Missouri’s Southern District Appellate Court reversed Edward Dye’s conviction for drug possession, because of a trial court’s failure to suppress evidence of cocaine obtained as a result of a Poplar Bluff, Missouri, officer’s “Terry Stop” in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The facts at trial indicated that an individual was panhandling, knocking on doors, and asking for rides. The officer dispatched to the area found Dye, who matched the description given, 300 feet away from the reported incident. The officer stopped his car, flashed his patrol lights, made contact with the defendant and said that he was going to pat him down for safety. The officer asked whether the defendant would, instead, perfer emptying his pockets himself. Dye pulled out a cigarette pack. The Officer was given permission to search the pack, and, inside, he found cocaine. Dye was convicted by a jury for cocaine possession.
The appellate court reversed. First, the officer’s “stop” was unconstitutional. While an officer is permitted to “Terry Stop” someone that he has a “reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts . . . is engaged in criminal activity,” this was impossible here. There was no evidence presented at trial that panhandling was even a municipal ordinance violation in Poplar Bluff. Thus, there was no criminal activity to engage in. Second, Dye’s consent to search was too close in time to the illegal detention as to make it voluntarily given. Consequently, the evidence should have been supressed by the trial court.
Although this was remanded for a new trial, the state will obviously dismiss this one. It doesn’t take an expert criminal defense lawyer to win a drug possession case when the cocaine is supressed at trial.
The Missouri Criminal Defense Law Opinion: State v. Edward L. Dye
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