(Citation omitted.) Jones v. State, 291 Ga. 35, 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012).So viewed, the record shows that on April 19, 2008, the Elbert County Sheriff's Department held a sobriety checkpoint, at which police had positioned marked patrol vehicles with their blue lights flashing.
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Jones v. State , 291 Ga. 35, 37 (1), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012). In a "first-tier" encounter, officers
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Jones v. State , 291 Ga. 35, 37 (1), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012). 1.
Thus, because the trial court’s conclusion that Dykes did not commit a traffic violation was not clearly erroneous, the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Dykes, and the court properly granted his motion to suppress.Jones v. State , 291 Ga. 35, 38 (2), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012) ; accord Toole v. State , 340 Ga. App. 633, 634, 798 S.E.2d 288 (2017).See Jones , 291 Ga. at 38 (2), 727 S.E.2d 456 (holding that an officer lacked reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop when there was no evidence that the defendant violated a traffic law or drove in an unsafe manner); State v. Mincher , 313 Ga. App. 875, 877-78, 723 S.E.2d 300 (2012) (affirming the trial court’s grant of a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a traffic stop because the conduct that was alleged as the basis for the stop was not illegal and there was no objective basis to suspect that the defendant was or was about to be engaged in any criminal activity); Thomas v. State , 300 Ga. App. 120, 123-24, 684 S.E.2d 290 (2009) (holding that the officer lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to stop and detain the defendant when he had not committed any traffic violations and did nothing more than drive slowly through a neighborhood, intermittently stopping
"When the evidence at a suppression hearing is uncontroverted and the credibility of witnesses is not in question, we conduct a de novo review of the trial court’s application of the law to the undisputed facts." Jones v. State , 291 Ga. 35, 36-37 (1), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012). The facts in this case are essentially undisputed.
Accordingly, the officers' stop of Allen “was a second-tier, investigative detention that required the [officers] to have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that [Allen] was or was about to be involved in criminal activity.” Minor, 298 Ga.App. at 394(1)(a), 680 S.E.2d 459 (punctuation omitted); accord Jones v. State, 291 Ga. 35, 37(1), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012) (noting that a first-tier encounter may become a seizure when “in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave” (punctuation omitted)).Thomas v. State, 301 Ga.App. 198, 201(1), 687 S.E.2d 203 (2009) (punctuation omitted); accord Jones, 291 Ga. at 37(1), 727 S.E.2d 456.
When "the evidence at a suppression hearing is uncontroverted and the credibility of witnesses is not in question, we conduct a de novo review of the trial court's application of the law to the undisputed facts." Jones v. State, 291 Ga. 35, 36-37 (1) (727 S.E.2d 456) (2012).
"There are at least three types of police-citizen encounters: verbal communications that involve no coercion or detention; brief stops or seizures that must be accompanied bya reasonable suspicion; and arrests, which can be supported only by probable cause." Jones v. State, 291 Ga. 35, 37 (1), 727 S.E.2d 456 (2012) (punctuation omitted). "For a traffic stop to be valid, an officer must identify specific and articulable facts that provide a reasonable suspicion that the individual being stopped is engaged in criminal activity."
And in any event, had there been an independent legal challenge to the standard the officer used in stopping Newsom after his turn, the correct legal standard would have been reasonable suspicion, not probable cause. See Jones v. State, 291 Ga. 35, 38 (727 S.E.2d 456) (2012). See also Kansas v. Glover, 589 U.S. 376, 380 (140 S.Ct. 1183, 206 L.Ed.2d 412) (2020); Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 60 (135 S.Ct. 530, 190 L.Ed.2d 475) (2014); Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 396 (134 S.Ct. 1683, 188 L.Ed.2d 680) (2014).
And when confronted with a mixed question of law and fact, "we accept the trial court's findings on disputed facts and witness credibility unless they are clearly erroneous, but independently apply the law to the facts." Jones v. State , 291 Ga. 35, 36-37, 727 S.E.2d 456, 458 (2012) ; see also Lilly v. Virginia , 527 U.S. 116, 136-137, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999) (setting forth a de novo standard of review for "fact-intensive, mixed questions of constitutional law," reasoning that "independent review is necessary to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal principles governing the factual circumstances necessary to satisfy the protections of the Bill of Rights," but reviewing the trial court's determination of "historical facts" for clear error) (citation and punctuation omitted). As a result, we will review de novo a trial court's ruling on whether the conduct depicted on a video recording constitutes a testimonial statement under the Confrontation Clause.