fronting Route 9. Detective Martinez was assigned to the BTPD narcotics unit and, that day, he was wearing plain clothes and driving an unmarked vehicle. At approximately 7:00 p.m., Martinez noticed a white pick-up truck with three individuals inside, parked in the shopping center near a McDonald's. No one got in or out of the pick-up and the occupants were looking around.
Martinez radioed fellow BTPD officer Timothy Bradshaw, told him he was observing a suspicious vehicle, and asked for his assistance. Bradshaw, who was in uniform but driving an unmarked vehicle, responded and parked approximately fifty feet from the pick-up. After a few minutes, Bradshaw observed a PT Cruiser, driven by an individual later identified as defendant, enter the McDonald's lot and park near the pick-up.
Bradshaw, who was parked facing the PT Cruiser, approximately twenty-five to thirty feet away, observed one of the occupants of the pick-up, later identified as Shay Pravlik, walk over to the PT Cruiser and get in the passenger side. Before he got in, Bradshaw observed Pravlik reach into his pocket and pull money out. Bradshaw was close enough to notice that Pravlik was holding the bills unfolded, between his thumb and forefinger, with one-third to one-half of the bills exposed.
Once inside the PT Cruiser, Bradshaw observed Pravlik and defendant lean over the center console toward each other and appear to exchange something. Once Bradshaw observed the suspected exchange, he radioed Martinez and the officers approached the two vehicles separately; Martinez to the PT Cruiser and Bradshaw to the pick-up.
While Bradshaw spoke with the other two occupants of the pick-up, Martinez knocked on the window of the PT Cruiser and asked Pravlik to get out. After identifying himself as a police officer, Martinez asked Pravlik what was going on. Pravlik responded that he just got some Suboxone from defendant. Martinez stopped the questioning and read Pravlik his Miranda rights.
Suboxone is a controlled dangerous substance, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1), used to treat opioid dependence. Suboxone film, which is the subject of this seizure, is a form of the drug administered under the tongue or inside the cheek. http://www.suboxone.com/treatment/suboxone-film
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966). --------
Pravlik then removed three Suboxone films from his pocket and handed them to Martinez, who then gave them to Bradshaw. Bradshaw asked defendant to get out of the car and Martinez read him his Miranda rights. Defendant admitted he sold three Suboxones to Pravlik for twenty-five dollars and explained that he was just trying to "help out a friend." Defendant then took a prescription bottle out of his pocket containing twenty-one films of Suboxone.
At the hearing, Bradshaw, Martinez, and defendant testified. Defendant denied selling Suboxone to Pravlik and maintained that his wife gave Pravlik Suboxone two days before the arrests.
On May 14, 2015, the motion judge read a decision into the record. After determining that defendant's testimony lacked credibility, the judge held that, based on Martinez's limited observations, Pravlik's detention was constitutionally invalid. The judge found it "troubling" and "inexplicable" that Bradshaw, "who was better positioned to make and did in fact make more observations regarding the interaction between defendant and Pravlick," walked past the PT Cruiser and made contact with the pick-up, leaving Martinez to engage Pravlik. Because Bradshaw did not inform Martinez of his observations, the judge found that Martinez's detention of Pravlik was not supported by reasonable suspicion. The judge suggested that even if Bradshaw had communicated his observations to Martinez, the search was not sustainable as
the mere observation of money and the assumption of Patrolman Bradshaw that the innocuous mannerisms of Pravlik and defendant, without seeing more, indicated a hand-to-hand exchange did not give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminality.
The motion judge entered an order granting defendant's motion to suppress the evidence gathered as a result of the search.
On appeal, the State presents the following argument:
POINT I
THE COURT BELOW ERRED IN SUPPRESSING THE EVIDENCE SEIZED IN THIS CASE WHERE THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS' JUSTIFICATION IN INITIATING THE INVESTIGATORY STOP WAS VALIDLY BASED ON REASONABLE, ARTICULABLE SUSPICION THAT A DRUG-DISTRIBUTION OFFENSE HAD JUST OCCURRED OR WAS ABOUT TO OCCUR.
A) THE INVESTIGATORY STOP OF DEFENDANT AND PRAVLIK WAS VALIDLY BASED ON REASONABLE, ARTICULABLE SUSPICION THAT THE TWO MEN HAD JUST ENGAGED IN OR WERE ABOUT TO ENGAGE IN A DRUG-DISTRIBUTION OFFENSE.
B) THE COURT BELOW ERRED BY SUPERFLUOUSLY ASSESSING WHETHER OFFICER MARTINEZ HAD INDEPENDENT REASONABLE SUSPICION TO CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATORY STOP, WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES OF OFFICER BRADSHAW WHO
GAVE THE COMMAND TO INITIATE THE STOP.
C) IN ASSESSING OFFICER BRADSHAW'S GROUNDS FOR REASONABLE, ARTICULABLE SUSPICION IN THE TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THE COURT BELOW ERRED BY FAILING TO GIVE WEIGHT TO ALL RELEVANT FACTORS, FAILING TO GRANT BRADSHAW THE BENEFIT OF ALL REASONABLE INFERENCES FROM HIS OBSERVATIONS, AND FAILING TO FOLLOW OR DISTINGUISH BINDING PRECEDENT FROM THIS COURT AND THE SUPREME COURT THAT SHARED SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR FACTS.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution protect a person's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. A police officer may conduct an investigatory stop if, based on the totality of the circumstances, the officer had a reasonable and particularized suspicion to believe that an individual has just engaged in, or was about to engage in, criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 906 (1968). The reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory stop is a lower standard than the probable cause necessary to sustain an arrest. State v. Citarella, 154 N.J. 272, 279 (1998).
We first address the motion judge's separation of the observations of Martinez and Bradshaw. The motion judge observed that "[u]nlike Patrolman Bradshaw who was positioned directly across from the PT Cruiser, Detective Martinez himself did not make any observations that led him to believe a drug transaction was occurring . . . ." In determining that Pravlik's detention was constitutionally invalid, the motion judge focused exclusively on the limited observations of Martinez and held that "[b]ecause there's no evidence that Patrolman Bradshaw informed Detective Martinez of his observations prior to Martinez's contact with the PT Cruiser, Martinez's detention of Pravlik was not supported by reasonable suspicion."
Although Bradshaw did not communicate each successive observation to Martinez, such a requirement is neither reasonable nor mandated by constitutional precepts. See United States v. Robinson, 536 F.2d 1298, 1299 (9th Cir. 1976) ("[E]ffective law enforcement cannot be conducted unless police officers can act on directions and information transmitted by one officer to another and that officers, who must often act swiftly, cannot be expected to cross-examine their fellow officers about the foundation for the transmitted information.").
Indeed, under the "collective knowledge" doctrine, a police officer responding to a call may lawfully conduct an investigative stop and detention in reliance on evidence gathered or observations made by another officer or police dispatcher cooperating in the investigation. United State v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229-33, 105 S. Ct. 675, 681-82, 83 L. Ed. 2d 604, 612-15 (1985). Even though the responding officer is not personally aware of all the facts objectively supporting a reasonable and articulable suspicion to stop and detain a suspect, that officer may rely on information provided by another officer, so long as the other officer possessed specific and articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion to stop and detain the suspect. Ibid.; see also State v. Crawley, 187 N.J. 440, 457 (finding "if the dispatcher in this case has been provided adequate facts from a reliable informant to establish a reasonable suspicion that defendant was armed, common sense tells us that the dispatcher had the power to delegate the actual stop to officers in the field"), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1078, 127 S. Ct. 740, 166 L. Ed. 2d 563 (2006).
Martinez and Bradshaw were working together during the surveillance and were in contact with each other via cell phones and radio, although the contact was not continuous. The motion judge's suggestion that Martinez's detention of Pravlik must rise or fall on his own individual observations would place an unreasonable burden on police, requiring each member of a surveillance team to inform the other of their observations before executing a Terry stop. The judge's conclusion is untethered to any authority and contravenes the bedrock principle that, when determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, a court must consider "the totality of the circumstances - the whole picture." United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S. Ct. 690, 695, 66 L. Ed. 2d 621, 629 (1981).
In addition, Martinez had been a police officer for nine years and, at the time of the arrest, was assigned to the BTPD narcotics division. His experience and knowledge is fundamental to a totality of the circumstances analysis of whether reasonable suspicion exists. State v. Stovall, 170 N.J. 346, 363 (2002). Martinez described the Big Lots mall as a "high narcotic trafficking area" and grew suspicious of the white pick-up after it parked and the three occupants remained in the vehicle, looking around as though they were waiting for someone. Martinez communicated these suspicions to Bradshaw when he called for assistance.
Bradshaw's observations of defendant arriving at McDonald's and parking near the pick-up, followed by Pravlik walking toward defendant's car and taking cash out of his pocket before entering, all served to heighten the officers' suspicion that an illegal exchange was about to occur. When Bradshaw saw the two men lean toward each other, he reasonably believed that they were making an exchange, even though he admitted he could not see their hands. The officers had an articulable suspicion to believe that a crime had been committed and were justified in detaining Pravlik and ordering him out of the car. Martinez then asked Pravlik what was going on, a "[g]eneral on-the-scene questioning as to facts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact-finding process." State v. Smith, 374 N.J. Super. 425, 430 (App. Div. 2005) (quoting Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 477, 86 S. Ct. at 1629, 16 L. Ed. 2d at 725).
Viewing the officers' observations of the events leading up to the detention of Pravlik, we are satisfied that the totality of the circumstances provided the officers with an articulable and particularized suspicion that Pravlik was involved in criminal activity. In view of the officers' experience and knowledge, taken together with rational inferences drawn from those facts, a "limited intrusion" upon Pravlik's freedom was warranted, and the seizure of the Suboxone was lawful.
The judgment of the Law Division is reversed and the matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION