Ep. 137 - Parking Violations and the Fourth Amendment - Suppression Reversed by Court of Appeals

E from UE (0:01)

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Big E here. This is Law for Virginia Law Enforcement Officers. And today, it's episode 137 We're talking about a really interesting ruling from the Court of Appeals from September 1st. And this is a case out of Richmond where the trial court granted a motion to suppress during an investigation of a parking violation.

And for as often as we talk about traffic stops and subject stops and arrests and search warrants, all those types of things, on this podcast, I don't think we've ever talked about a parking violation. And I think it's a really interesting case for that reason. It's also fascinating because it is a two-to-one ruling. So two judges end up ruling for the Commonwealth here, but one judge dissents. And of course, the trial judge also dissented in a sense, right? The trial judge is the one who suppressed the evidence in the first place. So real division of opinions on this. It's an unpublished case, so it's not a controlling opinion, but it is a ruling of the Court of Appeals. And so I think it has a lot of issues that are worth talking about here. And I think there's some good law in here. There's some good reminders in here about some fundamental law. But it also shows at the edges where there is some ambiguity as to this established laws regarding, established rules regarding traffic stops and Terry stops which have otherwise been around since the 1960s.

So this is a Fourth Amendment case, and it's out of the city of Richmond. And as always, the facts are the most important thing, right? So let's go through the facts. So what happens in this case? Well, this is a case that happens at around 10 o'clock at night. Again, it's in the city of Richmond, it's in a high crime area. And a high crime, as a reminder, high crime area is a factor, but it's a very weak factor for the Court of Appeals, and it's a very weak factor for the Fourth Circuit. Again, the fact that you live or exist in a high crime area doesn't deprive you of your Fourth Amendment rights, but it's a factor, right? So they see the defendant in this case whose name is Murrow. They see him in the- oh, sorry, the name of the case, by the way, is Commonwealth v. Murrow, M-U-R-R-O-W. And so Mr. Murrow is a passenger in a car in the city of Richmond, and the car is running and it's parked in a handicap space outside of a convenience store. Now, they do not observe the vehicle have any kind of handicap placard or any kind of markings, and there's also nobody in the driver's seat, right? Murrow is in the passenger seat. And so noticing that it doesn't have any authorization to be in a handicap spot, they approach the vehicle to investigate. And when they approach, they see Murrow and they remember him from another encounter a year before near the same place, near the same convenience store. And in that one, Murrow was also the passenger in another car. Out of that car, officers later recovered a firearm and multiple firearms and drugs. Now, they don't end up charging him with that, but they investigated that because of his presence at the scene. And they had learned that he had served time in state prison, he had prior narcotics offenses, and he was a violent convicted felon. So they knew this guy because he'd been in this car before, that another car before at the same place with a gun and drugs, and he's a convicted felon, and he violent felonies, and he had prior narcotics offenses. So there he is sitting there as a passenger in this car that's illegally parked. So the officers walk up, and they shine their flashlights inside the vehicle, and they see he's just sitting there. He's got his phone in his hand, and he's got his chin on his left hand. He's not really doing anything when they walk up. So they walk up and they say, hey, put your window down. What are you doing parked in this parking space? And he says, I'm not driving. The person who's the driver is inside the store. And they say, all right, step out of the car. And he says, no. And he rolls the windows up and he locks the passenger door. And they say, no, get out of the car, get out of the car. And he then lunges across the driver's seat to lock the driver's side and roll up that window. But before he's able to do so, an officer opens the door and points his gun at the defendant and says, don't move, get out of the car. And again, the guy says, for what? He says, because I asked you to. And then he says, stop reaching or you'll be tased.