Supreme Court finds Richland cop wasn’t justified in stopping man outside known drug house

A Richland police corporal did not have “reasonable suspicion” to stop a man just because he was walking quickly and looking around after leaving a known drug house, the state’s high court ruled Thursday.

Wesley J. Weyand’s initial request to have all evidence and statements from the December 2012 arrest tossed should have been granted by a Benton County Superior Court judge, the justices said.

Instead, Weyand was convicted and sentenced to one year in state prison for possessing heroin.

The 14-page opinion, signed by seven justices, said police can’t rely on furtive movements as a basis for a “Terry stop” — when an officer can briefly detain a person for questioning, without a warrant, if they have reasonable suspicion the person is or is about to be involved in criminal activity.

“It is important to recognize that a Terry stop is a seizure and constitutes a limited exception to the warrant requirement,” the opinion said. “Whether the facts in a given case justify an investigatory stop must be evaluated against the right to be free from intrusion into that person’s private affairs.

“Simply labeling a suspect’s actions a ‘furtive movement,’ without explaining how it gives rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion, is not sufficient to justify a Terry stop.”

The Supreme Court reversed the state Court of Appeals, which twice upheld the original decision by Judge Carrie Runge in Benton County Superior Court.

Weyand’s case will be sent back to Superior Court to be dismissed, now that the evidence has been suppressed.

Weyand, now 49, is in the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton on an unrelated case. His criminal history, at the time of his heroin conviction in August 2013, included theft of anhydrous ammonia, bail jumping, eluding police, burglary, possession of stolen property, theft and possessing drugs.

Cpl. Bryce Henry was on patrol early Dec. 22, 2012, when he noticed a car parked near a Cullum Avenue home that had not been there 20 minutes prior, according to court documents. A check of the license plates turned up nothing on the vehicle or the registered owner.

Henry parked his car and saw Weyand and another man leave the house at 2:40 a.m. They walked briskly toward the car and looked up and down the street, with the driver looking around once more before getting in the car, documents said.

Henry was familiar with the history of drug activity at the house going back to June 2011.

That included search warrants with arrests for possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, residents who had extensive criminal histories, and anonymous complaints of residents who appeared to be tweaking and a high flow of short-stay foot traffic.

So, based on his observations and his knowledge of the “known drug location,” Henry stopped the car. He discovered the passenger, Weyand, had an warrant for his arrest.

When questioning Weyand, he noticed he had red and glassy eyes and his pupils were constricted, documents said. Henry, a drug recognition expert, believed Weyand was under the influence and arrested him.

A loaded, capped syringe in his jacket pocket was found in Weyand’s jacket pocket, and a lab test confirmed it was heroin.

The police report said Weyand admitted he just purchased the heroin from a person inside the Cullum Avenue home. However, Weyand later denied saying that to Henry, and tried to get the statement and evidence suppressed and the case dismissed.

Judge Runge denied the defense motion. She concluded it was a lawful investigative stop and that Henry had reasonable suspicion to believe Weyand was involved in criminal activity.

Then, after Weyand waived his right to a jury trial, Judge Vic VanderSchoor found him guilty based on the facts before him.

The Supreme Court opinion said there is nothing in the court record, other than Henry’s statement, to show that Richland police had designated the Cullum residence as a known drug house.

The Court of Appeals recognized that the late-night, short-stay visit didn’t justify the stop, but reasoned that Weyand’s glances up and down the street gave Henry reason to suspect something more was going on, the opinion said.

Supreme Court justices disagreed, saying the totality of the circumstances didn’t justify a warrantless seizure.

Henry didn’t actually see an activity that would lead a reasonable observer to believe a crime was taking place or was about to, the opinion said. Merely visiting a place where the residents have histories of possessing and using drugs does not justify a suspicion of criminal conduct and warrant intrusion into a person’s private affairs.

“Just as many members of our society live, work and spend their days in high-crime areas, many members of our society interact with people who have been previously convicted of crimes,” wrote Justice Barbara A. Madsen, the opinion’s author. “The previous convictions of friends, family members and associates alone does not give rise to a reasonable, articulable suspicion necessary to justify a stop and frisk.”

Justices Steven C. Gonzalez and Mary I. Yu took issue with their colleagues citing a particular case, previously decided by the court, that should be overruled because it “gives power to pretext and profiling.”

The Constitution guarantees equal privacy protections no matter a person’s cultural background or economic circumstances, and presence in a neighborhood with a poor reputation does not diminish that expectation of privacy, Gonzalez wrote in a concurring opinion.

“To hold otherwise would mean giving unquestioning deference to police hunches regarding innocuous facts, thereby granting officers unfettered authority to stop anyone based on the officers’ personal biases,” he wrote.

This story was originally published July 20, 2017 at 7:17 PM with the headline "Supreme Court finds Richland cop wasn’t justified in stopping man outside known drug house."