Traffic Safety Legal Corner - August 2025
Provided by Judge Michael Cassidy (Ret.), Virginia Judicial Outreach Liaison — mcassidy@vacourts.gov
Judge Cassidy publishes the Roundabout Traffic Newsletter for judges in Virginia General District Courts. In it, he provides a summary of recent highway safety related court decisions. Judge Cassidy urges everyone to go to the full opinion before relying on the summaries. A hyperlink is provided for each case.
1131243 — Carlos Deonte Howard v. Commonwealth of Virginia (06/24/2025)
Oral argument held unnecessary in appeal of possession of cocaine conviction resulting from vehicle search. Having responded to state police sting “dating services” message, defendant suggested he could have brought cocaine to the meeting. After being arrested for prostitution, the defendant’s vehicle contained a sprinkler head container that was recognized by another officer of the task force as a container defendant used in an earlier encounter to store cocaine. A drug dog subsequently alerted on the vehicle and the substance was found in the box.
While a police officer may not extend a stop to conduct a canine sniff, if an officer develops independent reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a detainee has committed an additional traffic offense or crime, the officer may extend the stop for a reasonable amount of time in order to confirm or dispel that new suspicion.
0425244 — James Kelvin Johnson v. Commonwealth of Virginia (07/08/2025)
First degree murder case addressing police conduct in obtaining confession of defendant recovering from a self-inflicted-gunshot wound in a hospital’s intensive-care unit. Police had entered his apartment and crime scene following a brief barricade after hearing his self-inflicted gunshot. At the hospital, his room was watched by police as ‘standard procedure,’ but officers did not prevent anyone from entering or leaving defendant’s room. About nine hours after the shooting the defendant was read Miranda warnings, was told that he was not under arrest, and that no charges had been filed against him at that point. Defendant indicated that he understood his rights. When the plain clothes investigator asked if he needed a lawyer, defendant replied, “that’s totally up to you.” Based on admissions that he shot his wife to death, a warrant was obtained.
Defendant claims that the trial court violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by not suppressing his statements at the hospital. He argues that he was in custody when questioned. Although defendant received Miranda warnings, he asserted that his medical condition prevented him from knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waiving his Miranda rights. He also argued that his hospital statements should have been excluded as coerced and involuntary.
After examining all the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, the Court of Appeals found that Miranda did not apply since there was not a “formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement” of the degree associated with a formal arrest. Not all restraints on freedom of movement amount to custody for purposes of Miranda. On the issue of coercion of the statement, the defense argued that he was in “extremely critical condition after undergoing life-saving medical interventions.” To evaluate whether a statement is voluntary, the court examined “the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the statement is the ‘product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker,’ or whether the maker’s will ‘has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired.’” The level of police coercion sufficient to render a confession involuntary may be lower if the defendant’s ability to withstand the coercion is reduced by intoxication, drugs, or pain, but some level of coercive police activity must occur before a statement or confession can be said to be involuntary. The defendant identified no police coercion that was used in questioning him, even considering his weakened and medicated state. To the contrary, he willingly spoke with the detectives. Finally, an objection based on the exclusion of expert testimony on ‘accidental discharge’ of the firearm was rejected as harmless error based on total evidence of guilt including his own testimony of knowledge of the weapon and other evidence.
Defendant appeals conviction of possession of a controlled substance, possession of a firearm and a controlled substance, and driving under the influence based on denial of a motion to suppress the traffic stop since there was no prior traffic violation justifying the stop. After a radio dispatch from another officer about being unable to unable to stop a green Acura registered to a female suspended driver, the arresting officer followed the vehicle. He could not establish the gender of the driver until it was stopped. At the stop by the arresting officer, the defendant failed to follow instructions to return to the vehicle, gave the officer multiple names, and exhibited multiple signs of intoxication.
Under the Fourth Amendment, “an officer who stops and detains a person for investigative questioning ‘must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.’” Here the officer, prior to the seizure, had sufficient information constituting “reasonable suspicion” in that (1) the green Acura had successfully evaded the police in the area and a call to be on the lookout for a vehicle matching this description; (2) he had seen a vehicle matching the description and ran the tags to confirm it was the reported vehicle; (3) he had been unable to ascertain who or how many occupants were in the vehicle and, thus, followed the vehicle; (4) the same vehicle had evaded police; (5) the identity of the driver was not known until after the stop; (6) the vehicle passed several parking lots until it arrived at a hotel, at which time the occupant in the driver’s seat (Minns) quickly exited the vehicle through the passenger side door and ignored initial commands from the officer to stop; and, (7) the officer smelled alcohol on defendant’s breath.
0311244 — Stephen Dwayne White v. Commonwealth of Virginia (07/22/2025)
Defendant appeals imposition of a suspended sentence and violation of probation for a third technical offense. The trial judge split two alleged violations, failure to report to probation officer and using a controlled substance, for separate hearings. A 14-day sentence was imposed for the second technical violation on the failure to report on multiple days and as part of a separate hearing on the same day revoked all but four years of the previously suspended sentence.
Earlier precedent of the Court of Appeals has held that “[u]sing controlled substances and missing appointments are not the same act or behavior” so as to constitute “a single course of conduct.” The circuit court could reasonably find that White’s violations were interrupted by periods of compliance, such that the violations are separate courses of conduct, each of which can be sentenced separately.
1012244 — Kevin John McCoy v. Commonwealth of Virginia (08/05/2025)
Appeal of felon in possession conviction, based on search of vehicle driven by defendant originally seen swerving between lanes with its headlights off. After arrest of passenger and discovery of suspected drugs in passenger’s wallet and jacket, defendant was removed from the vehicle. A search of the car revealed additional drugs and a firearm next to the passenger seat and another under a jacket on the console with the handle facing the driver and the barrel facing the passenger seat. Evidence at the motion to suppress was in conflict about whether the defendant was told he was free to go before the discovery of the second pistol.
Court of Appeals concluded that there was probable cause to search for the vehicle for illegal narcotics based on earlier discoveries. A sufficiency of the evidence argument was also rejected based on the firearm’s concealment near the gearshift lever, within arm’s reach when defendant sat in the driver’s seat. Although this proximity does not conclusively establish that he possessed the firearm, it is probative of a finding that he did so.