Bien-Aime v. State

BIEN-AIME v. THE STATE.

No. A21A1014

Court of Appeals of Georgia, First Division

October 26, 2021

BARNES, P. J., GOBEIL and MARKLE, JJ.

Barnes Presiding Judge. After a jury trial, Maxime Patrick Bien-Aime was convicted of multiple offenses as a result of the contraband found in his possession during a traffic stop of the vehicle he was driving. In this appeal, Bien-Aime maintains that the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that the trial court thus erred by denying his motion to suppress the evidence discovered thereby. Because Bien-Aime has shown merit in that argument, we reverse the judgment of conviction. We thus do not reach the remainder of his enumerated claims of error.

Trial Evidence

Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to uphold the trial court's findings and judgment, ^[1] the record shows that around 8:00 p.m. on May 15, 2014, Bien-Aime drove a Chrysler automobile into a parking lot shared by two restaurants after making a loop, Bien-Aime made a right turn out of the parking lot, then continued driving along the roadway. A uniformed police officer, who was sitting in his marked patrol vehicle stationed in the parking lot, began following the Chrysler. Due to parking lot traffic, however, by the time the officer was able to make a right turn out of the parking lot, the Chrysler had rounded a bend along the roadway, and the officer had lost sight of the vehicle. The officer thus accelerated beyond the 45-mile-per-hour speed limit and caught up with the Chrysler; the officer observed that the Chrysler's turn signal began blinking, and the car next began turning into a bank parking lot.^[2] The officer then activated the patrol vehicle's emergency equipment (blue-lights and a siren) and initiated the stop in question. Concomitantly, the officer informed dispatch that he was "conducting a traffic stop on a suspicious vehicle " which automatically summoned a backup police unit to the scene. During the stop, police retrieved marijuana, cocaine, and a firearm either from Bien-Aime's person or from the inside of the Chrysler. The officer arrested Bien-Aime on multiple charges.

Aspects of the foregoing events were captured by the arresting officer's police equipment, and portions of the recording were presented to the jury.

Challenges to the admissibility of the drug and firearms evidence

Indicted on charges related to the drugs and the firearm, Bien-Aime moved to suppress evidence of the collected contraband on Fourth Amendment grounds. See generally Bodiford v. State, 328 Ga.App. 258, 261 (1) (761 S.E.2d 818) (2014) ("On a motion to suppress contraband discovered during a traffic stop, the State bears the burden of proving that the [stop] of the car was lawful.") (citation and punctuation omitted).

At the hearing on Bien-Aime's motion to suppress, the State relied upon the officer's testimony that when the Chrysler's driver saw him stationed in the parking lot, the driver appeared to get "a panic looking expression on his face"; that the driver made a loop, then exited the parking lot; that the restaurants' parking lot had been experiencing a large number of automobile break-ins; that perpetrators of those crimes often used rental vehicles; and that he (the officer) had ascertained before stopping the Chrysler that it was a rented vehicle. Toward the end of direct examination, the prosecutor directly asked the officer for his bases for stopping the Chrysler:

Q: Officer, can you tell this Court all the reasons or all the things you considered prior to making that traffic stop?

A: Well, like I initially said, I was patrolling [one of the restaurants sharing the parking lot] due to the large number of entering autos. We had had approximately ninety-four in that parking lot since 2011, so in about a two and a half, three year time span. Most of the time, those vehicles were rental vehicles. He had observed my presence in the parking lot, appeared to get nervous, began to leave the parking lot. I attempted to follow him, and he rapidly accelerated, resulting in me having to exceed sixty mile per hour to catch back up to his vehicle. Then he quickly - as soon as I got directly behind him, he made that right turn. I felt he was trying to either avoid contact with me, or hope I'd go away. At that point, I went ahead and made contact with him based on reasonable suspicion that a crime was occurring. Q: Yes, sir. And as far as the rapid acceleration, you didn't write him a ticket for speeding at that time, did you?

A: No, ma'am. Because I could not see his exact acceleration on the roadway. I only knew what it took my patrol car to catch back up to him.

On cross-examination, defense counsel followed-up with:

Q: My question was you stopped him based on what. You said the reasonable suspicion that a crime was occurring. My follow-up question was the crime which was occurring occurred where?

A: It would have been the crime of entering auto, which most - most commonly when those are conducted, they will hit one location, move from that location to another location, hit that location, move from there to another location. So I felt that maybe he had been coming into the parking lot to commit entering autos, observed my presence and immediately left.

Q: And had you received any prior information to look out for [Bien-Aime's] vehicle? A: No, sir.

The trial court denied the suppression motion. Thereafter convicted, Bien-Aime argued on motion for new trial that the evidence collected during the stop was inadmissible. The trial court denied that motion.^[3]

Claims enumerated on appeal 1. Bien-Aime maintains on appeal that the stop was in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that the trial court thus erred by denying his motion to suppress the evidence obtained thereby.

In reviewing a trial court's ruling upon a motion to suppress evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, we apply three fundamental principles:

First, when a motion to suppress is heard by the trial judge, that judge sits as the trier of facts. The trial judge hears the evidence, and his findings based upon conflicting evidence are analogous to the verdict of a jury and should not be disturbed by a reviewing court if there is any evidence to support [them]. Second, the trial court's decision with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous. Third, the reviewing court must construe the evidence most favorably to the upholding of the trial court's findings and judgment. . . . (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Miller v. State, 288 Ga. 286, 286-287 (1) (702 S.E.2d 888) (2010). In Miller, [the Supreme Court of Georgia] further noted that this standard of review requires us to focus on the findings of fact made by the trial court in its order and the evidence supporting those findings, rather than other evidence gleaned from the record, construing it in favor of upholding the trial court's order.

(Emphasis supplied.) State v. Rosenbaum, 305 Ga. 442, 449 (2) (826 S.E.2d 18) (2019); see also Hughes v. State, 296 Ga. 744, 746 (1) (770 S.E.2d 636) (2015) (reciting that an appellate court "generally must limit its consideration of the disputed facts to those expressly found by the trial court."). And as was expounded in Caffee v. State, 303 Ga. 557 (814 S.E.2d 386) (2018):

We have repeatedly said that on an appeal from the grant or denial of a motion to suppress, appellate courts must focus on the facts found by the trial court in its order, as the trial court sits as the trier of fact. An appellate court may, however, consider facts that definitively can be ascertained exclusively by reference to evidence that is uncontradicted and presents no questions of credibility, such as facts indisputably discernible from a videotape.

Id. at 559 (1). "These principles apply equally whether the trial court ruled in favor of the State or the defendant." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) State v. Hinton, 309 Ga. 457, 457-458 (847 S.E.2d 188) (2020).

Challenging all convictions, Bien-Aime maintains in this appeal that the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights, because the officer did not have any reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify the stop. See Lumpkin v. State, 310 Ga. 139, 151-152 (3) (849 S.E.2d 175) (2020) ("Where an officer lacks reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle, the traffic stop violates the Fourth Amendment, and evidence obtained as a result of the stop must be suppressed.").

[A] brief investigative stop of a vehicle is justified when an officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the driver or vehicle is subject to seizure for violation of the law. In this regard, we have held that reasonable and articulable suspicion must be an objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity, and that this determination can only be made after considering the totality of the circumstances. In viewing the totality of the circumstances, the officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, provide a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.

(Emphasis in original; citations and punctuation omitted.) Lewis v. State, 323 Ga.App. 709, 711 (747 S.E.2d 867) (2013). See Adkinson v. State, 322 Ga.App. 1, 2 (743 S.E.2d 563) (2013) ("Although an officer may conduct a brief investigative stop of a vehicle, such a stop must be justified by specific, articulable facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.") (citation and punctuation omitted).

In its order denying Bien-Aime's motion to suppress^[4] (and again in its amended order denying Bien-Aime's motion for new trial), the trial...