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Howard v. State2/25/2004
for suspecting criminal activity. Id.; Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417-418, 101 S.Ct. 690. "This process allows officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) *837 United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002).
Here, it was reasonable for the officer to infer, based on his training, experience, and common sense, that the man driving the truck who stopped, looked at him while he was at the house attempting to serve the warrant, and then "took off," could be the man he was trying to find and arrest. That the officer also had some indication the suspect might be driving a truck, and the house was located on a sparsely populated dirt road not likely to be heavily traveled by nonresidents, made the officer's inference even more reasonable. Under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that the driver of the truck was the suspect trying to elude arrest. Although the officer's investigation revealed that the driver was not the suspect, "[a] determination that reasonable suspicion exists ... need not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct." Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277, 122 S.Ct. 744.
It was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for the officer to stop the truck to identify the driver. After making a valid stop to check the driver's identity, the officer's detection of the strong odor of alcohol made it reasonable for him to continue the detention to ask Howard if he had been drinking. Bell v. State, 248 Ga.App. 254, 256-257, 546 S.E.2d 34 (2001).
Contrary to Howard's contention, the decision in State v. Mallard, 246 Ga.App. 357, 541 S.E.2d 46 (2000), does not require a finding that the investigative stop of the vehicle for the sole purpose of identifying the driver violated the Fourth Amendment. The facts in Mallard distinguish it from the present case and show that there is no broad rule against stopping a car to identify the driver. In Mallard, police officers who were preparing to execute a search warrant for marijuana on a known suspect's residence received information that two unidentified persons had just left the residence in a car prior to execution of the warrant. Id. at 357-358, 541 S.E.2d 46. An officer stopped the car for the sole purpose of determining if the known owner of the residence about to be searched was in the car. Id. After determining that the owner of the residence was not in the car, the officer continued the detention by asking the occupants if they had any marijuana, and both occupants produced marijuana. Id. Because the detaining officer had no information that the two occupants of the car were involved in any wrongdoing, we found that stopping and questioning the occupants solely to see who was in the car violated the Fourth Amendment, and we upheld suppression of the marijuana. Id. at 360-361, 365, 541 S.E.2d 46. In so holding, however, we noted that an investigative stop would have been justified under the circumstances if "there were some objective manifestations that the occupant in the vehicle leaving the search location was engaged in criminal activity." Id. at 361, 541 S.E.2d 46.
*838 The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a police officer from stopping a car for the sole purpose of identifying the driver where the officer has reasonable suspicion that the driver is a person attempting to elude arrest. Because the officer in this case had such reasonable suspicion, the stop was valid, and the trial court correctly denied the motion to suppress.
Judgment affirmed.
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