Johnson v. State

254 Md.App. 353

272 A.3d 1202

Chalon Joshua JOHNSON

v.STATE of Maryland

No. 0572, Sept. Term, 2021

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 4, 2021

Submitted by: Samuel Feder (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant

Submitted by: Carrie J. Williams (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee

Panel: Kehoe, Leahy, Charles E. Moylan, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.^*

Moylan, J.

This appellant's omnibus contention and numerous sub-contentions to the contrary notwithstanding, the Carroll¹ Doctrine's status as a well-settled exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement is alive and well. Its century-old characteristics, moreover, are so comfortably and incontrovertibly ensconced in the caselaw that they do not need to be reinvented before each fresh application. The appellant unleashes a broad fusillade of charges against the State's reliance on the Carroll Doctrine in this case. Not a single shot, however, strikes home.

The Case Before Us

On his not guilty plea on an agreed statement of facts, the appellant, Chalon Joshua Johnson, was found guilty in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County by Judge J. Michael Wachs of 1) the possession of marijuana in an amount exceeding ten grams and 2) the possession of ammunition by one prohibited to possess it. All of the evidence in the case was developed at the pre-trial suppression hearing conducted by Judge Alison L. Asti. Judge Asti denied the appellant's motion to suppress the physical evidence against him. It is that pre-trial suppression hearing that we will be reviewing.

Standard Of Review

The standard of review is clear. It was plainly set out by the Court of Appeals speaking through Chief Judge Barbera in Raynor v. State, 440 Md. 71, 81, 99 A.3d 753 (2014) :

In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, as we do here, we must rely solely upon the record developed at the suppression hearing. We view the evidence and inferences that may be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the party who prevails on the motion, here, the State. We accept the suppression court's factual findings unless they are shown to be clearly erroneous. We, however, make our own independent constitutional appraisal of the suppression court's ruling, by applying the law to the facts found by that court.

(Emphasis supplied.) See also Grant v. State, 449 Md. 1, 14-15, 141 A.3d 138 (2016) ; Hailes v. State, 442 Md. 488, 499, 113 A.3d 608 (2015) ; State v. Wallace, 372 Md. 137, 144, 812 A.2d 291 (2002).

The Undisputed Facts

The first-level evidence before Judge Asti was undisputed. This is not surprising because Detective Philip Clarke of the Anne Arundel County Police Department was the sole witness to testify. He explained that at approximately 10 A.M., he and his partner were patrolling in an unmarked police car when they saw the appellant sitting inside his car, a green Chevrolet Malibu. The Malibu was legally parked on Lamplighter Ridge, an area described by Detective Clarke as being a "high-crime drug area," consisting of townhouses.

The detective's partner recognized the appellant from a recent incident in which the appellant "didn't stop his vehicle and fled from the police." On this present occasion, both police officers were wearing their uniforms, which would have been clearly visible through their vehicle's front windshield. As the two officers drove closer to where the Malibu was parked, the appellant looked at them, got out of his car, closed the car door behind him, and ran away on foot. The officers, alighting from their own vehicle, gave chase on foot. They lost sight of the appellant, however, and were unable to catch him.

Both officers then walked back to where the Malibu was parked. It was locked. The windows were rolled up and were tinted. Detective Clarke, however, peered through the driver's side window and saw "what appeared to be marijuana crumbs" on the driver's seat. He explained that "sometimes when you roll a cigarette blunt, whatever you call it, sometimes the marijuana will fall out. So it looked like he may have been in there previously or had been smoking, so just remnants, just a little bit."

In addition to seeing what he deemed to be marijuana crumbs, Detective Clarke testified that he could also clearly detect the smell of unburned marijuana emanating from the car. He had been trained in detecting the smell of marijuana and he routinely did so as a part of his job. He could readily distinguish the smell of burnt marijuana from the smell of unburnt marijuana. At that point, he called for a back-up to come to the scene. Shortly thereafter, another officer arrived with a "lockout kit," which the police then used to unlock the Malibu. The officers searched the interior of the Malibu. Underneath the driver's seat, they found both a bag containing marijuana and a digital scale. In the bag were 52 grams of marijuana. They continued the search and found ammunition, to wit, five bullets, "stuffed underneath the driver's side panel."²

At the suppression hearing, the appellant argued that the marijuana, the digital scale, and the ammunition should all have been suppressed because the warrantless search of his Malibu had been an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment. The State counter-argued that the warrantless search had been perfectly constitutional pursuant to the Carroll Doctrine's exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Judge Asti agreed with the State and denied the motion to suppress. This appeal is from that ruling.

Three Sub-Contentions

The single contention that the Carroll Doctrine was violated breaks down into three distinct sub-contentions:

1. That probable cause was not established to justify the Carroll Doctrine warrantless search of the Malibu;

2. That even if probable cause had been established, the Carroll Doctrine would still not have been satisfied because the Malibu was not readily mobile; and

3. That even if the Carroll Doctrine had otherwise been satisfied with respect to the search for the marijuana, the ammunition should have been suppressed because the extended search that produced it had been excessive in scope.

I. Probable Cause To Search For Evidence, Synergistically

Deferring for the moment our consideration of the very modest "exigency versus ready mobility" speed bump, we can say with unhesitating confidence that the prime requirement for a warrantless Carroll Doctrine search of an automobile is probable cause to believe that the car contains evidence of crime or contraband. Possibly the single best definition of probable cause was that given by Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-76, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949) :

In dealing with probable cause, however, as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. The standard of proof is accordingly correlative to what must be proved. The substance of all the definitions of probable cause is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt. And this means less than evidence which would justify condemnation or conviction, as Marshall, C.J., said for the Court more than a century ago in Locke v. United State. [Citation omitted]. Since Marshall's time, at any rate, it has come to mean more than bare suspicion: Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within their (the officers’) knowledge and of which they had reasonable trustworthy information (are) sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed.

(Emphasis supplied.)

Realistically, our ultimate grasp of probable cause is not so much the product of formal definition but rather the collective wisdom of hundreds upon hundreds of concrete applications. The present case is one such application. It is a case wherein, clue by relentless clue, the accumulation of suspicious behavior would have convinced any prudent and rational observer that skullduggery was afoot. That is the point where mere suspicion ripens into probable cause. The case now before us, moreover, provides far more than just an instance of probable cause. In its profusion of suspicious behavior, it is a textbook example of irrefutable probable cause.

The profusion of suspicious behavior is in significant measure the result of the dynamic phenomenon of synergism. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines "synergism" as "cooperative action of discrete agencies such that the total effect is greater than the sum of the effects taken independently." The profusion of probable cause here resulted from just such an interplay of interacting and reinforcing observations.

A. Observation Of The Marijuana Crumbs

When the officers abandoned their unsuccessful effort to catch the appellant on foot, they returned to where the appellant's Chevrolet Malibu sat, parked and locked. The first observation made by Officer Clarke, as he peered through the driver's side window, was "what appeared to be marijuana crumbs" on the driver's seat. The appellant attempts to discredit that observation by pointing out how bad the lighting was and how unilluminating the police effort to photograph the crumbs was. His disdaining attitude suggests that if we cannot confirm the presence of the crumbs visually for ourselves, Detective Clarke's testimony that he could do so becomes both more suspect in terms of credibility and substantively less convincing. To what end does he do this? We are not factfinders and such a dismissive argument falls on deaf ears as a matter of course. The appellant forgets that we are admonished to take that version of the evidence most favorable to the prevailing party, in this case the State. The appellant flagrantly ignores this controlling standard of appellate review.

The detective's testimony about his...