Title: State v. Lee

State: louisiana

Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court

Document:

#27984-r-GAS  
2017 S.D. 28 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT 
OF THE 
STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA 
 
* * * * 
STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA, 
Plaintiff and Appellant,  
 
 
 
 
v. 
 
ASHLEY LEE, 
Defendant and Appellee. 
 
 
 
 
* * * * 
 
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF 
THE SEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT 
PENNINGTON COUNTY, SOUTH DAKOTA 
 
* * * * 
 
THE HONORABLE WALLY EKLUND 
Retired Judge 
 
* * * * 
 
MARTY J. JACKLEY 
Attorney General 
 
GRANT FLYNN 
Assistant Attorney General 
Pierre, South Dakota 
Attorneys for plaintiff and 
appellant. 
 
 
JOANNA LAWLER 
Pennington County Public 
  Defender’s Office 
Rapid City, South Dakota 
Attorneys for defendant and 
appellee. 
 
* * * *  
 
 
CONSIDERED ON BRIEFS  
ON APRIL 24, 2017  
 
OPINION FILED 05/17/17 
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SEVERSON, Justice 
[¶1.]  
An asset protection associate at a Walmart placed Ashley Lee under 
citizen’s arrest for theft.  The associate contacted law enforcement, who took Lee 
into custody and searched her purse, finding a pipe with methamphetamine 
residue.  Lee moved to suppress all evidence from the search, alleging that law 
enforcement had no authority to arrest her and thus the search was illegal.  The 
circuit court agreed with Lee and suppressed all evidence obtained from the search.  
On intermediate appeal, the State alleges that the search was a proper search 
incident to an arrest.  We reverse the circuit court’s order granting Lee’s motion to 
suppress evidence. 
Background 
[¶2.]  
On May 16, 2015, Lee was shopping at a Walmart in Rapid City when 
an asset protection associate, Aaron Miller, noticed her concealing items in her 
purse.  She paid for other items at the store, but failed to pay for those that she had 
placed in her purse.  After she passed all points of sale, Miller apprehended her.  He 
recovered the items stolen (totaling a value of $36.63), reported the incident to the 
police, and detained her until an officer arrived.  Miller described the incident in a 
“Citizen’s Arrest Report.”  Officer Duane Baker with the Rapid City Police 
Department responded to the report of the theft.  He performed a warrantless 
search of her purse and found a glass pipe.  Residue on the pipe tested positive for 
methamphetamine. 
[¶3.]  
A complaint was filed on May 20, 2015, charging Lee with petty theft 
and possession of a controlled substance.  On July 8, 2015, she was charged by an 
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information with possession of a controlled substance.  A part II information alleged 
that she was convicted of two felonies in 2014.  Lee moved to suppress the evidence 
obtained as a result of the search, claiming that law enforcement arrested her 
without a warrant for a Class 2 misdemeanor committed outside an officer’s 
presence, in violation of SDCL 23A-3-2.  Therefore, according to Lee, there was no 
authority to search her incident to an arrest.   
[¶4.]  
On July 28, 2016, the circuit court filed findings of fact and conclusions 
of law directing suppression of the evidence.  It concluded that a citizen’s arrest 
“merely permits detention of a suspect until he [or she] may be taken before a 
magistrate or delivered to the nearest available law enforcement officer.  A citizen’s 
arrest does not entitle a police officer to make a custodial arrest when he otherwise 
would not have that authority.”  The State asserts that the circuit court erred and 
that law enforcement may validly search, without a warrant, a person incident to a 
citizen’s arrest. 
Analysis 
[¶5.]  
“A motion to suppress for an alleged violation of a constitutionally 
protected right raises a question of law, requiring de novo review.”  State v. Hess, 
2004 S.D. 60, ¶ 9, 680 N.W.2d 314, 319 (quoting State v. Herrmann, 2002 S.D. 119, 
¶ 9, 652 N.W.2d 725, 728).  Pursuant to SDCL 23A-3-3,   
Any person may arrest another: 
 
(1) For a public offense, other than a petty offense, committed or 
attempted in his presence; or 
 
(2) For a felony which has been in fact committed although not 
in his presence, if he has probable cause to believe the person 
to be arrested committed it. 
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Similarly, law enforcement may arrest citizens without a warrant pursuant to 
SDCL 23A-3-2, which provides: 
A law enforcement officer may, without a warrant, arrest a 
person: 
 
(1) For a public offense, other than a petty offense, committed or 
attempted in his presence; or 
 
(2) Upon probable cause that a felony or Class 1 misdemeanor 
has been committed and the person arrested committed it, 
although not in the officer’s presence. 
 
Lee concedes that she is not challenging the validity of her citizen’s arrest under 
SDCL 23A-3-3.1  There is also no dispute that petty theft is a Class 2 misdemeanor; 
that the theft occurred outside Officer Baker’s presence; and therefore Officer Baker 
did not have authority under SDCL 23A-3-2 to arrest Lee.  The only issue is Officer 
Baker’s authority to take Lee into custody after she had been placed under citizen’s 
arrest by the Walmart associate and to perform a search of her incident to the 
citizen’s arrest.  See State v. Bonrud, 393 N.W.2d 785, 787 (S.D. 1986) (explaining 
warrantless searches are unconstitutional unless the search falls within a 
recognized exception to the general rule requiring a search warrant); State v. 
Smith, 2014 S.D. 50, ¶ 15, 851 N.W.2d 719, 724 (“Search incident to lawful arrest is 
one of the well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement.”).   
[¶6.]  
We have previously upheld a search of a defendant by a sheriff after 
the defendant was placed under citizen’s arrest.  In State v. Bonrud, two men stole 
                                            
1. 
The State notes that petty theft is not a petty offense based on our case law.  
See State v. Lundeman, 2010 S.D. 9, ¶ 21, 778 N.W.2d 618, 624 (“Generally, 
if the defendant is subject to jail time . . . an offense is not petty[.]”)   
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a money box from a person “distributing religious pamphlets and putting any 
money donations he received from their sale” in the box.  393 N.W.2d at 786.  A 
citizen who saw the men grab the box chased the men down and detained them 
until the sheriff arrived.  The sheriff searched the vehicle that defendant was riding 
in and gathered the money and box from the vehicle.  Defendant challenged the 
validity of the citizen’s arrest and claimed that any evidence seized after the 
allegedly illegal citizen’s arrest should be suppressed.  Id.   
[¶7.]  
We upheld the citizen’s arrest and also addressed the constitutionality 
of the search.  Id. at 787.  We cited the United States Supreme Court decision New 
York v. Belton, which 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. 454, 
460, 101 S. Ct. 2860, 2864, 69 L. Ed. 2d 768 (1981), abrogation recognized by Davis 
v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 234, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2425, 180 L. Ed. 2d 285 (2011) 
(explaining that an automobile search incident to recent occupant’s arrest is 
constitutional if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle during the 
search or the police have reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence 
relevant to the arrest).  We noted that “[t]he record [did] not specifically reflect that 
the sheriff, on his own part arrested [defendant], but it clearly shows that he took 
him into custody.”  Bonrud, 393 N.W.2d at 787.  And we determined that Belton 
applied, holding: 
In any event, [defendant] was validly arrested and in custody 
when the sheriff searched the vehicle.  We recognize that the 
Belton decision speaks specifically to the situation where a 
policeman makes a lawful arrest and conducts a 
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contemporaneous search.  We find no important distinction that 
would prevent us from applying Belton to the situation here 
where the citizen makes the lawful arrest and the sheriff 
conducts a contemporaneous search.  We therefore determine 
that the sheriff made a valid search of [defendant’s] vehicle and 
the trial court correctly denied suppression of the evidence. 
 
Id. at 787-88 (emphasis added) (citing Moll v. United States, 413 F.2d 1233 (5th Cir. 
1969)).   
[¶8.]  
Our Bonrud decision remains consistent with our statutes today.  Lee 
asserts that the Bonrud decision is distinguishable from this case because the 
Sheriff in Bonrud had the authority to independently arrest the defendant under 
SDCL 23A-3-2, whereas here there is no such authority.  Nevertheless, we did not 
condition our holding on the Sheriff having independent authority to arrest.  We 
recognized that it was unclear whether he had arrested the defendant “on his own 
part.”  But we explicitly rejected the notion that the search’s validity rested on the 
individual performing the search.  Id. at 788.  SDCL 23A-3-1 contains a single 
definition of arrest that applies to both a citizen’s arrest and an arrest by law 
enforcement.  Arrest is defined as “the taking of a person into custody so that he 
may be held to answer for the alleged commission of a public offense.”  SDCL 23A-3-
1.  Thus, a search need not be incident to an arrest by law enforcement because a 
citizen is empowered to make the same arrest.2    
                                            
2. 
Without providing authority for her proposition, Lee asks this Court to 
determine that this citizen’s arrest was a “non-custodial arrest.”  This Court 
has only once before used the term non-custodial arrest.  See State v. 
Brassfield, 2000 S.D. 110, ¶ 11, 615 N.W.2d 628, 631.  We cited with approval 
a Colorado Supreme Court decision that held:  
A “custodial” arrest is made for the purpose of taking the arrestee to 
the stationhouse for booking procedures and in order to file criminal 
(continued . . .) 
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[¶9.]  
Further indication that law enforcement does not need independent 
grounds to make a warrantless arrest under SDCL 23A-3-2 before taking the 
arrestee into custody and performing a search is found in SDCL 23A-4-1 (Rule 5(a)) 
and SDCL 22-30A-19.2.  SDCL 23A-4-1 (Rule 5(a)) directs that once a citizen has 
made that arrest, he or she must “take the arrested person before the nearest 
available committing magistrate or deliver him to the nearest available law 
enforcement officer.”  SDCL 22-30A-19.2 states: 
Any owner or seller of merchandise, who has reasonable grounds 
to believe that a person has committed retail theft pursuant to § 
22-30A-19.1, may detain such person, on or off the premises of a 
retail mercantile establishment, in a reasonable manner and for 
a reasonable length of time: 
 
(1) To request identification; 
 
(2) To verify such identification; 
 
(3) To make reasonable inquiry as to whether such person 
has in his or her possession unpurchased merchandise 
and, to make reasonable investigation of the ownership of 
such merchandise; 
_________________________________________________ 
(. . . continued) 
charges.  A “non-custodial” arrest, however, involves only a temporary 
detention for the purpose of issuing a notice or summons to the 
arrestee. 
Id. (quoting People v. Bland, 884 P.2d 312, 316 n.6 (Colo. 1994)).  Lee offers 
no argument or authority that a citizen has the power to issue a notice or 
summons to the arrestee.  And a determination that a citizen’s arrest is non-
custodial would be contrary to the definition of arrest in SDCL 23A-3-1.  It 
would also prevent a citizen from delivering the person into the custody of 
law enforcement or bringing the arrestee before a committing magistrate in 
accordance with SDCL 23A-4-1 (Rule 5(a)).  SDCL 23A-4-1 (Rule 5(a)) states 
in relevant part: 
Any person, other than a law enforcement officer, making an arrest 
shall, without unnecessary delay, take the arrested person before the 
nearest available committing magistrate or deliver him to the nearest 
available law enforcement officer. 
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(4) To inform a law enforcement officer of the detention of 
the person and surrender that person to the custody of a 
law enforcement officer; and 
 
(5) In the case of a minor, to inform a law enforcement 
officer, a parent, guardian, or other private person. 
 
SDCL 22-30A-19.2 (emphasis added).  Thus, these statutes explicitly contemplate 
law enforcement taking an individual into custody without the officer having been 
present to personally observe the public offense.   
Conclusion 
[¶10.]  
Neither South Dakota’s statutes concerning a citizen’s arrest nor our 
precedent support the conclusion that a law enforcement officer must have 
independent authority to arrest under SDCL 23A-3-2 before taking a person placed 
under citizen’s arrest into custody and performing a search incident to that arrest.  
Here, Lee was validly placed under citizen’s arrest, and the responding law 
enforcement officer who took her into custody properly performed a search incident 
to that arrest.  Accordingly, the circuit court erred when it suppressed evidence 
obtained from the search of Lee. 
[¶11.]  
Reversed.    
[¶12.]  
GILBERTSON, Chief Justice, and ZINTER, WILBUR, and KERN, 
Justices, concur.