Opinion
B161827.
7-16-2003
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. OLEKAUWANMA OKONKO, Defendant and Appellant.
Alan Siraco, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Laura J. Hartquist, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Olekauwanma Okonko (Okonko) pleaded no contest to a charge of possession of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11351.5) after his motion to suppress evidence pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5 was denied. Sentenced to three years probation on the condition that he serve 180 days in county jail, Okonko appeals from the denial of his motion to suppress. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, an appellate court defers to the trial courts factual findings if they are supported by substantial evidence, but exercises its independent judgment to determine whether, on the facts found, the detention was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (People v. Brown (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 493, 496.)
The People presented the following evidence, inter alia, at the suppression hearing: At approximately 10:15 p.m. on March 20, 2002, Los Angeles Police Department officer Adrian Lopez (Lopez) saw Okonko standing in front of the Frontier Hotel in Los Angeles. Lopez was familiar with the Frontier Hotel as the location of frequent drug sales. When Lopez made eye contact with Okonko, Okonko ran into the hotel. Okonko stopped in the hotel lobby at Lopezs command. When Lopez asked Okonko why he ran, Okonko admitted to having cocaine in his pocket. Lopez searched Okonko and found 14 rocks of cocaine.
The trial court found that Okonko was "standing out in front of a hotel which is a known problem area, and he appears to make eye contact with the officer, and he splits inside the hotel." The court also found that Okonko "ran, or maybe . . . he left quickly." These findings are supported by substantial evidence.
Exercising our independent judgment as to the reasonableness of the detention, we conclude that the trial court correctly ruled that the detention was reasonable. "A detention is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when the detaining officer can point to specific articulable facts that, considered in light of the totality of the circumstances, provide some objective manifestation that the person detained may be involved in criminal activity." (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 231, 885 P.2d 982 (Souza); see also United States v. Sokolow (1989) 490 U.S. 1, 7, 104 L. Ed. 2d 1, 109 S. Ct. 1581 (Sokolow) ["the police can stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity may be afoot, even if the officer lacks probable cause"]; United States v. Cortez (1981) 449 U.S. 411, 417, 66 L. Ed. 2d 621, 101 S. Ct. 690 ["An investigatory stop must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity"].) The reasonableness of a detention is determined based upon the totality of the circumstances. (United States v. Arvizu (2002) 534 U.S. 266, 273, 151 L. Ed. 2d 740, 122 S. Ct. 744 (Arvizu).)
Here, although none of the circumstances alone definitively revealed that criminal activity was afoot, taken together, they warranted further investigation by the police. (Arvizu, supra, 534 U.S. at pp. 274-275; Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 22, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (Terry ); Sokolow, supra, 490 U.S. at p. 9.) As the Supreme Court stated on similar facts in Illinois v. Wardlow (2000) 528 U.S. 119 at pages 124-125, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570, 120 S. Ct. 673 (Wardlow), "An individuals presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is committing a crime. [Citation.] But officers are not required to ignore the relevant characteristics of a location in determining whether the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant further investigation. Accordingly, we have previously noted the fact that the stop occurred in a high crime area among the relevant contextual considerations in a Terry analysis. [Citation.] [P] In this case, moreover, it was not merely respondents presence in an area of heavy narcotics trafficking that aroused the officers suspicion but his unprovoked flight upon noticing the police. Our cases have also recognized that nervous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in determining reasonable suspicion. [Citations.] Headlong flight-wherever it occurs-is the consummate act of evasion: It is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such. . . . The determination of reasonable suspicion must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior. [Citation.] We conclude Officer Nolan was justified in suspecting that Wardlow was involved in criminal activity, and, therefore, in investigating further."
Okonko alleges that the trial court focused exclusively on the factors of flight and the high-crime area to the exclusion of other factors in violation of the Supreme Courts decision in Arvizu, supra, 534 U.S. 266. In Arvizu, the Supreme Court held that courts must consider "the totality of the circumstances of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing. [Citation.]" (Id. at p. 273.)
Here, contrary to Okonkos assertion, the trial court did not rely exclusively on two factors to the exclusion of all others in its analysis of the detention-it simply identified the "specific articulable facts" (Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 231; see Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at pp. 20-21) supporting the officers reasonable suspicion. The trial court concluded that Okonkos presence at night in a high-crime area, combined with his flight upon making eye contact with the police officers, provided objective manifestation that Okonko might be involved in criminal activity. That the court acknowledged that if Okonko had not fled from the police, its analysis of the totality of the circumstances might have been different does not demonstrate that the trial court failed to consider all the circumstances in evaluating the detention. (See, e.g., Souza, at pp. 235, 237-239 [flight from police may be "a key factor" in determining whether there was reasonable suspicion, but there is no "bright-line" rule that flight alone creates reasonable suspicion, because each case is judged on the totality of the circumstances].)
Although Okonko argues that this case is indistinguishable from People v. Wilkins (1986) 186 Cal. App. 3d 804, 231 Cal. Rptr. 1 (Wilkins), the facts in the present case differ. In Wilkins, the occupants of a car parked in the parking lot of a convenience store slid down in their seats when they saw a police officer (id. at p. 807), but did not flee, as did Okonko. The Wilkins defendant was simply within a neighborhood known for thefts and drugs (ibid .), while here Okonko was standing at a specific location notorious for drug transactions-a location where the arresting officer alone had made more than 100 drug arrests in the past. Under the totality of the circumstances, the detention of Okonko was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: GRIGNON, Acting P.J., and ARMSTRONG, J.