Case Title: Vermont v. Lamonda

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2010-209

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2011-09-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
State v. Lamonda (2010-209)
 
2011 VT 101
 
[Filed 08-Sep-2011]
 
ENTRY ORDER
 
2011 VT 101
 
SUPREME COURT
  DOCKET NO. 2010-209
 
MAY TERM, 2011
 
State of Vermont
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APPEALED FROM:
 
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     v.
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District Court of Vermont, 
 
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Unit No. 2, Addison Circuit
 
}
 
Tina Marie Lamonda
}
DOCKET NO. 591-11-09
  Ancr
 
 
 
 
 
Trial Judge: Cortland Corsones
 
In the above-entitled
cause, the Clerk will enter:
 
¶ 1.            
Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of possession
of a narcotic drug in violation of 18 V.S.A. § 4234(a)(1). 
She challenges the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress and
dismiss.  We affirm.
¶ 2.            
Defendant was charged with one count of possession of a narcotic drug
and one count of possession of marijuana following a traffic stop.  She
moved to suppress the evidence against her, arguing that there were no exigent
circumstances to justify the warrantless search of her purse.  Following a
hearing, the court denied the motion.  
¶ 3.            
The court found as follows.  Defendant was stopped in October 2009
after a state trooper observed her driving under the speed limit and the
trooper determined that the license of the registered owner of the vehicle was
under suspension.  The trooper noticed that defendant seemed impaired, and
defendant admitted to smoking marijuana earlier in the day.  Believing
there might be marijuana in defendant's vehicle, the trooper asked defendant if
there was anything in the truck.  Defendant replied that there might be a
"roach."  
¶ 4.            
The trooper asked permission to search the vehicle, and defendant
understood that the request was to search for marijuana.  Defendant said
that she would rather not give permission.  The trooper advised then that
he had probable cause to search the vehicle, but he would need to apply for a
warrant.  At that point, defendant gave the trooper permission to search
the vehicle.
¶ 5.            
The trooper saw defendant's purse in the front seat.  It was open,
and he could see a zipped-shut, opaque, purple bag inside, which he believed
was a "pipe" bag.  He asked defendant if she had a pipe in it, and she
said no.  The trooper opened the bag and found no pipe.  The trooper
continued searching defendant's purse.  He found marijuana inside a closed
tin within the purse.  The trooper also found three or four other closed
bags in defendant's purse that contained prescription medicine.  Defendant
did not give the trooper specific permission to search her purse or the
containers therein, nor did the trooper make such a request.  
¶ 6.            
As noted above, defendant argued suppression was required because she
did not give the trooper permission to search her purse and there were no
exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless search.  The State argued
that defendant's consent to search the truck extended to her purse, which was
in the passenger compartment.  Both parties relied on State v. Savva, 159 Vt. 75, 616 A.2d 774 (1991), which the court
found inapposite.  In Savva, this Court
considered whether the search of an automobile was justified under the "exigent
circumstances" exception to the warrant rule under the Vermont Constitution,
and held that the mobility of a motor vehicle was not a per se exigent
circumstance.  Id. at 91, 616 A.2d  at 783. 
The defendant in Savva had not consented to
the search of his car, so the trial court thus found Savva
to offer little guidance.  
¶ 7.            
Instead, the court relied on Florida v. Jimeno,
500 U.S. 248 (1991), a case with analogous facts.  In Jimeno,
the United States Supreme Court held that the search of a closed container in a
vehicle did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
where the defendant consented to a general search of his vehicle.  As in
this case, a police officer stopped the defendant in Jimeno
for a traffic violation.  The officer had reason to believe that the
defendant was involved in drug trafficking, a fact that the officer relayed to
the defendant before asking his permission to search the vehicle.  The
defendant declared that he had nothing to hide, and consented to a search
without voicing any limitations.  The officer found drugs in a folded,
brown paper bag on the floorboard of the car.  
¶ 8.            
On appeal, the defendant argued that his consent to search the car did
not extend to the closed paper bag inside the car.  The Supreme Court
concluded otherwise.  "The scope of a search is generally defined by its
expressed object," the Court explained.  Id. at
251.  Here, the officer informed the defendant that he would be
looking for narcotics in the car, and the defendant
granted the officer permission to search his car without limitation.  The
Court found it objectively reasonable for the police to conclude that where the
object of the search was drugs, the defendant's "general consent to search
[his] car included consent to search containers within that car that might bear
drugs."  Id.  Certainly, "[a] reasonable person may be
expected to know that narcotics are generally carried in some form of a
container," and that such contraband is rarely "strewn across the truck or
floor of a car."  Id. (citation omitted).  In reaching its
conclusion, the Court rejected the argument that the police were required to
separately request permission to search each closed container within the
car.  It found no basis for adding this sort of superstructure to the
Fourth Amendment's basic test of objective reasonableness.  Although a
suspect is free to limit the scope of a consented-to search, the Court
explained, in cases where "his consent would reasonably be understood to extend
to a particular container, the Fourth Amendment provides no grounds for
requiring a more explicit authorization."  Id. at
252.  
¶ 9.            
Based on Jimeno, and other related
cases, the trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress.  It
explained that, as in Jimeno, defendant
granted a general request to search her vehicle.  She understood that the
purpose of the search was to look for illegal drugs, specifically
marijuana.  The search of defendant's purse, including the tin container
and the pouches located therein, was reasonable under the circumstancesthese
were all places that a person might be reasonably expected to keep illegal
drugs.  To hold otherwise, the court reasoned, would put the police in the
difficult position of having to seek separate permission to search almost
everywhere in the vehicle where drugs could be found.  In reaching its
conclusion, the court recognized that this Court has found that Article 11 of
the Vermont Constitution provides greater protections for personal liberty than
does the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The court
was satisfied, however, that its approachnarrowly construing a defendant's
consent to searchproperly struck a balance between liberty for the individual
and crime detection.  The court thus denied defendant's motion to suppress
and dismiss.  Defendant entered into a plea agreement, reserving her right
to challenge the court's ruling.  This appeal followed.  
¶ 10.         On review of the
trial court's resolution of a motion to suppress, we accept the trial court's
findings of fact unless clearly erroneous, and we review de novo the question
of whether the facts as found meet the relevant legal standard.  State
v. Simoneau, 2003 VT 83, ¶ 14, 176 Vt. 15, 833 A.2d 1280.  Defendant does not challenge any of the
court's factual findings, and she concedes on appeal that the trial court "may
have been correct" in determining that the search was lawful under the Fourth
Amendment.  Defendant argues instead that the trooper's actions were
unlawful under Chapter I, Article 11, of the Vermont Constitution. 
Defendant focuses on cases involving warrantless searches and asserts that
there were no exigent circumstances to justify the search here.  She
maintains that she had an expectation of privacy in the contents of her purse
and the trooper was obligated to obtain a warrant before searching it. 
¶ 11.         This argument is
unpersuasive.  As the trial court found, this case does not involve the
exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement, and the cases cited
by defendant are inapposite.  Article 11, like the
Fourth Amendment, "prohibits only unreasonable' searches and seizures."
 Savva, 159 Vt. at 88, 616 A.2d  at 781;
see also Jimeno, 500 U.S.  at 250 (recognizing
that Fourth Amendment proscribes only those state-initiated searches and seizures
that are unreasonable).  Defendant consented to the search here, and
courts "have long approved consensual searches because it is no doubt
reasonable for the police to conduct a search once they have been permitted to
do so."  Jimeno, 500 U.S.  at 250-51. 
Given defendant's consent, the State was not required to show exigent
circumstances or to obtain a warrant.  See, e.g., State v. Neese, 691 S.E.2d 883, 885 (Ga. Ct. App. 2010) ("A
valid consent to search eliminates the need for either probable cause or a
search warrant."); State v. Sargent, 2009 ME
125, ¶ 10, 984 A.2d 831 ("Exceptions to the warrant requirement, including
those based on consent, are construed narrowly, and the requirement of a
warrant is waived only to the extent granted by the defendant in his consent."
(quotations and alteration omitted)).  
¶ 12.         We need not go
beyond defendant's "exigent circumstances" argument because no other Article 11
challenge was presented and preserved.  See State v. Brillon, 2010 VT 25, ¶ 6, 187 Vt. 444, 995 A.2d 557 ("Merely citing the Vermont Constitution, without providing any analysis of
how the state constitutional provision compares with its federal analog, does
not adequately present the issue for our review, especially where the argument was
not presented in the trial court.").  Defendant did not argue below that
Article 11 calls for more particularized consent than that required under the
Fourth Amendment or that Article 11 requires some different analysis of
consent.  She did not provide any "substantive analysis of the Vermont
Constitution" or "set forth any rationale as to how our analysis of this
constitutional claim should differ under the Vermont Constitution in comparison
with the federal constitution."  Id.  (quotation
omitted).  Defendant therefore waived any further review under Article 11
and, so far as contested, we find no error in the trial court's ruling.
 Affirmed.
 
¶ 13.         JOHNSON, J., dissenting.   While I agree that defendant's
briefing below was barely adequate, the fact remains that the trial court here
understood defendant to be arguing for a more protective scope-of-consent
standard under Article 11 than under the Fourth Amendment.  Indeed, the
trial court not only acknowledged the argument but rejected it on policy
grounds, concluding that it would place police officers in the "very difficult
position of having to seek separate permission" to search containers within
vehicles if more than a general consent were required.  Contrary to the
majority, therefore, I would find that the scope-of-consent issue was
adequately preserved for appellate review.  Furthermore, as explained
below, I would hold that this Court's Article 11 jurisprudence compels adoption
of the more stringent standard advocated by defendant.
¶ 14.         The facts are
plain.  Although initially reluctant, defendant ultimately consented to a
search of her vehicle but did not, as the majority concedes, "give the trooper
specific permission to search her purse or the container therein, nor did the
trooper make such a request."  Ante, ¶ 5.  
The trial court nevertheless upheld the search under the Fourth Amendment
scope-of-consent standard articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Florida
v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248 (1991), and further found
that greater protection was not required under Article 11 of the Vermont
Constitution because the federal standard strikes the proper balance between
the interest in "individual privacy . . . and the convenience of crime
detection."  
¶ 15.         Under Jimeno, the question "is whether it is reasonable
for an officer to consider a suspect's general consent to a search of his car
to include consent to examine" containers within the car, and in resolving this
question the Court instructed that "[t]he scope of a search is generally
defined by its expressed object."  Id. at 251. 
The high court thus reasoned that, since the officer there had informed the
defendant that he was suspected of carrying narcotics, "it was objectively
reasonable for the police to conclude that the general consent to search [the]
car included consent to search containers within that car which might bear
drugs.  A reasonable person may be expected to know that narcotics are
generally carried in some form of a container."  Id..                

¶ 16.         Even a cursory
analysis of the Court's reasoning suggests that it raises far more questions
than it answers.  How does one determine, for example, what a "reasonable
person would be expected to know" with respect to hiding drugs?  Drugs are
often depicted in popular culture as being smuggled inside car wheels, gas
tanks, rocker panels, and other areas deep within a motor vehicle.  Does
this suggest that a general consent to search authorizes the police to
literally tear a car apart looking for drugs?  Alternatively, if the
officer fails to mention drugs, does that limit the scope of the search?  Would the scope differ if the officer mentioned some other
contraband such as stolen jewels or counterfeit money, and how precisely? 

¶ 17.         Apart from these
uncertainties, the Jimeno Court failed to
explain why the "reasonableness" of a search should be measured from the
officer's perspective rather than the suspect's, i.e., what would a reasonable
person in the suspect's circumstances have intended to convey when he or she
gave a general consent to the search of his or her car?  As Justice
Marshall, dissenting in Jimeno, observed, in
most cases a suspect's general consent to the search of his or her car will be
"ambiguous with respect to containers found inside the car."  Id. at 254.  Thus, like all warrantless-search
exceptions, it would seem more fair to place the
burden on the police to clarify that the suspect consented to a search of
containers rather than on the suspect to show that he or she intended to
withhold consent.  As Justice Marshall explained, this can easily be
accomplished simply by requiring "that a police officer who wishes to search a
suspicious container found during a consensual automobile search obtain
additional consent to search the container.  If the driver intended to
authorize search of the container he will say so.  If not, then he will
say no."  Id.  This bright-line approach has the added
advantage of avoiding questionable inferences based on what sort of contraband
the officer might have mentioned in passing or what the officer could
reasonably assume the suspect understood about likely hiding
places.       
¶ 18.         The only
countervailing argument to this alternative approach is that, as the trial
court here noted, it would make it more "difficult" for officers to seek a
separate permission to search containers within the vehicle.  I find it
difficult, however, to understand how the inconvenience of asking a citizen for
consent to search a container outweighs the interest in assuring that the
consent was real and not the result of confusion as to the meaning of a general
consent.  See State v. Savva, 159 Vt. 75,
86, 616 A.2d 774, 780 (1991) (noting that constitutional principle cannot "be
sacrificed for the sake of law enforcement convenience").  It is simply a
matter, as Justice Marshall explained, of giving an individual who genuinely
"did not mean to authorize such additional searching . . . [the] opportunity to
say no."  Jimeno, 500 U.S.  at 256.  
¶ 19.         We in Vermont
have long recognized "a separate and higher expectation of privacy for
containers used to transport personal possessions than for objects exposed to
plain view within an automobile's interior."  Savva,
159 Vt. at 88, 616 A.2d  at 781.  In light of that
heightened expectation, it is unreasonable to construe an individual's general
consent to the search of his or her vehicle as extending to containers within
the vehicle.  We need not, and should not, follow the United States
Supreme Court in finding a fictitious consent by citizens who could not
anticipate that their cooperation with law enforcement would result in open
season on their purses, backpacks, wallets, and other personal
containers.  Accordingly, I would grant defendant's motion to suppress
under Article 11. 
¶ 20.         I am authorized
to state that Justice Skoglund joins in this
dissent.                             

 
Dissenting:
BY THE COURT:
 
 
 
 
______________________________________
 
Denise R. Johnson
Paul L. Reiber,
  Chief Justice
 
 
______________________________________
  
 
Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice
John A. Dooley, Associate
  Justice
 
 
 
 
 
Brian L. Burgess, Associate
  Justice