Case Title: BAILEY v. STATE

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2000-10-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
BAILEY v. STATE2000 WY 18912 P.3d 173Case Number: 99-268Decided: 10/12/2000Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
MINDY SUE BAILEY, 
Appellant (Defendant),v. THE STATE OF WYOMING, Appellee 
(Plaintiff).

Appeal from the District 
Court of Campbell County The Honorable Terrence O'Brien, 
Judge

Representing 
Appellant: Sylvia Lee Hackl, State 
Public Defender, and Donna D. Domonkos, Appellate Counsel. Argument by Ms. 
Domonkos.Representing Appellee: Gay Woodhouse, Wyoming Attorney 
General; Paul Rehurek, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior 
Assistant Attorney General; Georgia L. Tibbetts, Senior Assistant Attorney 
General; and Denise Timmermans, Student Intern. Argument by Ms. 
Timmermans.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, GOLDEN, HILL, and KITE, JJ.

HILL, 
Justice.

[¶1] Mindy Sue 
Bailey (Bailey) pleaded guilty to felony possession of a controlled substance in 
violation of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 35-7-1031(c)(ii) (LEXIS 1999)1 subject to appeal of the trial 
court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence seized from her vehicle after 
her arrest on an outstanding traffic warrant. We find that the trial court's 
decision denying Bailey's motion to suppress was correct under federal 
constitutional law. We also conclude that Bailey failed to preserve for 
consideration on appeal any claims under state law. We affirm the trial court's 
decision denying Bailey's motion to suppress.

[¶2] Bailey 
presents a single issue for our consideration:

Whether the district 
court erred when it denied Bailey's motion to suppress evidence found during a 
search incident to arrest when the search was neither necessary to protect the 
arresting officers nor to preserve evidence of a crime?

[¶3] The State 
reframes the issue slightly:

[¶4] Did the 
district court err in denying Appellant's motion to suppress the evidence seized 
during a search of her vehicle incident to her arrest?

FACTS

[¶5] On July 14, 
1998, Officer Spears of the Campbell County Sheriff's Department was on patrol 
when he received a report that a bail bondsman was attempting to detain someone. 
Officer Spears was informed by police dispatch that the bondsman was following 
Bailey on State Highway 59, and that there was an active Crook County, Wyoming, 
arrest warrant for her. The officer subsequently stopped Bailey on Interstate 
Highway 90.

[¶6] The vehicle 
Bailey was driving belonged to her employer and with her was a friend's young 
child. After being informed that she was under arrest for the outstanding 
warrant, the officer allowed Bailey to make telephone calls to arrange for 
someone to take care of the child. Bailey was also allowed to call her employer, 
who made arrangements to come out to the highway and retrieve the 
vehicle.

[¶7] After 
arresting Bailey on the outstanding warrant, the officer proceeded to search the 
cab of the vehicle, a Ford Ranger pick-up with an extended cab. The officer 
specifically limited his search to only those areas in the cab that had been 
within Bailey's reach. In the glove compartment, the officer found three 
syringes, one of which contained a liquid substance; a spoon; a leather or 
string tie; a wooden marijuana pipe; a black film container; and a prescription 
bottle with Bailey's name on it. Behind the driver's seat, the officer also 
discovered a tin that smelled of marijuana and another pipe. The film container 
and the prescription bottle contained a white powder later identified as 
methamphetamine. Likewise, the liquid in the syringe was also identified as 
methamphetamine.

[¶8] On July 15, 
1998, Bailey was charged with felony possession of 0.33 grams of methamphetamine 
in a liquid form and 2.30 grams of methamphetamine in a powder form, in 
violation of § 35-7-1031(c)(ii). Bailey filed a motion to suppress the evidence 
seized from the truck on the grounds that the search was illegal. After a 
hearing on the motion, the district court issued a decision letter denying the 
motion:

[¶9] It is 
abundantly clear that the search of Ms. Bailey's vehicle had nothing to do with 
officer safety. It also appears that the search was in no way necessitated to 
preserve evidence relating to the underlying offense for which the warrant was 
executed.

[¶10] 
Nevertheless, since Ms. Bailey was in custody pursuant to a valid arrest 
warrant, the officer was permitted to conduct a warrantless search of the 
passenger compartment of the vehicle and any containers therein without her 
consent. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (1981). While the rationale for 
Belton is officer safety and evidence preservation it does not appear that those 
factors are factual predicates to unconsented searches of the passenger 
compartment of a vehicle incident to an arrest of the driver. It seems that the 
United States Supreme Court intended to establish a "bright line rule" which 
permitted such searches without the requirement of a case by case justification. 
For that reason the Motion to Suppress must be denied and it is unnecessary to 
extend the inquiry in this case to the question of whether the arresting officer 
is entitled, under the evidence preservation rationale of Belton, to search for 
evidence of any crime or merely evidence relating to the crime for which the 
defendant was arrested.

[¶11] 
Subsequently, Bailey entered into a conditional guilty plea pursuant to 
W.R.Cr.P. 11(a)(2)2, reserving the right to challenge 
the denial of her motion to suppress. The district court accepted the plea, and 
the propriety of the ruling denying the motion to suppress is now before this 
Court.

STANDARD OF 
REVIEW

[¶12] When 
reviewing an order denying a motion to suppress evidence, the findings of the 
trial court regarding the motion to suppress are binding on this Court unless 
clearly erroneous. Neilson v. State, 599 P.2d 1326, 1330 (Wyo. 1979), cert. 
denied, 444 U.S. 1079, 100 S. Ct. 1031, 62 L. Ed. 2d 763 (1980). Whether an 
unreasonable search or seizure occurred in violation of constitutional rights 
presents a question of law and is reviewed de novo. Gronski v. State, 910 P.2d 561, 563 (Wyo. 1996).

Vasquez v. 
State, 990 P.2d 476 at 480 (Wyo. 1999).

DISCUSSION

Federal 
Analysis

[¶13] Bailey 
claims that the warrantless search of her vehicle was in contravention of the 
United States Constitution. Bailey's claim is predicated upon her belief that 
the United States Supreme Court in Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 S. Ct. 484 
(1998) held that warrantless searches of vehicles in those situations where 
concerns for officer safety and evidence preservation did not exist were not 
permissible, thus modifying the "bright line" rule established in New York v. 
Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S. Ct. 2860 (1981). Bailey argues that since the 
district court specifically concluded that neither scenario justified the search 
in this instance, the district court erred in denying her motion to 
suppress.

[¶14] In Belton, 
the United States Supreme Court held "that when a policeman has made a lawful 
custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous 
incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." 
453 U.S.  at 460, 101 S. Ct.  at 2864. The justification for allowing a warrantless 
search of an automobile and the containers found therein is based on 
considerations of preserving evidence of criminal conduct and the need to 
disclose the existence of weapons to ensure officer safety. 453 U.S.  at 461, 101 S. Ct.  at 2864. However, the Belton court noted that the actual existence of 
either consideration was not determinative of the validity of such a search 
since a lawful arrest in itself provided sufficient justification for the 
intrusion created by the search. Id. (quoting United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S. Ct. 467, 476 (1973)).

[¶15] In 
Knowles, the court was faced with an Iowa law that allowed an officer to issue a 
citation for a violation in lieu of making an arrest. 525 U.S.  at 114, 119 S. Ct. 
at 486-87. The law also provided that the officer's authority to effectuate a 
search of a vehicle was not diminished by his decision to issue a citation 
instead of making an arrest. Id. The court ruled that a police officer could not 
conduct a search without probable cause based solely on the issuance of a 
citation for a traffic violation even if the officer could have arrested the 
driver for the violation. 525 U.S.  at 118, 119 S. Ct.  at 488. As the court put 
it:

[¶16] In [United 
States v.] Robinson, [414 U.S. 218, 94 S. Ct. 467, (1973)], we held that the 
authority to conduct a full field search as incident to an arrest was a 
"bright-line rule," which was based on the concern for officer safety and 
destruction or loss of evidence, but which did not depend in every case upon the 
existence of either concern. Here we are asked to extend that "bright-line rule" 
to a situation where the concern for officer safety is not present to the same 
extent and the concern for destruction or loss of evidence is not present at 
all. We decline to do so.

[¶17] Clearly, 
the court's decision did not affect the continued vitality of the Belton 
decision; it simply refused to expand the parameters of Belton beyond custodial 
searches. See United States v. Dhinsa, 171 F.3d 721, 726 (2nd Cir. 1999) and 
Polke v. State, 528 S.E.2d 537, 540 (Ga. App. 2000).

[¶18] Hence, 
Bailey's reliance on Knowles is misplaced. Bailey was arrested pursuant to an 
outstanding warrant authorizing a search of the passenger compartment of her 
vehicle incident to that arrest under the Belton rule. Therefore, the district 
court did not err when it refused to suppress the evidence obtained from the 
search of her vehicle under federal law.

State 
Analysis

[¶19] Bailey 
argues that the search of her vehicle was illegal under the Wyoming Constitution 
pursuant to our recent decision in Vasquez. Relying on the district court's 
findings that officer safety or evidence preservation concerns were not present 
in this case, Bailey contends that the search was not reasonable under the 
circumstances. 990 P.2d  at 488.

[¶20] Initially, 
we must consider the State's argument that Bailey failed to raise a state 
constitutional issue below and, accordingly, should not be allowed to raise this 
claim for this first time on appeal. Under the circumstances of this case, we 
conclude that Bailey failed to raise the question of a Wyoming constitutional 
violation to a degree sufficient to preserve the issue for consideration on 
appeal.

[¶21] As noted 
by the State, we have consistently held that a guilty plea waives any appellate 
review of non-jurisdictional claims. See Smith v. State, 871 P.2d 186, 188 (Wyo. 
1994).

"`When a criminal 
defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact guilty of the 
offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent claims 
relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the 
entry of the guilty plea.'"

[¶22] Smith, 871 P.2d  at 188 (quoting Davila v. State, 831 P.2d 204, 206 (Wyo. 1992); Zanetti v. 
State, 783 P.2d 134, 138 (Wyo. 1989); and Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 
267, 93 S. Ct. 1602, 1608, 36 L. Ed. 2d 235 (1973)). An exception to this rule can 
be found in W.R.Cr.P. 11(a)(2), which allows a defendant to plead guilty while 
reserving the right to seek review on appeal of any specified pretrial motion. 
See footnote 2, supra.

[¶23] Bailey's 
motion to suppress fails to cite any cases, Wyoming or federal, in support of 
her position that the evidence found inside the truck was procured through an 
illegal search. At the suppression hearing, Bailey did raise the question of 
whether the search of her vehicle was valid under our decision in Brown v. 
State, 738 P.2d 1092 (Wyo. 1987). Brown, which involved the search of a house 
absent any probable cause of criminal activity or threats to officer safety, is 
inapplicable to the factual circumstances of this case. Although our decision in 
Brown was at least partly grounded in Article I, Section 4, of the Wyoming 
Constitution,

[¶24] Bailey's 
citation to a case that is clearly inapposite to the issues at hand in her case 
is insufficient to preserve a claim on appeal. In order to preserve an issue for 
consideration on appeal, a party must make some reasonable attempt to present a 
cogent argument. Elder v. Jones, 608 P.2d 654, 660 (Wyo. 1980) ("It is a basic 
premise of appellate practice that to preserve an issue for appeal, that issue 
must be called to the attention of the trial court in a clear manner."). 
Citations merely to "state law" without appropriate citations to legal authority 
or to irrelevant case law is not the way to make a proper, cogent legal 
argument. We will not consider non-jurisdictional issues on appeal unless they 
have been raised before the lower court with at least a minimum effort to 
present a cogent legal argument.

[¶25] Bailey 
counters that it was her intention when she entered into the conditional plea to 
preserve for appeal both federal and state law claims. Accordingly, Bailey 
insists that if we decline to consider her state law claim, then her guilty plea 
was neither knowing nor voluntary, and she should be allowed to withdraw it. We 
must disagree. Bailey cites to nothing in the record, nor can we find anything, 
which supports her claim that she intended to base her argument on state law. In 
fact, all of the evidence in the record supports the proposition that Bailey was 
relying exclusively on federal law in support of her position. As noted, 
Bailey's motion to suppress has no citations to any state law. After the 
suppression hearing, Bailey filed a Supplement to Motion to Suppress devoted 
exclusively to Knowles, with no mention of any state law. Furthermore, the 
district court's decision denying the motion to suppress was based solely on 
Belton. If Bailey had based her motion to suppress partially on state law 
considerations, then she should have requested an additional decision from the 
district court on that aspect of her argument. That Bailey did not make any such 
request and appealed to this Court instead is evidence that at that time she was 
not, in fact, raising a state law claim. A self-serving, after-the-fact 
statement on appeal as to what her intentions were below is insufficient to 
preserve an issue for consideration on appeal absent some independent evidence 
that a claim was actually raised.

[¶26] Even if we 
were to conclude that Bailey had adequately raised this issue below, it still is 
not clear that we would get to the merits of her claim. Although neither party 
raised the issue in their briefs or during oral argument, our consideration of 
this case raises the question of whether our decision in Vasquez should be 
applied retrospectively. In other words, should the holding of Vasquez apply to 
searches conducted prior to the issuance of that decision?

[¶27] The search 
at issue in this case was conducted on July 14, 1998, and the decision in 
Vasquez was issued on November 16, 1999. Our law on the retrospective 
application of our decisions is well established:

[¶28] We have 
adopted the principles set forth in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1199 (1967)3, to decide whether a defendant 
should receive the benefit of retroactive application of a decision. Engberg [v. 
Meyer, 820 P.2d 70, 76 (Wyo. 1991)]; Ostwald v. State, 538 P.2d 1298 (Wyo. 
1975). Under the Stovall standard, we consider the purpose to be served by the 
new rule; the extent of reliance by law enforcement authorities on the earlier 
rule; and the effect on the administration of justice of a retrospective 
application of the new standard. Stovall. See also, Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S. Ct. 1731, 14 L. Ed. 2d 601 (1965).

[¶29] Farbotnik 
v. State, 850 P.2d 594, 601 (Wyo. 1993); see also, People v. Sexton, 580 N.W.2d 404, 411-12 (Mich. 1998); People v. Mitchell, 606 N.E.2d 1381, 1385 (N.Y. 1992); 
and Cooper v. State, 889 P.2d 293, 308-09 (Okla. Cr. 
1995).

[¶30] In this 
case, a major consideration of ours would have to be the extent of reliance by 
law enforcement authorities on the status of the law prior to the Vasquez 
decision. Until that decision was issued, searches and seizures were reviewed 
under the standards enunciated by the United States Supreme Court. As we noted 
earlier in this opinion, the officer's search of Bailey's vehicle was well 
within the permissible boundaries established by that court in Belton and its 
progeny. There is nothing in the record to suggest that the officer did not act 
in good faith. Indeed, the officer specifically limited the area of his search 
of the vehicle when a greater, more intrusive search may have been justified 
under Belton. Given the amount of reliance by law enforcement personnel on our 
decisions relating to the scope of a valid search or seizure, the effect of a 
retrospective application of the Vasquez rule would be profound. Such a 
retrospective application could threaten the stability that law enforcement 
expects and needs from the rules set forth by this Court governing officer 
conduct vis-a-vis the constitutional rights of suspects in order to operate 
effectively. Thus, while we do not specifically hold that Vasquez will not apply 
retrospectively, we do point out the serious concerns that would have to be 
addressed by one advocating such a position.

CONCLUSION

[¶31] Pursuant 
to Belton, the search of Bailey's truck was a valid search incident to a legal 
arrest. Bailey failed to preserve for consideration on appeal any claim under 
state law as to the appropriateness of the search since she did not present any 
cogent argument on the claim to the district court. The district court's 
decision denying Bailey's motion to suppress is affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 Wyo. Stat. 
Ann. § 35-7-1031(c)(ii) provides:

35-7-1031. Unlawful manufacture or delivery; counterfeit substance; 
unlawful possession.

. . 
. .

(c) 
It is unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess a controlled 
substance unless the substance was obtained directly from, or pursuant to a 
valid prescription or order of a practitioner while acting in the course of his 
professional practice, or except as otherwise authorized by this act. Any person 
who violates this subsection:

. . 
. . (ii) And has in his possession methamphetamine or a controlled substance 
classified in Schedule I or II which is a narcotic drug in an amount greater 
than those set forth in paragraph (c)(i) of this section, is guilty of a felony 
punishable by imprisonment for not more than seven (7) years, a fine of not more 
than fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00), or 
both[.]

2 W.R.Cr.P. 
11(a)(2) provides:

Rule 11. Pleas.

(a) 
Alternatives.

. . 
. .

(2) 
Conditional Pleas. - With the approval of the court and the consent of the 
attorney for the state, a defendant may enter a conditional plea of guilty or 
nolo contendere, reserving in writing the right, on appeal from the judgment, to 
seek review of the adverse determination of any specified pretrial motion. A 
defendant who prevails on appeal shall be allowed to withdraw the 
plea.

3 The United 
States Supreme Court has effectively overruled Stovall. See Farbotnik, 850 P.2d 594, 601-02 (Wyo. 1993); see also Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S. Ct. 708 (1987). We have acknowledged the effect of Griffith; however, we have 
specifically indicated that we will continue to adhere to the standard set forth 
in Stovall. Farbotnik, 850 P.2d  at 601-02.