Totality of Circumstances & Terry Stops: Fuentes & Sandoz
The Washington State Supreme Court recently handed down a ruling on a pair of consolidated cases in Fuentes & Sandoz.. Each case involved whether there was a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity that would allow officers to conduct a Terry stop. A Terry stop is a legally justified search/seizure by the police that is based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity (note: the basis for arrest is probable cause; the threshold for a Terry stop is considerably lower than that for arrest). Both cases involve a defendant entering a designated “high crime” area and visiting the residence of a suspected drug dealer; however, there are certain factual differences that distinguish the cases and lead the Court to rule differently on each one.
In State v. Sandoz, the defendant was visiting an apartment building where a high number of documented crimes had already occurred, some of those being drug-related. Not only had the owner of the apartment building given the King County Sheriff’s Office written, signed permission to investigate people who loitered on the property, but the building was also part of a “Problem Solver project”, which means that the area was specifically designated to be patrolled by officers in an attempt to reduce crime.
One evening while on patrol, Officer Pryzgocki saw a white Jeep which he knew to not belong to any of the tenants, parked illegally in a “no parking, fire, handicapped area”. When the officer drove by, the driver slouched down. After 15 minutes of observation, the officer engaged the driver of the vehicle who told him that he and his passengers were waiting to pick their friend up from the building. At this point, Steven Sandoz, the defendant, came out of one of the units (which housed a known possessor/distributor of narcotics) and got into the backseat of the Jeep with his head down and hands in his pockets. The officer testified that Sandoz’s eyes got big when he spotted to policeman. Pryzgocki asked Sandoz what he was doing there and Sandoz replied that he was collecting some money from a friend while appearing “pale, thin, and visibly shaken.” The officer asked Sandoz again what he was doing there and Sandoz replied similarly to the first time. In court, the officer testified that Sandoz contradicted himself and the driver of the vehicle on the subject of why they were there. At a suppression hearing, the trial court agreed with the officer and on that basis, along with the previously stated facts, found a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
State v. Fuentes takes place 11 months after police made controlled purchases of narcotics from the owner of an apartment complex, Richard Fenton. Even after police made these controlled purchases, they believed the owner of the complex to still be selling narcotics based on observed activity in the complex indicated narcotics sales, along with the fact that individuals who had been arrested for narcotics-related offenses told police that they had bought narcotics from the complex owner. Two hours into a surveillance session on this man’s apartment complex, police saw Marisa Fuentes park her car across the street from Mr. Fenton’s unit, get out of her car and enter his apartment for about 5 minutes. She returned to her car, opened the trunk and removed a small plastic bag containing something roughly the size of a football, then re-entered Mr. Fenton’s apartment. After another 5 minute stay in his apartment, Ms. Fuentes returned to her car with a bag that contained noticeably less content than when she had entered. Police decided to stop Ms. Fuentes’ car since they suspected her of narcotics activity. After being read and waiving her Miranda rights, Ms. Fuentes admitted that she had just delivered marijuana to Mr. Fenton. At Ms. Fuentes’ trial her counsel moved to suppress evidence uncovered from the officers’ investigate stop of Ms. Fuentes, arguing that they lacked reasonable suspicion to justify the Terry stop. The trial court denied this motion and she was convicted of delivery of marijuana.
The Washington Supreme Court analyzed whether the officers in each case had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under the totality of circumstances in order to support the Terry stops. The “totality of circumstances” involves the officer’s training and experience, the location of the stop, the conduct of the person detained, the purpose of the stop, and the amount of physical intrusion on the suspect’s liberty. The officers did not have a reasonable suspicion, then the evidence gathered from it must be suppressed. In Sandoz, the police relied upon five facts to justify their Terry stop: Sandoz’s surprise upon seeing the officer, the “conflicting” stories between Sandoz and his driver, Sandoz’s pale appearance and shaking, the officer not recognizing the Jeep, and the officer’s authority to to investigate loiterers on the property. The Supreme Court denied that any of these five facts on their own, let alone them taken together, justified the Terry stop. They concluded that each one was either untrue or could easily be explained by the fact that Mr. Sandoz was surprised and stirred by the fact that he encountered police late at night. For those reasons, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals decision in Sandoz and ordered a new trial with the Terry stop evidence suppressed.
Conversely, in Fuentes, the Court found that the facts were analogous to another case, State v. Kennedy, where reasonable suspicion existed to stop the suspect’s car. Similar to the facts in Kennedy, officers knew about past drug activity in Fenton’s apartment, they had recent testimony from individuals who said they had bought drugs there, and officers observed short-stay foot traffic which would suggest drug transactions had occurred. Additionally, and more compellingly to this court, officers had reason to believe that Fuentes had actually completed a drug transaction, inferred from their observations about the plastic bag diminishing in size after her visit to Fenton’s apartment. According to the Court, even though the contents of the bag may have been innocent, officers don’t need to rule out all possibilities of innocent behavior before making a stop. The Court affirmed Fuentes’ conviction, finding that the officers did in fact have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to support their Terry stop.
