Marcus Allen Boyd was found guilty at a bench trial of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Boyd, who was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by police for a traffic violation, claims police violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure when they patted him down for weapons during the stop, summoned a drug-sniffing dog which alerted on his shoes, then searched his shoes and found hidden methamphetamine. Because there was no Fourth Amendment violation, we find the trial court correctly denied Boyd’s motion to suppress the methamphetamine, and we affirm the judgment of conviction. 1. The evidence at the suppression hearing construed in favor of the trial court’s determination showed the following: Two Forsyth County Sheriff’s Officers observed a vehicle weaving in and out of the lane of traffic in which the vehicle was traveling, and conducted a traffic stop to determine if the driver was impaired. Boyd was the only passenger in the vehicle. The officers ordered both the driver and Boyd to exit the vehicle. The driver had bloodshot, watery eyes and was slumped forward leaning on the vehicle for support. The officers detected no smell of alcohol, and the driver denied drinking alcoholic beverages or taking any prescription medication or other drugs. Before running a check on the driver’s license, insurance, and possible outstanding warrants, officer Daves asked the driver for consent to search the vehicle to determine if there was evidence of alcohol or other drugs that could impair driving. The driver consented to the search, and the officer searched the vehicle but found nothing. The officer then proceeded to run a check on the driver’s information.
During this period of time, officer Weeks was with Boyd. Officer Weeks knew Boyd and knew that Boyd had previously been arrested for possession of 8 grams of methamphetamine. The officer asked Boyd if he had any weapons on him, and Boyd denied having any weapons. Pursuant to Boyd’s consent, officer Weeks patted him down for weapons, but the officer did not detect anything that felt like a weapon. While officer Weeks conversed with Boyd during the ongoing traffic stop, Boyd admitted that he was still involved with methamphetamine and had used it within the last week. This information along with the officer’s knowledge that persons involved with methamphetamine frequently carry weapons prompted the officer to ask Boyd to consent to empty his pockets. Boyd consented and emptied his pockets and revealed that he was carrying a knife in one of the pockets. Because Boyd had a knife on his person and had lied to the officer about not having a weapon, officer Weeks decided for his own safety to conduct a second pat-down of Boyd. When the officer began to pat down below Boyd’s knee, Boyd suddenly jerked his leg away from the officer, threw his hands in the air, and screamed over and over at the officer in an agitated manner, “Why do you need to look in my shoe” Officer Daves, who was still running checks on the driver’s information in his patrol car, heard the commotion and came over to lend assistance. Evidence showed that, about that time or shortly thereafter, officer Daves obtained information that the driver was currently on probation for a methamphetamine offense and had used methamphetamine earlier that day. Based on Boyd’s reaction to the attempted pat-down of his shoe area, information that the driver and Boyd were currently involved with methamphetamine, and the driver’s impaired demeanor, the officers suspected that Boyd was trying to protect his shoes because he was using them to hide either a weapon or drugs or both. Boyd initially resisted letting officer Weeks pat down anywhere near his socks or shoes, and told the officer that, if he wanted to look in his shoes, “get a search warrant.” Although Boyd eventually let officer Weeks pat down the outside of his shoes and feel around his Achilles tendon area while the shoes remained on his feet, officer Weeks testified that he could not feel through the shoe material to determine if anything felt like a weapon inside the shoe. Believing that they were limited to a pat-down for any weapon concealed in Boyd’s shoes, and that they could not remove the shoes from his feet for that purpose, the officers decided to call for a trained drug-sniffing dog to investigate their suspicion that Boyd was concealing illegal drugs in his shoes.
