Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. White, 214 N.C. App. 471 (Aug. 16, 2011)
The trial court erred denying the defendant’s motion to suppress. Officers responded to a complaint of loud music in a location they regarded as a high crime area. The officers did not see the defendant engaged in any suspicious activity and did not see any device capable of producing loud music. Rather, the defendant was merely standing outside at night, with two or three other men. These facts do not provide reasonable suspicion to justify an investigatory stop of the defendant. That being the case, the officer’s encounter with the defendant was entirely consensual, which the defendant was free to and did ignore by running away. Once the officer caught up with the defendant and handcuffed him for resisting arrest, a seizure occurred. However, because the defendant’s flight from the consensual encounter did not constitute resisting, the arrest was improper.