COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Coleman, Frank and Senior Judge Hodges
Argued at Salem, Virginia
LAFAYETTE SCOTT HODNETT
OPINION BY
v. Record No. 2565-98-3 JUDGE ROBERT P. FRANK
JUNE 27, 2000
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF DANVILLE
James F. Ingram, Judge
S. Jane Chittom, Appellate Counsel (Elwood
Earl Sanders, Jr., Appellate Defender; Public
Defender Commission, on briefs), for
appellant.
Steven A. Witmer, Assistant Attorney General
(Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief),
for appellee.
Lafayette Scott Hodnett (appellant) appeals his conviction
of operating a motor vehicle after having been adjudicated an
habitual offender in violation of Code § 46.2-357(B). On appeal,
appellant contends the trial court erred: 1) in denying his
motion to suppress because his continued detention, once he
produced identification, was an unlawful seizure; and 2) in
finding the evidence sufficient to support his conviction. We
disagree and affirm the conviction.
I. BACKGROUND
On May 19, 1998, Officer Moorefield of the Danville Police
Department was on special assignment with the Danville Emergency
Response Team. He was in a van with other team members on
Riverside Drive when he saw from the van's open side door a
small, light blue vehicle beside the van. The driver, who was
the only occupant in the vehicle, was a black male wearing a
black skull cap. Officer Moorefield thought he recognized the
driver as Gary Hodnett, an individual for whom the police had
outstanding warrants. The police van had to stop at a traffic
light, and Moorefield lost sight of the blue car. However, he
was able to see the letters ZDK on the car's license plate and
radioed a police dispatcher with a description of the vehicle and
the partial license plate number. The dispatcher issued a
"be-on-the-lookout-for" to the other police units on duty.
Officer Crawford of the Danville Police Department had heard
the "be-on-the-lookout-for" call earlier that evening. While he
was observing traffic at the intersection of Riverside Drive and
Mount Cross Road, a car matching the description issued by the
dispatcher drove past him. A man wearing a neon green shirt and
a black skull cap was driving the car, and a female rode in the
front passenger seat. Crawford pulled onto Riverside Drive but
was unable to get behind the car due to other traffic. Then,
Crawford was forced to stop at a traffic light for approximately
fifteen to twenty seconds but watched the blue car turn into a
shopping center. Crawford testified that he was in a position at
the traffic light to see any pedestrians crossing Riverside Drive
in the vicinity of the shopping center. The only person he saw
that evening wearing a neon green shirt and skull cap was
appellant.
Crawford drove into the shopping center and saw the blue car
parked in a parking space in front of a Subway restaurant. A
- 2 -
black male wearing a neon green shirt and a black skull cap was
between two and five feet from the driver's side door of the car
and was walking toward the Subway. The man entered the Subway,
and the female passenger remained in the car. She joined him in
the Subway within minutes. The couple was in the Subway for
approximately ten to fifteen minutes. When they exited the
Subway, they walked on the sidewalk toward the end of the
building, away from the blue car. Crawford approached the couple
when they turned the corner of the building into an alley.
Crawford asked the man for identification. The man produced a
Virginia identification card showing that he was Lafayette Scott
Hodnett. Crawford stated that he thought the man he was stopping
was Gary Hodnett. Crawford told appellant that he stopped him
because an off-duty officer had seen him earlier in the evening
and thought he was Gary Hodnett. Appellant said, "Everybody
always thinks I'm Gary, but that's my brother."
Detective Jones, along with other officers, arrived on the
scene as back-up, and Crawford took appellant's identification
card to the police car to check appellant's driving status.
Jones talked with appellant while Crawford was in the police
car.
Crawford testified that he checked appellant's driving
status because, based on his past experience, when a driver
presents an identification card, they typically are not
licensed. The driving status check showed that the
identification number belonged to Lafayette Scott Hodnett and
- 3 -
that he was an habitual offender. Crawford then placed
appellant under arrest for driving after having been declared an
habitual offender. During the drive to the magistrate's office,
appellant told Crawford that he had seen the off-duty officer in
the van on Riverside Drive earlier in the evening.
Appellant testified that he walked across the shopping
center parking lot from a Wendy's restaurant to the Subway
restaurant. As he crossed the parking lot, a woman, Jamie Long,
called out his name. She was alone in a car parked in front of
the Subway restaurant. Appellant said he walked to the car to
speak with her and then went into the Subway restaurant. After
appellant sat down to eat, Long came into the restaurant.
Appellant stated that he was wearing a lime green shirt and a
black skull cap. Appellant admitted he had been convicted of
four felonies and a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.
Erica Dixon testified that she loaned her blue Isuzu I Mark
to Sherman Gratsy on May 19, 1998. She stated that the first
three letters of the license plate for the vehicle were ZDK.
Dixon testified that she had to get her car the next day at the
parking lot across from the Subway restaurant because Gratsy
parked it there due to problems with the car's brakes.
Sherman Gratsy testified that he borrowed Dixon's car on
the morning of May 19, 1998 to drive to work. He stated that he
was wearing a lime green shirt and a black skull cap. On the
evening of May 19, 1998, he took a friend, Jamie, to Burger
- 4 -
King. After leaving Burger King, he began having problems with
the car's brakes and pulled over between a Wendy's restaurant
and a Subway restaurant. He walked across the street to a
K-Mart store to telephone Dixon. He was unable to reach her so
he called his girlfriend's grandmother to ask for a ride home.
He testified that he was gone from the car for approximately
twenty minutes, and when he returned, Jamie was gone. Gratsy
admitted that he is appellant's good friend.
II. ANALYSIS
Appellant contends the trial court erred: 1) in denying
his motion to suppress because the continued detention, once he
produced identification, was an unlawful seizure; and 2) in
finding the evidence sufficient to support his conviction. We
disagree and affirm the conviction.
In reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to
suppress:
[T]he burden is on the appellant to
show that the trial court's decision
constituted reversible error. We view the
evidence in the light most favorable to the
prevailing party, granting to it all
reasonable inferences fairly deducible
therefrom. We review the trial court's
findings of historical fact only for "clear
error," but we review de novo the trial
court's application of defined legal
standards to the particular facts of a case,
such as determinations of reasonable
suspicion and probable cause.
Quinn v. Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 702, 712-13, 492 S.E.2d 470,
475-76 (1997) (citations omitted).
- 5 -
"The [F]ourth [A]mendment does not
proscribe all seizures, only those that are
'unreasonable.' Whether a seizure is
unreasonable is determined by balancing the
individual's right to be free from arbitrary
government intrusions against society's
countervailing interest in preventing or
detecting crime and in protecting its law
enforcement officers." The validity of a
seizure "'turns on an objective assessment
of the officer's actions in light of the
facts and circumstances confronting him at
the time,' and not on the officer's actual
state of mind at the time the challenged
action was taken." Ordinarily, in the
absence of consent, even a brief detention
must be based on at least a reasonable,
articulable suspicion the person seized is
engaged in criminal activity. However, as
the United States Supreme Court has held,
the absence of probable cause or reasonable
suspicion of criminal activity does not
necessarily render a detention unlawful.
Welshman v. Commonwealth, 28 Va. App. 20, 30, 502 S.E.2d 122,
126-27 (1998) (en banc) (citations omitted).
Courts must apply objective standards
in determining whether the requisite degree
of suspicion exists, taking into account
that "trained law enforcement officers may
be 'able to perceive and articulate meaning
in given conduct which would be wholly
innocent to the untrained observer.'"
United States v. Gooding, 695 F.2d 78, 82
(4th Cir. 1982). Attention must be focused
on objective reasonableness rather than on
the police officer's subjective intent.
Deer v. Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 730, 734, 441 S.E.2d 33, 36
(1994).
Code § 46.2-345(A)(3) states that issuance of an
identification card is dependent upon the satisfaction of the
Department of Motor Vehicles that the applicant needs the card
- 6 -
or that the applicant demonstrates a bona fide need for the
card. See Code § 46.2-345(A)(3).
On brief, appellant concedes that the initial stop by
Crawford to determine appellant's identity was valid under the
Fourth Amendment. Therefore, we only address whether Crawford
had reasonable suspicion, after appellant produced his Virginia
identification card, to detain appellant to run the check on
appellant's driving status.
We agree with appellant that he was detained when Crawford
took the identification card to the police unit to run the
driving status check. 1 The evidence showed that there was a
significant police presence when appellant was stopped and asked
to present identification. Crawford took appellant's
identification to the police unit, which reasonably could have
led appellant to believe he was not free to leave. Furthermore,
in order to leave at that point, appellant would have had to
leave without his identification card. See Brown v.
Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 694, 697, 440 S.E.2d 619, 621 (1994).
Crawford's continued detention of appellant, however, was
not unreasonable. When Crawford saw appellant's identification
1
"'[If] the circumstances of the encounter are so
intimidating as to demonstrate that a reasonable person would
have believed [that] he was not free to leave if he had not
responded, . . . the [encounter] resulted in a detention under
the Fourth Amendment.'" Commonwealth v. Satchell, 15 Va. App.
127, 133, 422 S.E.2d 412, 416 (1992) (quoting I.N.S. v. Delgado,
466 U.S. 210, 216, 104 S. Ct. 1758, 1763, 80 L.Ed.2d 247
(1984)).
- 7 -
card, he developed a reasonable, articulable suspicion that
appellant was engaged in criminal behavior, specifically,
driving without a driver's license. Crawford testified that
when appellant produced the identification card instead of a
driver's license, he suspected that appellant was not a licensed
driver because, in his experience, a person who has an
identification card does not hold an operator's license.
Clearly, the requirement of Code § 46.2-345(A)(3) that the
Department of Motor Vehicles must be satisfied that there is a
need for issuance of the identification card supports Crawford's
testimony that licensed drivers typically do not have
identification cards. Crawford's suspicion that appellant was
unlicensed was objectively reasonable given his past experience
and the requirement of Code § 46.2-345(A)(3) for need for an
identification card. We, therefore, hold that appellant's
continued detention was not unreasonable and the trial court
properly denied appellant's motion to suppress.
When the sufficiency of the evidence in
a criminal case is challenged on appeal, we
must view the evidence and all reasonable
inferences fairly deducible therefrom in the
light most favorable to the Commonwealth.
Great deference must be given to the
factfinder who, having seen and heard the
witnesses, assesses their credibility and
weighs their testimony. Thus, a trial
court's judgment will not be disturbed on
appeal unless it is plainly wrong or without
evidence to support it.
- 8 -
Walton v. Commonwealth, 255 Va. 422, 425-26, 497 S.E.2d 869, 871
(1998) (citations omitted).
In this case, the evidence was sufficient to support
appellant's conviction. Crawford testified that he saw a black
male driving the small blue car. The man was wearing a neon
green shirt and a black skullcap. When Crawford stopped at the
traffic light, he saw the blue car turn into the shopping
center. He had a clear view of any pedestrians crossing the
street, and appellant was the only person he saw that evening in
a neon green shirt and skullcap. When Crawford turned into the
shopping center, he saw appellant near the driver's side door of
the blue car. Appellant admitted that he had seen Officer
Moorefield in the van earlier in the evening.
The trial court rejected the testimony of appellant, Erica
Dixon, and Sherman Gratsy. We will not disturb that
determination on appeal. Accordingly, we find the evidence
sufficient to support appellant's conviction.
For these reasons, we hold that the trial court did not err
in denying appellant's motion to suppress and in finding the
evidence sufficient to support appellant's conviction.
Affirmed.
- 9 -