STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v. Davidson County
No. 04 CRS 61972
JERMAINE ROBERT JONES
Attorney General Roy A. Cooper, III, by Special Deputy
Attorney General Robert T. Hargett, for the State.
Brian Michael Aus, for defendant-appellant.
JACKSON, Judge.
While reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion
to suppress, Jermaine Robert Jones (“defendant”) entered a guilty
plea to the charge of felonious possession of marijuana. The trial
court suspended a prison sentence of six to eight months and placed
defendant on supervised probation for three years. Defendant filed
timely notice of appeal.
Defendant moved to suppress a quantity of marijuana found on
his person by Thomasville Police Detectives Steven Truell
(“Truell”) and Dustin Carter (“Carter”) following a traffic stop on
the afternoon of 15 November 2004. The evidence at the suppression
hearing tended to show that the detectives observed defendantdriving a white Chevrolet Caprice Classic southbound on National
Highway, a four-lane roadway with a posted speed limit of forty-
five miles per hour. From a stop light at the intersection of
National Highway and Hasty School Road, defendant traveled in the
left passing lane for more than one mile at a speed fluctuating
between twenty-seven and thirty miles per hour. Traffic was
extremely heavy on the highway, and cars were “backing up” behind
defendant. After pulling beside defendant's car to determine if he
was wearing a seatbelt, Truell followed behind defendant and
watched his progress until they passed beneath Interstate 85.
Traffic continued to accumulate behind defendant, with drivers
“literally blowing their horns trying to get by him.” Truell
activated his blue light and siren and stopped defendant on Circle
Drive for impeding traffic in violation of North Carolina General
Statutes, section 20-141(h) (2005).
Carter approached defendant's open window to obtain his
driver's license and registration and detected an odor of marijuana
from the interior of defendant's vehicle. The detectives then
contacted a canine handler, Officer John Elgin. As Carter
conducted routine license and warrants checks on defendant in the
patrol car, Elgin arrived at the scene and led a certified drug-
detection dog around defendant's vehicle. The dog alerted for the
presence of controlled substances by scratching at defendant's
passenger's side door. After Carter asked defendant to step out of
the car, the dog alerted a second time on the driver's side.
Carter patted down defendant's clothing and discovered a soft,spongy, softball-sized object concealed in the crotch area of his
pants. Based upon his training and experience, Carter immediately
recognized the object by “the texture, [and] the feel of it” as a
controlled substance. He unbuttoned defendant's pants and
retrieved a plastic bag containing individually-wrapped portions of
marijuana.
On appeal, defendant challenges only the legality of the
initial stop of his vehicle, arguing that the detectives lacked
probable cause to believe he was impeding the normal flow of
traffic as proscribed by section 20-141(h). He argues that the
detectives would not have needed to determine his compliance with
the seatbelt law if they had, in fact, had probable cause to stop
him for impeding traffic. Defendant further claims that the
detectives “contributed to, if not caused, any traffic back-up that
occurred that rush hour” by driving beside his car to view his seat
belt usage and then decreasing the speed of their patrol car in
order to follow him.
On appeal,
[o]ur review of a denial of a motion to
suppress by the trial court is “limited to
determining whether the trial judge's
underlying findings of fact are supported by
competent evidence, in which event they are
conclusively binding on appeal, and whether
those factual findings in turn support the
judge's ultimate conclusions of law.”
State v. Barden, 356 N.C. 316, 340, 572 S.E.2d 108, 125 (2002)
(quoting State v. Cooke, 306 N.C. 132, 134, 291 S.E.2d 618, 619
(1982)), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 1040, 155 L. Ed. 2d 1074 (2003).
Because defendant does not assign error to any of the trial court'sfindings, we need only determine “whether the trial court's
findings of fact support its conclusions of law.” State v. Cheek,
351 N.C. 48, 63, 520 S.E.2d 545, 554 (1999).
“A law enforcement officer may stop a motorist when the
officer has 'probable cause' to believe that the motorist has
committed a readily observed traffic infraction.” State v. Parker
__ N.C. App. __, __, 644 S.E.2d 235, 240.41 (2007) (citing Whren v.
United States, 517 U.S. 806, 819, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89, 101 (1996)).
“Probable cause is 'a suspicion produced by such facts as indicate
a fair probability that the person seized has engaged in or is
engaged in criminal activity.'” State v. Wilson, 155 N.C. App. 89,
94, 574 S.E.2d 93, 97.98 (2002) (quoting State v. Schiffer, 132
N.C. App. 22, 26, 510 S.E.2d 165, 167, disc. rev. denied, 350 N.C.
847, 539 S.E.2d 5 (1999)), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 843, 157 L. Ed.
2d 78 (2003). Because the officer's “[s]ubjective intentions play
no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis,”
Whren, 517 U.S. at 813, 135 L. Ed. 2d at 98, the issue before this
Court is “whether the objective facts support a finding that
probable cause existed to stop the defendant.” State v. Ivey, 360
N.C. 562, 564, 633 S.E.2d 459, 460-61 (2006). The existence of
probable cause is a conclusion of law subject to de novo review.
Wilson, 155 N.C. App. at 94, 574 S.E.2d at 97 (citing State v.
Young, 148 N.C. App. 462, 466, 559 S.E.2d 814, 818, appeal
dismissed and disc. rev. denied, 355 N.C. 500, 564 S.E.2d 233
(2002)). Pursuant to North Carolina General Statutes, section 20-
141(h),
[n]o person shall operate a motor vehicle on
the highway at such a slow speed as to impede
the normal and reasonable movement of traffic
except when reduced speed is necessary for
safe operation or in compliance with law;
provided, this provision shall not apply to
farm tractors and other motor vehicles
operating at reasonable speeds for the type
and nature of such vehicles.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-141(h) (2005). Because section 20-141(h) does
not establish a particular minimum speed limit, we have held that
“whether [a driver]'s speed was unreasonably slow and whether
traffic was impeded are questions of fact to be resolved by” the
fact finder. Page v. Tao, 56 N.C. App. 488, 493, 289 S.E.2d 910,
913, aff'd, 306 N.C. 739, 295 S.E.2d 470 (1982); see also Fonville
v. Dixon, 16 N.C. App. 664, 669, 193 S.E.2d 406, 411 (1972).
In denying defendant's motion to suppress, the trial court
made the following findings of fact pertaining to the stop of
defendant's vehicle:
2. On 15 November 2004 Detective Steven
Truell saw the defendant between 4 and 5
o'clock P.M. when Detective Truell was driving
north toward High Point along the National
Highway in Davidson County accompanied by
Detectives Carter and Barber. The defendant
was observed driving a motor vehicle . . .
along the National Highway. . . . The
defendant was operating his automobile in the
inside or passing lane for southbound traffic.
. . .
3. The detective turned around and followed
the automobile being operated by the
defendant. Traffic was heavy due to people
going home from work. The speed limit in the
area was 45 miles per hour. The detectives
observed that the defendant was going onlyabout 30 miles per hour, and traffic was
backing up in the passing lane behind the
defendant as a result. The defendant did not
have any emergency flashing lights activated
on his automobile. People operating other
motor vehicles were blowing their horns at the
defendant because he was going abnormally
slow. The officers observed no signs of
mechanical difficulty with the defendant's
automobile. The defendant did not attempt to
move from the inside, or passing, lane to the
outside lane for southbound traffic, nor did
he signal any intention to do so.
Accordingly, the officers activated their blue
lights on their police vehicle and stopped the
defendant for impeding traffic in violation of
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-141(h). The traffic
congestion was then relieved.
Based upon these uncontested facts, we hold Truell's direct
observation of defendant's slow speed of travel and his effect on
the flow of traffic established probable cause to suspect a
violation of North Carolina General Statutes, section 20-141(h).
Wilson, 155 N.C. App. at 95, 574 S.E.2d at 98 (holding that an
officer's “personal observation of [a car's] speed and its
following distance to another vehicle provided him with . . .
probable cause to believe that defendants were in violation of
Section 20-152.”).
Affirmed.
Chief Judge MARTIN and Judge CALABRIA concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).
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