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Taylor v. State5/29/2001
d (3) "arrests," which can only be supported by probable cause. . . . second-tier encounter may violate the Fourth Amendment if the officer briefly "stops" or "seizes" a citizen without an articulable suspicion. Articulable suspicion requires a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that a citizen is involved in criminal activity.
In this case, the trial court found that the stop was authorized because it was based on a reasonable, articulable basis. Thus, the court ruled, it was a legal second-tier stop. We agree.
On cross-examination, Gunter testified that he initiated the stop because he suspected that Taylor was avoiding the checkpoint and because of Taylor's driving. We have previously held that abnormal or unusual actions taken to avoid a roadblock may give an officer a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity even when the evasive action is not illegal. By contrast, completely normal driving, even if it incidentally evades the roadblock, does not justify a Terry-type "tier- two" stop. In this case, Gunter testified that as he approached Taylor, he saw "the headlights of the truck bounce up and down like he [Taylor] either hit a curb real hard or hit the railroad ties real hard." This conduct, combined with the proximity of the roadblock, was sufficiently abnormal or unusual to justify a Terry-type (i.e., second- tier) stop. After approaching Taylor's vehicle and investigating further, Gunter had probable cause to arrest (a third-tier encounter). We find no error in the admission of evidence of his intoxication.
Taylor relies on Jorgenson and State v. Winnie in support of his argument that the stop was improper. Both cases are distinguishable. In Jorgenson, the officer testified that he stopped a vehicle based solely on his hunch that the vehicle was trying to avoid a roadblock. The defendant in that case was driving normally as he turned into an apartment complex. We found that the officer's hunch was not sufficient to justify a tier-two stop. In this case, however, Gunter was not relying on a hunch; rather, he stopped Taylor because of Taylor's abnormal driving.
In Winnie, the officer saw a vehicle turn into the parking lot of a closed business. The officer pulled into the lot because he thought the occupants of the vehicle could have been there to commit a burglary. When the vehicle drove on, the officer activated his blue lights and the vehicle stopped. We held that once the defendant pulled away from the parking lot, the officer's suspicion that the defendant was about to engage in criminal activity vanished, and he should not have stopped the defendant. Though Taylor parked in the lot of closed business like the defendant in Winnie, the similarities between the two cases end at that point. In Winnie, the basis for the officer's suspicion disappeared when the defendant left the parking lot. Conversely, here, the officer observed what he thought was suspicious driving behavior before the vehicle came to a stop. Thus, his suspicion did not dissipate when Taylor parked the vehicle. Accordingly, he had reason to initiate a tier-two stop.
Based on the uncontroverted evidence presented, we find that the trial court's denial of Taylor's motion to suppress did not constitute error.
Judgment affirmed. Blackburn, C. J., and Pope, P. J., concur.
Page 1 2 Georgia DUI Attorneys
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