 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Graham v. State2/2/1998
MINORITY OPINION(S)ing Opinion by Cathell, J.
Appellant Kelly Graham was sentenced to a term of ten years imprisonment, with all but five and one-half years suspended and a probationary period following service of the unsuspended portion of the sentence upon his conviction by a jury in the Circuit Court for Washington County of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. From the conviction and sentence, he presents for our review one issue: Whether the lower court erred in denying his motion to suppress the drugs recovered from his person.
PREFACE Liberty comes not from officials by grace but from the Constitution by right.
These words were uttered by United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in his dissenting opinion in the recent case of Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. ___, 137 L.Ed.2d 41, 117 S.Ct. ___, decided Feb. 19, 1997. Justice Kennedy was referring to what he perceived to be the implications of the Court's decision in Wilson in conjunction with the Court's decision in Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. ___, 135 L.Ed.2d 89, 116 S.Ct. 1769 (1996). Optimistically anticipating that "most officers . . . will exercise their new power with discretion . . . .," Justice Kennedy predicted what he considered would be the result of the Wilson decision. The practical effect of our holding in Whren, of course, is to allow the police to stop vehicles in almost countless circumstances. When Whren is coupled with today's holding, the Court puts tens of millions of passengers at risk of arbitrary control by the police. If the command to exit were to become common place, the Constitution would be diminished in a most public way. 137 L.Ed.2d at 53. In a separate dissenting opinion authored by Justice Stevens, citing the Annual Report of the Maryland Judiciary (1994-1995), the opinion observed that, "in Maryland alone, there are something on the order of one million traffic stops each year." Id. at 50.
The majority opinion in Wilson, of course, held that "an officer making a traffic stop may order passengers to get out of the car pending completion of the stop." Id. at 48. Pertinent to our decision herein, the Court noted: Maryland urges us to go further and hold that an officer may forcibly detain a passenger for the entire duration of the stop. But respondent was subjected to no detention based on the stopping of the car once he had left it; his arrest was based on probable cause to believe that he was guilty of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The question which Maryland wishes answered, therefore, is not presented by this case, and we express no opinion upon it. Id. at 48, n.3. Thus, although the Supreme Court was presented with the question of what actions police officers making traffic stops may take vis-a-vis the passengers in the vehicle, it confined its holding to the narrow issue of whether such passengers could be ordered out of the vehicle. Significantly, the underlying basis for allowing officers conducting traffic stops to order the passengers out of the vehicle is for the protection and safety of the officers. Id. at 46; Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 54 L.Ed.2d 333, 98 S.Ct. 330 (1977). Absent facts that would indicate a threat to the safety of the officer, the only viable basis for a continued detention of a passenger beyond that period of time necessary to dispose of the traffic infraction must be justified by a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 436-37, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3148, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984).
We are called upon in this appeal to decide whether, and for how long, police of
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Maryland DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|