Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 40

Summary: - The nature of an investigative stop. - Assessment of whether grounds for an investigative stop exist is a matter of fact. - Flagrante delicto requires external manifestations which themselves indicate the occurrence of the act constituting the crime. Assessment thereof is a matter of fact. - A police officer may search the accused in a case of flagrante delicto. Article 43 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials. - The challenged judgment’s response to the plea of invalidity of the investigative stop and search, based on the existence of grounds for stopping the appellant because he caused a traffic accident, followed by flagrante delicto arising from the incidental appearance of a narcotic substance while he presented his driving licence and his admission that he possessed it for consumption, permitting his search. Its sufficiency in answering the plea. No contravention of the law. Rule: An investigative stop is a procedure undertaken by a public authority officer to investigate crimes and discover their perpetrators, justified by suspicion warranted by the circumstances. It is permissible for public authority officers where a person voluntarily and willingly places himself in a position of suspicion and doubt, and that situation indicates a necessity requiring the stopping officer’s intervention to investigate and ascertain its truth, pursuant to Article 52 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials. Determining whether justification for the investigative stop exists is a matter for the trial judge’s independent assessment, without review, provided that his conclusion has justification. It is established that, for flagrante delicto to exist, it suffices that there are external manifestations which themselves indicate the occurrence of the act constituting the crime. Assessment of the circumstances surrounding the crime and whether or not it was in flagrante delicto is exclusively for the trial court, without review. It is established under Article 43 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials that a police officer may search the accused in a case of flagrante delicto. That being so, the challenged judgment, in the grounds of the first-instance judgment which it adopted, addressed the appellant’s plea that his investigative stop, arrest, and search were invalid. It rejected it on the basis of its conviction, derived from the previously described circumstances of the incident, that grounds existed for stopping the appellant to take legal measures concerning him after he caused a single-vehicle traffic accident by veering, while driving, down below the side road. Flagrante delicto permitting his search also arose from the incidental appearance of the narcotic substance heroin while the appellant presented his driving licence and vehicle registration book to the police officer, and his admission to the latter that he possessed that substance for consumption. On that basis it rejected the appellant’s plea that those procedures were invalid, giving reasons for them. In light of the foregoing, it correctly applied the law and did not contravene it in any respect, and the complaint against it in this regard is unsound.