STATE of Tennessee v. Wayne DONALDSON.
Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville.
Aug. 24, 2012.
June 14, 2012 Session.
James Bryan Lewis, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Wayne Donaldson.
OPINION
GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined.
An officer stopped the defendant for a traffic violation. When the officer ordered the defendant out of his vehicle to sign the citation, he observed what appeared to be a bag of cocaine on the floorboard of the driver‘s side. Charged with possession with intent to sell or deliver twenty-six grams or more of cocaine in a school zone, the defendant moved to suppress the evidence as the product of an unlawful seizure. The trial court sustained the motion, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. This Court granted the State‘s application for permission to appeal. Because an officer, after making a lawful stop for a traffic violation, may routinely direct the driver outside of the vehicle, the order of suppression is reversed, and the cause is remanded for trial.
Shortly after midnight on March 20, 2009, Wayne Donaldson (the “Defendant“) made a right turn at a traffic light from Gallatin Road in Davidson County onto Old Hickory Boulevard. Officer Joshua Baker of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department observed the Defendant drive past the white stop line before coming to a halt and then turn right without giving a turn signal. Based upon his determination that the Defendant had violated two separate ordinances by failing to properly stop prior to a turn and by failing to use a turn signal, Officer Baker activated his blue lights, and the Defendant stopped in a Walmart parking lot. After acquiring the vehicle registration and driver‘s license from the Defendant, who remained seated in his vehicle, Officer Baker returned to his patrol car, checked on the Defendant‘s prior criminal history, and wrote out a citation for the traffic offenses. Although there were no active warrants against the Defendant at the time, Officer Baker determined that he had prior driving under the influence offenses and had previous drug-related charges. Officer Baker, who had prepared a citation,1 returned to the vehicle and asked the Defendant to step
Motion to Suppress
Prior to trial, the Defendant filed a motion to suppress the seized drugs, arguing that the search violated
At the hearing on the motion, Officer Baker, the only witness to appear, testified that he was following the Defendant‘s vehicle on Gallatin Road when the Defendant stopped suddenly in a turn lane at a red light, having driven completely beyond the line on the street marking the proper stopping point. When the Defendant then turned right without signaling, Officer Baker initiated the stop. He stated that after a brief conversation, he took the Defendant‘s license and registration, returned to his police vehicle, and wrote a citation for the failure to properly stop and the failure to use a turn signal. Officer Baker testified that when he returned to the Defendant‘s car, he asked him to step outside, explaining that “I wanted to get a feel for him[,] ... to see if maybe he had been drinking to get a perspective of him.”
On cross-examination by the defense, Officer Baker acknowledged that he did not detect any alcohol on the Defendant‘s breath, did not suspect that the Defendant had drugs at the time of the stop, and had no indication that the Defendant might be armed. He described the initial encounter as “nothing out of the ordinary.” The officer further testified that when he “went back to the vehicle to ask [the Defendant] to step out, part of that was to speak with him and to get him to sign the ticket.” When, however, the Defendant got out of his car and Officer Baker saw the “clear plastic bag with a white powder substance,” his “point of emphasis transferred to that bag” and, in consequence, he did not deliver the traffic citation until the Defendant was booked for the drug offense. Upon continued questioning by defense counsel, Officer Baker further explained his rationale for directing the Defendant out of his car:
Q: Why would you want to observe him further when you had no suspicion that he was armed, dangerous, or had any drugs on him? Why would you not just simply hand him the ticket inside the vehicle? Mr. Donaldson, sign it and
[you‘re] on your way. Why would you not do that? A: Like I said, I normally have people step out of the vehicle. I judge their demeanor, I see how they‘re acting.
Q: Why would you need to judge his demeanor at this point if you had [seen] nothing out of the ordinary?
A: Just it was part of him getting out of—part of him signing the citation as well.
Defense counsel then asked the officer whether his police training was “to keep people within the vehicle so you can keep them under control.” Officer Baker disagreed, responding that there was a safety concern:
There‘s a better chance of it getting out of control [if the person stays in the car] because ... everything inside the vehicle is an unknown. They could have a gun sitting in the floorboard waiting for us to walk back up. If I get them out of the vehicle, I can see their hands....
When questioned by the trial judge, Officer Baker acknowledged that he gave back the driver‘s license to the Defendant “[w]hen he stepped out of the vehicle.” He clarified that he had first asked the Defendant to step outside of the vehicle before returning the license.
In its memorandum opinion, the trial court first determined that Officer Baker had a reasonable basis to stop the Defendant because of his failure to properly signal for a right turn. While recognizing that police officers may routinely ask drivers to exit the vehicle as a part of a properly based investigatory stop, the trial court concluded that the stop had ended at the point that Officer Baker approached the vehicle to deliver the traffic citation and return the driver‘s license. Because the officer had been “unable to articulate any reason as to why further observation ... was necessary,” the trial court ruled that “[t]he request ... to exit the vehicle was not reasonably related to the stop” and granted the motion to suppress.
Afterward, the State filed a motion to reconsider the order of suppression. The trial court, some six weeks after the hearing, upheld its original ruling and also included the following statement in its order of denial: “This ... ruling would be different had Officer Baker made the request to exit the vehicle prior to returning the driver‘s license.” The trial court concluded, however, that Officer Baker had returned the Defendant‘s license “either immediately before or as he asked Defendant to step out of the vehicle,” and that “[t]he citation had been already ... completed and only required [his] signature.”
On appeal by the State, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, concluding that the trial court had implicitly ruled that the officer‘s explanation for requiring the Defendant to step out of the vehicle was not credible and holding that even though an officer may require a driver to exit a vehicle during a traffic stop, the authority had to be based upon a legitimate concern for safety. State v. Donaldson, No. M2010-00690-CCA-R3-CD, 2011 WL 4340854, at *11 (Tenn.Crim.App. Sept. 15, 2011). The Court of Criminal Appeals relied, in part, upon a footnote in the majority opinion of Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) and interpreted its language to require an examination of the circumstances in each case, rather than providing “carte blanche authority” to routinely order drivers out of the vehicles after a traffic stop:
[W]e do not hold today that “whenever an officer has an occasion to speak with the driver of a vehicle, he may also order the driver out of the car.” We hold only that once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic viola-
tion, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment‘s proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures.
Donaldson, 2011 WL 4340854, at *8 (citation omitted) (quoting Mimms, 434 U.S. at 111 n. 6).
In this appeal, the State argues that because Officer Baker made a valid traffic stop, which was still in progress at the time the Defendant was directed to step out of his vehicle, the trial court erred by suppressing the evidence. In response, the Defendant submits that this is “not a Mimms case,” but is instead an illustration of a “police tactic” used after a lawful investigatory stop involving an unconstitutional search and seizure and a prolonged, unlawful detention. The Defendant contends that Mimms does not always provide the police with the authority to require a driver to step out of a vehicle after a traffic stop based upon either reasonable suspicion or probable cause. He submits that because there existed no relationship between Officer Baker‘s directive and his personal safety, the ruling of the trial court should be upheld.
Standard of Review
The standard of review applicable to suppression issues is well established. When the trial court makes findings of fact after a suppression hearing, its conclusions are binding upon this Court unless the evidence in the record preponderates against them. State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Tenn.1996). As a general rule, “[q]uestions of credibility of the witnesses, the weight and value of the evidence, and resolution of conflicts in the evidence are matters entrusted to the trial judge as the trier of fact.” Id. It is only when the findings of fact are based entirely on evidence that does not involve issues of witness credibility that an appellate court conducts a de novo review. State v. Binette, 33 S.W.3d 215, 217 (Tenn.2000). Appellate review of a trial court‘s application of law to the facts is de novo, with no presumption of correctness. See State v. Walton, 41 S.W.3d 75, 81 (Tenn.2001) (citing State v. Crutcher, 989 S.W.2d 295, 299 (Tenn.1999)).
Analysis
Our state and federal constitutions offer protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. The general rule is that a warrantless search or seizure is presumed unreasonable and any evidence discovered is subject to suppression. See
Initially, as to any suggestion that Officer Baker may have used the traffic stop as a “police tactic” to investigate other possible offenses for which no basis existed, there is no absolute prohibition against a pretextual stop so long as the stop has legitimate underpinnings. In Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996), the United States Supreme Court rejected the argument that the “reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved,” ruling instead that a valid stop based on a traffic violation was permissible regardless of any pretextual motivation of the officer. In State v. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d 730, 736 (Tenn.1997), this Court concluded that in the context of traffic stops, the protections afforded by
It is undisputed that Officer Baker lawfully detained the Defendant for a traffic violation. In Mimms, the United States Supreme Court held that, for officer safety reasons, a lawful traffic stop authorizes officers, as a matter of course, to require drivers to exit their vehicles. 434 U.S. at 111 n. 6; see also State v. Hanning, 296 S.W.3d 44, 54 (Tenn.2009) (citing Mimms for the proposition that “once a vehicle has been lawfully detained, an officer may, as a matter of course, order the driver to step out of the vehicle“). In Mimms, an officer who made a traffic stop, but was otherwise without
Although the ruling in Mimms authorized Officer Baker to direct the Defendant to exit his vehicle after the stop, other circumstances could render the directive impermissible. As the trial court observed, the duration of an investigative detention should last no longer than necessary and should generally end when there is no further reason to control the scene or the driver of the vehicle. See Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333, 129 S.Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 (2009); see also Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 258, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007). “Similarly, the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer‘s suspicion in a short period of time.” Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). This Court adopted the ruling in Royer in State v. Cox, 171 S.W.3d 174 (Tenn.2005):
The duration of [a traffic] stop ... must be “temporary and last no longer than
necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.” “The proper inquiry is whether during the detention the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly.” A traffic stop may be deemed “unreasonable,” if the “time, manner or scope of the investigation exceeds the proper parameters.”
Id. at 179-80 (citations omitted).7
After being stopped for a traffic violation, however, a driver should expect “to spend a short period of time answering questions and waiting while the officer checks his license and registration, that he may then be given a citation, but that in the end he most likely will be allowed to continue on his way.” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 437, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984); cf. Muehler, 544 U.S. at 101 (finding that because questioning of the defendant did not prolong the stop, no independent Fourth Amendment justification was needed for the questioning based upon the legitimacy of the initial stop). “[T]he permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual‘s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Prouse, 440 U.S. at 654. Mimms and its progeny permit the intrusion if the officer merely removes a defendant from his vehicle absent undue delay. The question, however, of where a de minimis intrusion ends and an undue delay begins is necessarily a fact-specific inquiry. See United States v. Everett, 601 F.3d 484, 493-94 (6th Cir.2010) (recognizing that “a fact-bound, context-dependent inquiry” must be conducted in each case to determine whether the duration of the stop was unreasonable). It is impossible to select “an arbitrary quantity of time and proclaim that any prolongation less than that amount is categorically ‘de minimis‘—as convenient as such a rule might be.” Everett, 601 F.3d at 493. A number of cases,8
Officer Baker‘s request to have the Defendant exit his vehicle could also have been impermissible if he had asked him to do so after the traffic stop had been concluded. As indicated in the order upholding its original order of suppression, the trial court observed that its “ruling would be different had Officer Baker made the request to exit the vehicle prior to returning the driver‘s license.” The record establishes that Officer Baker, the only witness at the hearing, testified that he had not, in fact, returned the driver‘s license before asking the Defendant to step outside the vehicle, and that upon further inquiry, the trial court confirmed the sequence of events as related by the officer, so stating in the initial order of suppression. In that regard, therefore, the evidence preponderates against the very finding upon which the trial court based its denial of the motion to reconsider. See State v. Brown, 294 S.W.3d 553, 561 (Tenn.2009). The Court of Criminal Appeals, when addressing the issue, described as “implicit” in the trial court‘s ruling that the testimony of the officer was not credible. Donaldson, 2011 WL 4340854, at *11. We do not find that to be the case. Neither the original order of suppression nor the order denying the State‘s motion to reconsider questions the credibility of the officer. As to the pivotal facts, the trial court made the following assessment in the order granting the motion to suppress:
Officer Baker wrote a citation for failure to stop and failure to use a[] turn signal and then returned to Defendant‘s vehicle. At that point, Officer Baker requested Defendant to step out of his vehicle so he could observe [his] demeanor and see if he had been drinking. Officer Baker testified he was planning to give Defendant the citation at that point, but when Defendant stepped out of the vehicle, Officer Baker observed a clear plastic bag containing white powder on the floorboard on the driver[‘]s side.
The trial court‘s recollection on the motion to reconsider that Officer Baker had testified that he had completed the citation ticket and returned the driver‘s license prior to the Defendant exiting the vehicle
Even if Officer Baker had returned the Defendant‘s driver‘s license prior to requesting that he exit the vehicle, however, the traffic stop would not have been concluded. Our courts have previously held that “[w]hen a police officer issues a traffic citation or warning and returns a driver‘s license and registration, a traffic stop ceases to be a seizure ... and becomes a consensual encounter....” State v. McCrary, 45 S.W.3d 36, 42 (Tenn.Crim.App.2000) (emphasis added).9 Under the facts as construed in either of the trial court‘s orders, both requirements had not been satisfied. The traffic stop, therefore, had not been completed at the time the Defendant was asked to step out of his vehicle.
In summary, we are unable to distinguish the facts in this case from those in Mimms. The balance of the competing interests favors the safety of the officer over the minimal intrusion to an individual directed to step outside of his vehicle after a valid traffic stop. This rationale not only applies under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution but also under article 1, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution.10 Similar to our holding in Vineyard that article 1, section 7 should be interpreted in the same manner as the comparable federal provision in Whren, our view is that the federal and state constitutional provisions apply coextensively to the circumstances we address today.
Conclusion
Because an officer making a valid traffic stop may, for reasons of safety, routinely order a defendant out of a vehicle and because the trial court erroneously concluded that the officer had concluded the stop by handing the Defendant his driver‘s license before removing him from the car, the order of suppression is reversed. The cause is, therefore, remanded to the trial court for trial. Costs are assessed against the Defendant and his surety, for which execution may issue if necessary.
GARY R. WADE
JUSTICE
Notes
Wayne R. LaFave, The “Routine Traffic Stop” from Start to Finish: Too Much “Routine,” Not Enough Fourth Amendment, 102 Mich. L. Rev. 1843, 1862 (2004).Given that police can easily come by a factual basis for a traffic stop, that such stops are often motivated by drug-enforcement purposes, and that there exists virtually no basis for questioning the initiation of such a stop because of its pretextual or arbitrary nature, it is apparent that the permissible dimensions of a lawful traffic stop are matters of some importance.