COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION
DATED AND FILED
August 15, 2000
Cornelia G. Clark
Clerk, Court of Appeals
of Wisconsin
NOTICE
This opinion is subject to
further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound
volume of the Official Reports.
A party may file with the
Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of
Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10
and Rule 809.62.
STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT III
State
of Wisconsin,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
Nathaniel
Jackson,
Defendant-Appellant.
APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Pierce County: robert w. wing, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Cane, C.J., Hoover, P.J., and Peterson, J.
¶1 PER CURIAM. Nathaniel Jackson appeals a judgment convicting him of forgery. He argues that the arresting officer lacked reasonable suspicion to justify stopping the vehicle in which Jackson was a passenger, and that evidence derived from that detention should have been suppressed. We conclude that information available to Officer Sather at the time he made the stop justified stopping the vehicle and detaining Jackson.
¶2 The burden is on the State to prove that Sather’s investigative stop was reasonable. See State v. Quartana, 213 Wis. 2d 440, 445, 570 N.W.2d 618, (Ct. App. 1997). The test is whether Sather could point to “specific and articulable facts, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, which lead to a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is possibly afoot.” See State v. Jackson, 147 Wis. 2d 824, 829, 434 N.W.2d 386 (1989). Sather could lawfully stop the vehicle and temporarily detain its occupants if he reasonably suspected, in light of his experience, that criminal activity had taken place. See id. at 834. Whether the facts in this case meet that standard is reviewed without deference to the trial court. See id. at 829.
¶3 Information provided to Sather by citizens and the police dispatcher, along with Sather’s personal experience, justified the stop. A store employee informed Sather that two men attempted to purchase items with a money order that the store would not accept. He described the individuals and gave a detailed description of their vehicle including its Minnesota license plate number. He told Sather that one of the men had several money orders in his hand that were made out for $100 and $200. Other stores in the chain had been victimized by altered money orders in $100 and $200 denominations. The employee told Sather that it was unusual for people to use money orders in this manner and that people did not ordinarily carry around multiple money orders made out in large dollar denominations. This confirmed Sather’s personal experience that money orders, unlike traveler’s checks, are ordinarily used to pay specific expenses, especially in mail-order purchases.
¶4 Sather checked other businesses and learned that one or two hours earlier, the same individuals attempted to buy several items with a money order at another store. His dispatcher then informed him that another business had called and asked to see an officer regarding a money order offered for payment. At the time that call came in Sather had spotted the vehicle in which Jackson was riding.
¶5 The location of the businesses, the type of merchandise they sold and the timing of the attempted purchases raises an inference that the persons attempting to pass the money orders were more interested in obtaining cash than in buying specific merchandise. This inference, Sather’s experience, and facts provided by the store employees created a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity had taken place, justifying the investigatory stop.
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
This
opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat.
Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.