ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
DIVISION III
CACR03-650
JANUARY 7, 2004
CLIFTON LIGGINS AN APPEAL FROM THE DESHA
APPELLANT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
[CR-02-125]
v.
HONORABLE DON E. GLOVER,
STATE OF ARKANSAS JUDGE
APPELLEE
AFFIRMED
Olly Neal, Judge
Appellant Clifton Liggins was convicted of sixteen counts of breaking or entering and one count of theft of property valued over $2,500. He received seventeen consecutive 180-month sentences. On appeal, appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions. Instead appellant asserts that (1) the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress; and (2) the trial court abused its discretion when it allowed the State to use his prior felony convictions to impeach him. We affirm.
On July 8, 2002, Sergeant Jamie Donaldson of the Dumas Police Department was dispatched to a local mini-storage building after Kerry Nolan reported that someone had broken into her storage unit. When the officer arrived at the storage building, Ms. Nolan informed him that when she arrived at her storage unit she saw a "van type U-Haul" blocking her unit and that a black male and a black female were loading items into the U-Haul. She also said that she found the lock cut off her unit and that several items were missing from inside. Ms. Nolan indicated that she had last seen the U-Haul traveling north on Highway 65. Sergeant Donaldson sent out a "NCIC-ACIC BOLO" (BOLO) to the surrounding areas for the vehicle and two suspects. He described the suspects as a black male and black female driving a U-Haul. Following the BOLO, Sergeant Donaldson called Officer Charles Blevins for backup.
Officer Lance Blagg of the Grady Police Department received the BOLO and while he was performing a traffic stop, a U-Haul containing a black male and black female passed him. Upon completing the traffic stop, Officer Blagg pursued the U-Haul and initiated a traffic stop. Officer Blagg informed the driver that the Dumas Police Department was looking for the U-Haul. Officer Blagg said that appellant gave him his name and driver's license. Appellant then complied with Officer Blagg's request to follow him to the police station. Officer Blagg detained appellant and his passenger until Officer Blevins arrived.
Officer Blevins was accompanied by Ms. Nolan. When they arrived, appellant got out of the U-Haul and Ms. Nolan identified him as the man she had seen at the mini-storage building. Appellant consented to a search of the U-Haul. Inside, Officer Blevins found a couch, television, and other items. Ms. Nolan's items were found in the front of the U-Haul. Officer Blevins took appellant and the passenger into custody and had the U-Haul towed back to Dumas.
Appellant was subsequently charged with sixteen counts of breaking or entering and one count of theft of property. Prior to trial, appellant moved to suppress the evidence. He argued that the officer lacked probable cause to stop the U-Haul. The trial court found probable cause to stop and detain the vehicle; therefore, the court denied appellant's motion to suppress.
Appellant now argues that "the trial court's ruling was clearly against the preponderance of the evidence when it denied [his] motion to suppress."1 When reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, we conduct a de novo review based on the totality of the circumstances, reviewing findings of historical fact for clear error and determining whether those facts give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause, giving due weight to inferences drawn by the trial court. Davis v. State, 351 Ark. 406, 94 S.W.3d 892 (2003).
Appellant specifically argues that the information provided by Ms. Nolan did not create reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime. Rule 3.1 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure provides:
A law enforcement officer lawfully present in any place may, in the performance of his duties, stop and detain any person who he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed, or is about to commit (1) a felony, or (2) a misdemeanor involving danger of forcible injury to persons or of appropriation of or damage to property, if such action is reasonably necessary either to obtain or verify the identification of the person or to determine the lawfulness of his conduct. An officer acting under this rule may require the person to remain in or near such place in the officer's presence for a period of not more than fifteen (15) minutes or for such time as is reasonable under the circumstances. At the end of such period the person detained shall be released without further restraint, or arrested and charged with an offense.
Reasonable suspicion is defined as:
A suspicion based on facts or circumstances which of themselves do not give rise to the probable cause requisite to justify a lawful arrest, but which give rise to more than a bare suspicion; that is, a suspicion that is reasonable as opposed to an imaginary or purely conjectural suspicion.
Ark. R. Crim. P. 2.1. An officer does not have to witness the violation of a statute in order to stop a suspect. Lamb v. State, 77 Ark. App. 54, 70 S.W.3d 397 (2002). The justification for an investigative stop depends upon whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the police have specific, particularized, and articulable reasons indicating a person or vehicle may be involved in criminal activity. Id.
When reasonable suspicion is based solely on a citizen-informant's report, the three factors in determining reliability are: (1) whether the informant was exposed to possible criminal or civil prosecution if the report is false; (2) whether the report is based on personal observations of the informant; (3) whether the officer's personal observations corroborated the informant's observations. Frazer v. State, 80 Ark. App. 231, 94 S.W.3d 357 (2002) (quoting Bohanan v. State, 72 Ark. App. 422, 38 S.W.3d 902 (2001)). Appellant concedes that the first and third factors are not in issue. Appellant argues that the second factor is not satisfied. He states that Ms. Nolan was "without sufficient facts to create a reasonable suspicion that [he] had committed a crime."
Sergeant Donaldson testified that when he arrived at Ms. Nolan's storage unit, Ms. Nolan informed him that when she arrived at her unit a U-Haul was blocking the unit and she observed a black male and black female loading items into the U-Haul. She also informed Sergeant Donaldson that she found the lock cut off her unit and that several items were missing from inside her unit. Under these facts, it is impossible to say that the report was not based upon Ms. Nolan's personal observations, that are sufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed by the driver of the U-Haul. Thus, under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop the U-Haul.
Appellant also argues that the court abused its discretion when it allowed the State to use his prior felony convictions to impeach him. Rule 609(a) of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence provides:
For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted but only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one [1] year under the law under which he was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect to a party or a witness, or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.
Rule 609 gives the State the right to impeach the credibility of a witness. Turner v. State, 325 Ark. 237, 926 S.W.2d 843 (1996). However, the trial court has considerable discretion in determining whether the probative value of prior convictions outweighs their prejudicial effect, and that decision will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Id.
The admissibility of a prior conviction for impeachment purposes is to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Schalski v. State, 322 Ark. 63, 907 S.W.2d 693 (1995). Factors to consider include the impeachment value of the prior crime, the date of the conviction and the defendant's subsequent history, the similarity between the prior conviction and the crime charged, the importance of the defendant's testimony, and the centrality of the credibility issue. Id. This court has consistently allowed prior convictions to be used for impeachment purposes, even when the convictions are for similar crimes to those charged. Id.
Appellant had twelve prior felony convictions in the State of Arkansas. These included ten convictions for felony burglaries and thefts of property, one conviction for possession of a firearm and one conviction for possession of a controlled substance. The burglary and theft-of-property convictions are substantially similar to the crimes charged. Under these circumstances we cannot conclude that the trail court abused its discretion when it allowed the State to impeach appellant with his prior felony convictions.
Affirmed.
Hart and Baker, JJ., agree.
1 We note that appellant does not challenge the lack of specificity in the BOLO with regard to the description of the vehicle nor the identification of the driver and passenger in the vehicle.