After the trial court denied his motion to suppress, a PlaceNameplaceWalkerPlaceNameCounty jury convicted David Grimes of possession of methamphetamine. On appeal from the denial of his motion for new trial, Grimes contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress and failing to charge the jury on his equal access defense. Because this case involves a search of an automobile following an arrest, we vacate in part the order denying Grimes’s motion to suppress and remand the case to the trial court for further consideration in light of the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arizona v. Gant, __ U. S.__ 129 SC 1710 173 LE2d 485 2009. We affirm in all other respects. 1. Following the grant or denial of a motion to suppress, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to uphold the findings and judgment of the trial court. Postell v. State , 279 StateplaceGa.App. 275, 276 1 630 SE2d 867 2006. The trial court’s findings on disputed facts and credibility issues will not be overturned on appeal if there is any evidence to support them. StateplaceId. In conducting our review, we may consider evidence introduced at the hearing on the suppression motion and at trial. StateplaceId.
Viewed in this manner, the evidence showed that around midnight on August 29, 2009, an officer with the City of LaFayette Police Department stopped at a local convenience store. While the officer was inside the store, the clerk advised him that a white male, later identified as Grimes, had been “fiddling” with a grey vehicle parked in front of the store for the last two hours. The officer decided to investigate and approached the parked vehicle, which did not have a license tag displayed. When the officer came up to the vehicle, he observed Grimes crouching in the passenger seat next to wires from the car radio that had been unattached from the front console of the dashboard. No one else was in or around the vehicle. The officer asked Grimes for identification and inquired about what he was doing in the parking lot. Grimes showed the officer a copy of a traffic citation bearing his name in lieu of a driver’s license and told the officer that he was working on the vehicle’s stereo system. The officer radioed the identification information to his dispatcher and learned that Grimes had a suspended driver’s license. At that time, a sheriff’s deputy who had been at the convenience store earlier that night arrived on the scene and informed the officer that he had observed Grimes drive into the parking lot. The officer then arrested Grimes for driving on a suspended license. According to the officer, his encounter with Grimes up to the point of the arrest lasted approximately five to ten minutes.
