Case Title: Guilfoil v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 740, 2009

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2010-09-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
DALE GUILFOIL, 
§ 
 
 
§ 
No. 740, 2009 
 
Defendant Below- 
§ 
 
Appellant, 
§ 
Court Below:  Superior Court 
 
 
§ 
of the State of Delaware in and 
v. 
 
§ 
for New Castle County 
 
 
§ 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
§ 
ID No. 0906008900 
 
 
§ 
 
 
Plaintiff Below- 
§ 
 
Appellee. 
§ 
 
Submitted:  June 14, 2010 
   Decided:  September 7, 2010 
 
 
Before HOLLAND, BERGER, and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
This 7th day of September 2010, it appears to the Court that:  
(1) 
Defendant-below Dale Guilfoil appeals from his conviction by the 
Superior Court of driving under the influence of alcohol.  He contends that the 
Superior Court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence because it relied 
on after-acquired facts to justify the stop of his vehicle and because the police 
lacked reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity at the time of the stop.  
Although after-acquired facts cannot be used to justify a stop, the facts known 
prior to the stop in this case provided a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal 
activity.  Accordingly, we affirm.    
 2
(2) 
At approximately 12:13 a.m. on June 11, 2009, the State Police 
received a call from an unidentified employee of the Super G supermarket in Bear, 
Delaware who reported that a white male and female shopper suspected of being 
under the influence of alcohol and were hitting their child.  The informant’s tip was 
not recorded, nor did the informant testify at trial.  Corporal Susan Lowman of the 
Delaware 
State 
Police 
was 
dispatched 
and 
received 
continuous 
and 
contemporaneous updates from the informant over the radio while on the way to 
the scene.  Specifically, the informant relayed that the couple exited the store, 
entered a green Subaru Forrester with the child unsecured in the back seat, and 
proceeded towards the exit of the parking lot.  The informant also provided 
Corporal Lowman the license plate number of the vehicle.   
(3) 
When Corporal Lowman arrived on the scene, she encountered a 
white male and female who were driving a green station wagon towards the exit of 
the supermarket’s parking lot.  She activated her emergency lights and parked her 
patrol car to block their exit.  At the time of the stop, Corporal Lowman could not 
see if there was a child in the back or the vehicle’s license plate number.  After she 
stopped the Subaru, she immediately confirmed that a child was unrestrained in the 
backseat of the car.  Corporal Lowman conducted field sobriety tests and a 
portable breath test in the parking lot.  Guilfoil, the driver of the stopped vehicle, 
was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.    
 3
(4) 
Guilfoil filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of 
the stop.  At the suppression hearing the Superior Court denied the motion.  The 
trial judge explained: 
Taking the largely undisputed record into account, the [c]ourt is 
satisfied that the police generally, and in particular the arresting 
officer, had a reasonable, articulable suspicion about the car that the 
officer stopped, sufficient to justify the brief interference with the 
driver’s freedom to leave the supermarket’s parking lot after midnight 
on the day in question. 
The officer was looking for a particular make and model of a 
car in that parking lot.  The officer had reason to believe that the 
occupants of the car had been hitting a child while intoxicated and, 
significantly, that the car was in motion with the child not being 
restrained.  Regardless of whether it was a private parking lot or not, it 
was totally reasonable for the police officer to stop a car driving with 
an unrestrained child to speak to the driver of the car about the 
hazards of that sort of behavior. 
The [c]ourt is satisfied that the officer was not obligated to let 
the car pass and head out, in effect, onto the open road so that the 
officer could check the license plate from behind.  The [c]ourt is 
satisfied that the officer was reasonable in stopping the car before it 
got by her so that she could then take the limited steps that she took to 
see if she had the car that was referred to in the broadcast to which she 
was responding. 
And the [c]ourt emphasizes again, this is after midnight in a 
supermarket parking lot.  It is not, as Defense has argued, the idea that 
the police were going to stop every car or stop every car matching a 
particular description.  They had one car coming out of a supermarket 
parking lot very late at night matching the description.  The officer 
stopped the car just long enough to walk up to it and see that there 
was an unrestrained child, that this was the car in question, that there 
was a violation or at least a sufficiently unsafe practice that some 
interaction between the police and the driver was appropriate. 
Taking all of that into account, the [c]ourt is satisfied that the 
officer’s actions that have been called into question were entirely 
reasonable and appropriate for the safety of the child, the public, and 
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indirectly, as it turns out, the safety of the driver himself, although the 
last finding is somewhat unnecessary for the purposes of justifying the 
stop. 
(5) 
At a non-jury trial, Guilfoil was convicted of driving under the 
influence and the state nolle prossed all remaining charges.1  Guilfoil was 
sentenced to three years at Level 5; suspended after two years, for Level 4 
supervision.  This appeal followed.   
(6) 
In Lopez-Vazquez v. State2 we explained our standard of review on the 
grant or denial of a motion to suppress.  “We review the grant or denial of a motion 
to suppress for an abuse of discretion.  To the extent that we examine the trial 
judge’s legal conclusions, we review the trial judge’s determinations de novo for 
errors in formulating or applying legal precepts.  To the extent the trial judge’s 
decision is based on factual findings, we review for whether the trial judge abused 
his or her discretion in determining whether there was sufficient evidence to 
support the findings and whether those findings were clearly erroneous.  Where as 
here, we are reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence based on an 
allegedly illegal stop and seizure, we conduct a de novo review to determine 
                                          
 
1 The remaining charges were driving with a suspended or revoked license, failure to have a 
registration card, and failure to have insurance identification in possession while driving.  
2 956 A.2d 1280 (Del. 2008). 
 5
whether the totality of the circumstances, in light of the trial judge’s factual 
findings, support a reasonable and articulable suspicion for the stop.”3 
 (7) 
The Fourth Amendment4 and the Delaware Constitution5 reserve the 
right for individuals to be free from unreasonable search and seizures.  Under 
Terry v. Ohio,6 a police officer is permitted to conduct a brief investigatory seizure 
of a person if there is “reasonable articulable suspicion that criminal activity is 
afoot.”7  A seizure has occurred when an officer makes a “show of official 
authority” that would “have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not 
at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.”8  There is no 
dispute that in this case Guilfoil was seized when Corporal Lowman parked her car 
blocking their exit with her police cruiser’s emergency lights activated.   
(8) 
If an officer does not observe any violations prior to the stop, this 
Court “must decide whether the tip contained sufficient indicia of reliability to 
support a stop on the basis of the tip alone.”9  In Florida v. J.L. the United States 
Supreme Court held that a tip regarding “a young black male standing at a 
                                          
 
3 Id. at 1284 (citations omitted). 
4 U.S. Const. amend. IV. 
5 Del. Const. art. I, § 6. 
6 392 U.S. 1 (1968). 
7 Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000). 
8 Jones v. State, 745 A.2d 856, 862 (Del. 1999) (quoting Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 
569 (1988)). 
9 Bloomingdale v. State, 842 A.2d 1212, 1219 (Del. 2004). 
 6
particular bus stop and wearing a plaid shirt was carrying a gun” was not enough to 
be reasonable articulable suspicion.10  A tip must “be reliable in its assertion of 
illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.”11  In Jones v. 
State, this Court held that observing a defendant acting “suspicious” in a high 
crime area while wearing the same color coat as the subject of a tip was not 
reasonable articulable suspicion.12  Unlike Jones, unsafe driving was readily 
observed in this case by the informant and relayed to the officer.    
(9) 
Guilfoil argues that the Superior Court erroneously relied on after-
acquired facts.  The Superior Court stated “[t]he [c]ourt is using what happened 
immediately after the stop to bring into sharper relief the reason why there was the 
stop in the first place.”  We agree with Guilfoil that this was error.  A court cannot 
rely upon information obtained after the stop to justify the stop.13  But in this case 
there was reasonable articulable suspicion to stop the vehicle based upon the 
information known prior to the stop.  The facts are similar to Bloomingdale v. 
State,14 where this Court relied on a Vermont case, State v. Boyea,15 to determine 
whether the totality of the circumstances established reasonable articulable 
suspicion.  In Boyea, the police received an anonymous tip that a blue-purple Jetta 
                                          
 
10 Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 272 (2000). 
11 Id. at 268 
12 Jones, 745 A.2d at 871. 
13 Flonnery v. State, 805 A.2d 854, 859 (Del. 2001). 
14 842 A.2d 1212. 
15 765 A.2d 862 (Vt. 2000). 
 7
was driving erratically on I-89 between exits 10 and 11.16  There, the police officer 
followed the vehicle for over a mile without observing any erratic behavior before 
stopping the vehicle.17  After she was stopped, the officer observed behavior that 
indicated the driver was intoxicated and she was arrested.18  Based on Boyea, this 
Court determined in Bloomingdale that a tip about readily observable criminal 
activity is more reliable than one concerning concealed criminal activity such as 
the facts of J.L. or Jones.19  This Court held:  
An officer therefore should be permitted to give greater credence to an 
anonymous report of unsafe driving when it is supported by: (a) the 
precise description of the vehicle; and (b) the officer's corroboration 
of the descriptive features of the vehicle and the location of its travel 
in close temporal proximity to when the report was made.20 
 
(10) The informant, an employee of Super G, provided the make, model, 
color, and license plate number of the vehicle.  Corporal Lowman noticed the color 
and type of the car driving towards the exit of the parking lot leading to Route 40. 
The car was occupied by a white male and female, in accordance with the 
informant’s description.  The tip occurred within a close temporal proximity, as the 
informant relayed Guilfoil’s actions and had not exited the parking lot when 
                                          
 
16 Id. at 863. 
17 Id.  
18 Id.  
19 Bloomingdale, 842 A.2d at 1220.  
20 Id. at 1221. 
 8
Corporal Lowman arrived on the scene.  Further, Corporal Lowman testified that it 
only took a few minutes for her to reach the Super G.   
 
(11) In Bloomingdale, the minimal intrusion for a motor vehicle stop was 
balanced against the “great risk of harm” in erratic driving cases.  Ultimately, this 
Court held that the immediate stop without further corroboration was reasonable 
under the circumstances.21  There, after the stop, the officer observed alcohol 
containers, smelled alcohol and the defendant admitted to drinking which was 
supported by the results of sobriety tests.22  Here, the stop was reasonable because 
stopping the car before leaving the parking lot was minimally intrusive when 
balanced against the potential harm of a child traveling unsecured in the back seat 
of a car driven by an intoxicated individual.  The stop occurred in a supermarket 
parking lot at midnight, where the vehicle was leaving the parking lot as the 
informant continuously and contemporaneously relayed the information to 
Corporal Lowman, with a detailed description of the vehicle and its occupants 
established the reliability of the tip.  Although Corporal Lowman did not observe 
any illegal or suspicious activity that standing alone would have warranted a stop, 
the tip as corroborated by the officer’s timely observations before the stop 
established a reasonable and articulable suspicion of unsafe driving.     
                                          
 
21 Id. at 1221-22. 
22 Id. at 1222. 
 9
 
(12) Based upon the totality of the circumstances, there was a reasonable 
and articulable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the stop of Guilfoil’s 
vehicle.  Accordingly, the Superior Court did not err in denying his motion to 
suppress. 
 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Henry duPont Ridgely 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice