Montgomery County Police stop violated 4th Amendment, court rules

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The Maryland Supreme Court overturned a Montgomery County man’s firearm conviction, deciding Tuesday that police did not have reasonable suspicion to stop him based on a tip from a friend of the cop.

The court ruled that a Montgomery County Police officer violated a man’s Fourth Amendment rights for making an investigative stop based on a personal phone call — not a 911 call — from a longtime acquaintance who had little to no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Justice Shirley Watts wrote for the majority that “there is an undeniable public safety interest” in an officer being able to follow up on tips.

“It goes without saying, however, that such calls do not always provide reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop,” Watts wrote. “The actions taken by a police officer investigating such a call must be assessed in light of the public’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The Maryland attorney general‘s and public defender’s offices declined to comment.

One night in January 2023, Sgt. Peter Muollo received a call from a friend, who told him that a “suspicious” and “unfamiliar” car had been parked “for an extended period of time” in her small neighborhood in Germantown. Several people appeared to be using their phones in the car, and she thought they were “possibly breaking into vehicles,” according to the court’s description of Muollo’s testimony.

Muollo went to the scene and saw the black sedan parked at the end of the dead-end street, with people in it. He didn’t turn on the police car’s siren or red-and-blue lights, and the driver of the sedan, Xavier Kopp, started to make a three-point turn to leave the street.

Muollo — backed by two other officers who had blocked Kopp from exiting the street with their own cars — turned on his lights and stopped the suspect. The car smelled like cannabis, and Muollo said he saw a “large quantity” of it in the backseat.

Kopp said he had a firearm, and he was arrested. He later pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a person under 21. He was sentenced to five years with all but six months suspended, with credit for time served, followed by probation.

The Montgomery County Circuit Court denied his motion to suppress evidence obtained during the stop. Last year, the Maryland Appellate Court upheld the lower court’s ruling on the motion to suppress.

The state argued the stop was justified by Muollo’s belief that his friend was a “credible source” and that the neighborhood was a “high-crime area,” and by Kopp’s initial move to turn around and flee the scene.

Watts wrote that Kopp was exercising a “well-recognized right to decline a consensual encounter with law enforcement.” Regarding the state’s argument that this was a “high-crime area,” she wrote, “We could not disagree more.”

“… the tip as corroborated by Sgt. Muollo lacked the indicia of reliability required to establish reasonable suspicion to justify the intrusion, and Mr. Kopp’s movement of his car is of no consequence in the reasonable suspicion analysis,” Watts wrote. “Mr. Kopp’s movement of the car was the equivalent of a person, who was free to go, choosing not to engage with a police officer.”

Watts was joined by five of her six colleagues. Justice Steven Gould wrote a concurrence, agreeing with the outcome but not the reasoning.

“In reaching its conclusion,” Gould wrote, “the Majority incorrectly characterizes the function of the caller’s report, discounts … Muollo’s prior knowledge about crime in the area, and recasts our decision in (a 2022 ruling), where we acknowledged that unprovoked flight, even non-headlong, could be considered in a reasonable suspicion analysis.”

“None of that reasoning was necessary to reach the correct result,” he wrote.