Williams v. State

The state did not meet its burden of proving that the officer's stop of the defendant's car was based on a reasonable articulable suspicion.

Thank you for sharing!

Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Gregory Williams was charged with an armed robbery that occurred on April 15, 2007. He moved to suppress evidence, contending that an inculpatory statement he made to law enforcement officers was involuntary and that various evidence, including his statement, was the fruit of an illegal stop of his car. The trial court denied Williams’s motions to suppress, finding that the statement was voluntary and that the stop of Williams’s car was not illegal, and Williams was convicted after a jury trial. He argues on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction, that the court erred in denying his motion for directed verdict, that the court erred in allowing hearsay testimony, that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress, and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. As detailed below, the evidence was sufficient to support Williams’s conviction, so the trial court did not err in denying his motion for directed verdict. Williams has failed to demonstrate the merits of his hearsay claim because he has not cited to the place in the record where the alleged hearsay occurred.

As to the motion to suppress, the court properly ruled that Williams’s inculpatory statement was not subject to suppression as involuntary. But the trial court erred in ruling that the stop of Williams’s car was constitutional, because the state failed to meet its burden on that point. Because of that erroneous ruling, the trial court did not consider whether the challenged evidence should have been suppressed as fruit of the illegal stop. Williams has waived his appeal of one of these pieces of evidence a handgun found in his car by affirmatively stating that he had no objection to its admission at trial. As to the other pieces of challenged evidence, however, we vacate the order denying the motion to suppress and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Given this disposition, we do not reach Williams’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Williams v. State

The state did not meet its burden of proving that the officer's stop of the defendant's car was based on a reasonable articulable suspicion.

Share with Email

Thank you for sharing!

Trending Stories

More From ALM

Subscribe to Daily Report