## Facts

- Howard County police officers patrolling a public footpath observed a nearby group in a public parking lot that appeared loud, disorderly, and openly drinking from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.
- Officers saw a bottle thrown and heard it hit the ground, but could not identify who threw it.
- Officers approached to investigate apparent open-container and related violations and to determine who threw the bottle.
- Jamal Sizer ran as officers approached; an officer pursued and seized him.
- During or immediately after the seizure, Sizer stated he had a handgun; officers recovered a .38-caliber revolver from his backpack.
- An officer recognized that Sizer had an outstanding arrest warrant; Sizer was arrested on that warrant.
- At the station, during a search incident to arrest, officers found 27 oxycodone pills in Sizer’s sock.
- The circuit court suppressed the gun and pills for lack of reasonable suspicion; the intermediate appellate court reversed; the state’s highest court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop based on observed apparent open-container/littering or disorderly conduct and Sizer’s flight when officers approached.
2. If the stop was unlawful, whether the gun and pills were nevertheless admissible because discovery of a valid, pre-existing arrest warrant attenuated any taint from the stop.

## Decision

- The court held the officers had reasonable suspicion under the totality of the circumstances to stop Sizer.
- The court concluded the suppression court erred by not assessing all circumstances together and by effectively requiring a link between Sizer’s group and unrelated prior crimes in the area.
- Alternatively, assuming the stop was unlawful, the court held the evidence was admissible under the attenuation doctrine because officers discovered a valid, pre-existing arrest warrant and lawfully arrested Sizer on that warrant.
- The court affirmed the intermediate appellate court and held the motion to suppress should be denied.

## Legal Principles

- Officers may conduct an investigatory stop when they have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, evaluated under the totality of the circumstances; no single factor is dispositive.
- A suspect’s flight may be considered as one factor in the reasonable-suspicion analysis when combined with other objective indications of criminal activity.
- When evidence follows an allegedly unlawful stop but police discover a valid, pre-existing arrest warrant and conduct a lawful arrest and search incident to arrest, the attenuation doctrine can render the evidence admissible.
- The attenuation doctrine, rather than the independent source doctrine, is the proper framework when the intervening circumstance is discovery of an outstanding warrant after the encounter begins.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the stop because officers observed apparent minor offenses and could reasonably investigate, with Sizer’s flight contributing to reasonable suspicion; it further held that even if the stop were illegal, discovery of a valid outstanding warrant sufficiently attenuated any taint so the gun and oxycodone were admissible.


Sizer v. State, 456 Md. 350, 174 A.3d 326 (Md. 2017)