COURT DEEMS SEARCH IMPROPER

Man Whose Pants Were Searched Gets New Trial

RALEIGH - A Charlotte man won a new trial Tuesday because a police
officer conducted an "intrusive genital inspection" without warning
and probable cause to think that drugs were in the man's pants. "A
reasonable person would not have expected police to pull his pants
away from his body and expose his genitals in a parking lot of an
apartment complex," wrote N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Linda McGee, who
along with Judge Rick Elmore granted Timothy Stone a new trial.

Since Judge Sanford Steelman dissented, prosecutors can ask the N.C.
Supreme Court to review the ruling.

The majority's opinion details what happened during a traffic stop at
3:30 a.m. Oct. 7, 2002:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer R.E. Correa followed a burgundy
Oldsmobile in Charlotte's Nations Ford area, where drug and
prostitution arrests are common.

Stone, 32, was a passenger in the car, which was parked outside an
apartment complex. Correa stopped behind the car and recognized Stone
as someone a tipster identified as a drug dealer. Correa asked
permission to search Stone for drugs and weapons. Stone said he did
not have any but agreed to the search. Correa found $552 in a pocket
of Stone's drawstring sweat pants. Correa again asked if Stone had
drugs or weapons. Stone denied it but agreed to another search.

Correa then pulled off Stone's sweat pants and shined a flashlight at
Stone's groin. Stone objected, but Correa had already spotted a pill
bottle with 26 grams of crack cocaine. Correa arrested Stone, who was
later convicted of possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine
and being a habitual felon. Before trial, Stone lost a motion to
suppress the drugs as evidence.

Stone's lawyer, Jarvis John Edgerton IV of Raleigh, said in an
interview Tuesday that Correa's tactics illustrate how police can
abuse their authority.

"Consent searches are an area where the law is somewhat unclear and
officers frequently overreach," Edgerton said.

To do so, Edgerton said, officers use a couple of tactics: they ask in
an ambiguous way if someone will consent to a search, often asking if
the person will allow a pat down and a search for drugs or guns. But
Edgerton said the person often hears only the words "pat down" and
assumes that will be the extent of the officer's actions. Officers
also will overreach quickly and without warning, as Correa did by
looking down Stone's pants without asking, so a person doesn't have
time to object, Edgerton said.

The court ruled Correa did not get consent to inspect Stone's
genitals, and a reasonable person would not have understood he was
consenting to such a search.

In his dissent, Steelman wrote: "The anonymous tip that the defendant
was a drug dealer, the time of night, the high drug area, the large
amount of cash found on the defendant, and the suspicious actions of
the defendant and the driver, considered in the aggregate, are
sufficient to support the conclusion that the search ... was
objectively reasonable."