Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04072/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04072-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Fox
Appellant
Ted Leabo
Appellant
Scott Sachs
Appellant
David W. Sherbrooke
Appellee
The City of Pelican Rapids
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-4072

___________

David W. Sherbrooke, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* District of Minnesota. 

The City of Pelican Rapids, a *

Minnesota municipal corporation; *

Scott Fox, individually and in his *

capacity as Police Chief; Scott Sachs, *

individually and in his capacity as a *

Police Officer; Ted Leabo, individually *

and in his capacity as Police Officer, * 

*

Appellants. * 

___________

Submitted: September 24, 2007

Filed: January 17, 2008

___________

Before COLLOTON, BEAM, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

___________

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

David Sherbrooke filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that

the City of Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and several of its police officers violated his

constitutional rights. Specifically, Sherbrooke alleged that the officers violated his

rights under the Fourth Amendment by stopping his car without probable cause and

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by recording one side of a conversation between Sherbrooke and his attorney.

Sherbrooke also claimed that the officers committed several violations of state law,

and alleged that the city was liable for maintaining an unconstitutional policy. 

The district court dismissed most of Sherbrooke’s claims, but denied the

defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the claim relating to the traffic stop.

The court also granted summary judgment for Sherbrooke on the claim concerning the

recording of his statements during a telephone call with his attorney. The police

officers and police chief appeal the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, and

the city appeals the court’s denial of its motion for summary judgment. We reverse

and remand.

I.

On the night of July 24, 2004, Sherbrooke attended a high school class reunion

at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Pelican Rapids. At the reunion, Sherbrooke

drank several alcoholic beverages before driving his pickup truck back to his lake

house at about 12:25 a.m. Along the way, Sherbrooke pulled over to the side of

Minnesota Highway 59 to look up a telephone number. While parked along the side

of the highway, Sherbrooke activated his hazard lights to alert passing traffic that he

had pulled over.

After finding the telephone number and completing a telephone call,

Sherbrooke pulled away from the shoulder and continued driving down the highway.

Sherbrooke testified that a police vehicle was parked at a stop sign “about 1,100 feet”

up the road and around a bend from where Sherbrooke had pulled over. Officer Scott

Sachs was in the squad car, performing patrol work. Sherbrooke testified that he

turned off the hazard lights when his vehicle reached the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit,

which, he says, “is the correct way to do it.” At the same time, Sherbrooke conceded

that he turned his hazard lights off about 200 yards before reaching Sachs’s police

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vehicle, and only after noticing that Sachs’s car was a police vehicle. Upon seeing the

police vehicle, Sherbrooke gathered his thoughts, checked his speed, and noticed that

his hazard lights remained on.

After seeing Sherbrooke drive by, Officer Sachs pulled out behind Sherbrooke,

followed him for about twenty-five seconds, and then signaled to Sherbrooke to pull

over. Sherbrooke testified that by the time Officer Sachs pulled him over, the hazard

lights had been deactivated. After pulling to the side of the road, Sherbrooke got out

of his truck, but Officer Sachs ordered him back into the vehicle. Sherbrooke testified

that Sachs then waited four minutes before approaching Sherbrooke’s truck.

Sherbrooke later alleged that he was pulled over because Sachs was involved in a

contest with other officers to see who could make the most arrests for driving while

intoxicated.

During the traffic stop, Officer Sachs detected alcohol on Sherbrooke’s breath

and looked for signs of impairment. After conducting a series of field sobriety tests

and a portable breath test, Sachs arrested Sherbrooke for drunk driving and

transported him to the police department for additional testing.

At the police station, Sherbrooke consented to another, more accurate breath

test called an Intoxilyzer. Pursuant to the standard operating procedure of the police

department, Sherbrooke remained under video and audio surveillance so that the

officers could monitor his food and water intake prior to administering the test.

During the wait, Sherbrooke called his attorney and spoke to him while Sachs and

another officer (defendant Ted Leabo) remained in the room. After speaking to his

attorney, Sherbrooke took the Intoxilyzer test, which revealed that his blood alcohol

level exceeded the legal limit for driving. Sherbrooke contends that Sachs caused

Sherbrooke to drink warm water before the test, and then improperly administered the

test, thus resulting in an artificially high reading. Sherbrooke then requested a blood

test. The blood test, administered at a nearby hospital, was not admissible in court.

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The charges against Sherbrooke eventually were dropped, and he was never

prosecuted.

Sherbrooke brought this suit for damages, alleging violations of his

constitutional rights, as well as “mental anguish, pain and suffering and humiliation.”

The district court dismissed most of his claims, but denied the defendants’ motion for

summary judgment on Sherbrooke’s claim that the initial traffic stop was an unlawful

seizure. The court also granted summary judgment for Sherbrooke on his claim that

the officers unlawfully recorded one side of the telephone conversation with his

attorney. The officers and the city filed this interlocutory appeal.

II.

As a preliminary matter, Sherbrooke challenges our jurisdiction over this

appeal. We have jurisdiction to consider an interlocutory appeal of an order denying

qualified immunity to the extent the appeal seeks review of “purely legal

determinations made by the district court.” Wilson v. Lawrence County, Mo., 260

F.3d 946, 951 (8th Cir. 2001). We do not have jurisdiction to consider “which facts

a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial,” Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304,

313 (1995), but the city and the police officers do not bring this sort of fact-based

appeal. Their contention is that even taking the facts in the light most favorable to

Sherbrooke, neither the traffic stop nor the recording of Sherbrooke’s statements

violated Sherbrooke’s clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment. This

is a purely legal question over which we have jurisdiction. See Saucier v. Katz, 533

U.S. 194, 201 (2001); Dible v. Scholl, 506 F.3d 1106, 1109 (8th Cir. 2007). We also

have jurisdiction to consider the district court’s grant of partial summary judgment in

favor of Sherbrooke, because it turns on the very same legal issue as the denial of

qualified immunity – that is, whether the recording of Sherbrooke’s conversation with

his attorney violated the Fourth Amendment. See Smith v. Ark. Dept. of Corrections,

103 F.3d 637, 650 (8th Cir. 1996). And we have jurisdiction to consider the City’s

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appeal of the denial of summary judgment on Sherbrooke’s allegation that a municipal

policy caused a violation of his constitutional rights, because the merits of the City’s

appeal is inextricably intertwined with the question whether the officers violated

Sherbrooke’s rights. Smook v. Minnehaha County, 457 F.3d 806, 813 (8th Cir. 2006),

cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 1885 (2007).

In assessing a claim of qualified immunity, we are required first to ask whether

the plaintiff’s allegations establish a violation of the Constitution. Saucier, 533 U.S.

at 201. If so, then we “ask whether the right was clearly established” at the time of

the violation. Id. “To defeat a claim of qualified immunity, the contours of an alleged

constitutional right must be ‘sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would

understand that what he is doing violates that right.’” Smook, 457 F.3d at 813

(quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)). 

Sherbrooke’s first claim at issue on appeal is that Officer Sachs violated the

Fourth Amendment by stopping Sherbrooke’s truck. Sachs argues that the seizure was

constitutional because an objectively reasonable officer could have stopped the

vehicle either to exercise a community caretaking function, see Cady v. Dombrowski,

413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973), or to investigate a traffic violation for which there was

probable cause. As to the latter, probable cause that a driver has committed any traffic

violation, no matter how minor, provides sufficient justification under the Fourth

Amendment to stop a vehicle. Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354

(2001). The officer’s subjective motivation is irrelevant. Brigham City v. Stuart, 126

S. Ct. 1943, 1948 (2006). Even if the officer was influenced by an impermissible

motive, a traffic stop does not violate the driver’s rights under the Fourth Amendment

to be free from unreasonable seizures, as long as the circumstances, viewed

objectively, justified the seizure. Id.; Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813

(1996).

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Minnesota law prohibits the use of flashing lights on a vehicle except in limited

circumstances, including “as a means of indicating a right or left turn, or the presence

of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking, or

passing.” Minn. Stat. § 169.64. Sherbrooke contends that his use of the flashers on

his truck was permissible under the quoted exception, because he used his lights as a

proper means of indicating that his vehicle presented a “vehicular traffic hazard.” His

rationale is that when a vehicle enters a roadway from a stopped position on the

shoulder, the vehicle presents a vehicular traffic hazard until such time as the vehicle

reaches the speed limit (in this case, fifty-five miles per hour), and that use of the

flashers is thus permissible until that speed is attained.

We disagree with Sherbrooke’s interpretation of the Minnesota statutes. The

posted speed limit is evidence of only the maximum speed that is reasonable and

prudent on a roadway. Minn. Stat. § 169.14(2). There is no legal requirement that a

vehicle ever reach that speed. Vehicles may operate lawfully at reasonable and

prudent speeds below the maximum without constituting a vehicular traffic hazard.

Assuming Sherbrooke is correct that a vehicle may lawfully use its flashers to indicate

a traffic hazard when the vehicle first enters a roadway in Minnesota, use of the

flashers should cease when the vehicle reaches a speed that no longer presents a

hazard. A reasonable officer surely could believe that speeds close to, but less than,

the maximum posted limit present no traffic hazard. Sherbrooke concedes that he was

using his flashers until he reached the maximum speed limit of fifty-five miles per

hour. Because the speed of the vehicle during the preceding moments, when the

vehicle was traveling slightly under the speed limit, presented no apparent traffic

hazard, Officer Sachs had probable cause to stop Sherbrooke for improper use of

flashing lights. 

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Alternatively, even accepting Sherbrooke’s interpretation of the statutes for the

sake of argument, we conclude that an objectively reasonable officer in Sachs’s

position had probable cause to stop Sherbrooke’s truck for improper use of flashing

lights. It is undisputed that Sachs did not observe Sherbrooke at the point when he

was stopped at the side of the road to use the telephone before pulling back on to

Highway 59. By Sherbrooke’s own testimony, the distance from where Sherbrooke

pulled off the road to Sachs’s location was 1,100 feet, but Sherbrooke could not

observe Sachs (and vice-versa) until after Sherbrooke came around a curve on the

highway, at a distance between 600 and 900 feet from Sachs’s squad car. (Sherbrooke

Dep. 59, Appellant’s App. A-33). Thus, even assuming it was permissible for

Sherbrooke to operate his flashers from the time he reentered the highway until his

vehicle reached fifty-five miles per hour, and even assuming any reasonable officer

would have been expected to know that interpretation of the statute was correct, a

reasonable officer in Sachs’s position would not have known that Sherbrooke recently

reentered the roadway. From his location, Sachs simply observed Sherbrooke’s

vehicle come around the curve with its flashing lights activated. A reasonable officer

in those circumstances had probable cause to believe that Sherbrooke was in violation

of the prohibition on flashing lights in Minn. Stat. § 169.64, because there was no

apparent vehicular traffic hazard. Even if Sherbrooke, unbeknownst to Sachs, actually

was using his flashers to alert other drivers after reentering the road from a stopped

position, a law enforcement officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment if he

seizes a suspect under the reasonable, but mistaken, belief that the suspect committed

an offense. United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767, 770 (8th Cir. 2005).

For these reasons, we conclude that Officer Sachs had probable cause to stop

Sherbrooke for improper use of flashing lights. Accordingly, Sachs did not violate

Sherbrooke’s constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment, and Sachs’s motion

for summary judgment on this point should have been granted. In view of our

conclusion regarding probable cause, we need not consider whether the seizure also

was justified by the officer’s exercise of his community caretaking function.

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Sherbrooke’s second claim at issue on appeal relates to his telephone call to his

attorney while in custody. The police in Pelican Rapids had a standard operating

procedure of making an audio and video recording of detainees who were awaiting an

Intoxilyzer test, with the stated purpose of preventing any action that would call into

question the validity of the ensuing test. The officers investigating Sherbrooke

activated the recording equipment in accordance with this procedure, so Sherbrooke’s

speech was recorded while he was in the police station. Before taking the breath test,

while in the presence of Officers Sachs and Leabo, Sherbrooke called his attorney to

ask for legal advice. Sherbrooke’s end of this telephone call was recorded by the

equipment that was already activated.

The district court held that the act of recording Sherbrooke’s speech during the

telephone conversation with his attorney was an unconstitutional search. We disagree,

because Sherbrooke had no reasonable expectation of privacy in what he said during

this call. “What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or

office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, 389

U.S. 347, 351 (1967). Sherbrooke placed this telephone call in an open room, in

which the presence of police officers was open and obvious. The tape recording even

shows that Sherbrooke acknowledged, near the end of the conversation, that his

statements were being recorded, and that this was “fine” with him. Under these

circumstances, Sherbrooke could not reasonably expect that the conversation was

private, and there was no search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See

United States v. Hatcher, 323 F.3d 666, 674 (8th Cir. 2003); United States v. Gann,

732 F.2d 714, 723 (9th Cir. 1984). That communications between an attorney and

client generally are privileged when conducted privately does not mean that a

conversation knowingly conducted in the presence of others is privileged or private.

Sherbrooke’s contention that the police allegedly prevented him from placing a private

call to his attorney is properly addressed, if at all, under constitutional provisions other

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Sherbrooke also alleged that the recording violated his rights under the Fifth

and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, but the district court

dismissed those claims.

-9-

than the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Friedman v. Comm’r of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d

828, 835 (Minn. 1991).1

The City’s appeal is inextricably intertwined with the appeal of the police

officers. Because the police officers did not violate Sherbrooke’s constitutional rights

under the Fourth Amendment, there can be no municipal liability under the Fourth

Amendment for an unconstitutional policy. McCoy v. City of Monticello, 411 F.3d

920, 922 (8th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, the City is also entitled to summary judgment

on that claim.

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s orders denying the

officers’ motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, denying the

City’s motion for summary judgment, and granting in part Sherbrooke’s motion for

summary judgment. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

BEAM, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

As the panel majority notes, a police officer may legitimately detain the

operator of a motor vehicle if he observes even a minor traffic offense. United States

v. Eldridge, 984 F.2d 943, 948 (8th Cir. 1993). But it is equally clear that the Fourth

Amendment establishes an absolute right for a motorist to be free from a pretextual

traffic stop. Id. at 947. Such a stop occurred in this case, possibly because Officer

Sachs and other members of the Pelican Rapids Police Department were engaged in

a contest to see which officer could make the most driving-while-intoxicated (DWI)

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stops that particular weekend. Accordingly, I dissent from the court's reversal of the

district court and the court's grant of qualified immunity to Officer Sachs.

I.

"We review a district court's qualified immunity determination on summary

judgment de novo." Davis v. Hall, 375 F.3d 703, 711 (8th Cir. 2004). "This standard

of review requires us to view the summary judgment record in the light most favorable

to [Sherbrooke], and to afford him all reasonable inferences to be drawn from that

record." Id. (emphasis added). Under this approach, the facts are slightly different

from those adopted by the court in its opinion.

As Mr. Sherbrooke was returning home from his class reunion, he pulled off the

improved portion of Minnesota Highway 59 onto the side of the road. He parked for

a short period of time to look up a telephone number and to make a call. During this

stop, he activated his flashing hazard lights to alert traffic moving along the highway.

Sometime during Sherbrooke's pause, Sachs pulled up to a stop sign on a road

intersecting Highway 59 ahead of Sherbrooke's line of travel. Sachs' vehicle remained

in this position until Sherbrooke had returned to the paved portion of the roadway and

passed along Highway 59 in front of him. Sachs could not see Sherbrooke's stopped

vehicle with its lights flashing from his position at the sign. Sherbrooke testified that

he later measured the distance between the place at which he stopped and the location

of Sachs' police car at the stop sign and it was 1100 feet, his measuring device being

within "two percent" accurate. Appellants' Appendix at 33. He further testified that

the line of sight between the vehicles was 900 feet, saying "you just get going a little

bit because its on a curve . . . [a]nd then you can see." Id. Sherbrooke also testified

that he re-entered the highway with his lights flashing, accelerated up to the posted

speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour and then turned off his hazard lights. Id. at 32.

According to his testimony, he was 400 feet from Sachs' waiting vehicle when he

turned off his hazard lights, and it was not until reaching this point that he could see

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that the stopped vehicle was a police car. Id. at 33. Thus, as Sherbrooke accelerated

from the road-side stop to a speed of 55 miles-per-hour over a total distance of 700

feet, Officer Sachs observed Sherbrooke traveling with hazard lights flashing over a

distance of no more than 500 feet. Given a speed conversion of one mile-per-hour

equals 1.47 seconds, Officer Sachs could have observed Mr. Sherbrooke traveling

along the highway with his hazard lights on for no more than eight to fifteen seconds

and probably less.

II.

The court contends that a reasonable police officer under the same

circumstances was entitled to find that Sherbrooke was violating Minnesota Statute

§ 169.64, subdivision 3, the only statutory section dealing with use of flashing hazard

lights. I disagree. 

At the outset, I note that the court slightly glosses the facts to create subtle

evidentiary inferences in favor of Sachs, a clear violation of binding precedent. Davis,

375 F.3d at 711. Even without this approach, the court's statutory interpretation is off

the mark.

Section 169.64, subdivision 3, provides, in pertinent part:

Flashing lights. Flashing lights are prohibited, except on . . . any vehicle

as a means of indicating . . . the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard

requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking, or passing.

So far as I can determine, Minnesota courts have construed this subdivision of

the statute only once. Dawydowycz v. Quady, 220 N.W.2d 478 (Minn. 1974)

indicates that operating a vehicle at reduced speed in the presence of a traffic hazard

is both permitted and required by section 169.64, subdivision 3. Id. at 480 (under this

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section, a flashing light indicates the presence of a traffic hazard requiring reduced

speed). When a motor vehicle proceeds at night from a stopped position on the road

shoulder onto a paved state highway with a 55 mile-per-hour maximum speed limit,

as in this case, it is inconceivable that the court can quarrel with the idea that an

"approaching, overtaking, or passing" hazard exists by virtue of the operation or

possible operation of other moving vehicles using or potentially using the same

highway at the same time, and I do not necessarily read the court's opinion as doing

so. Any evaluation of the existence of a hazard, or not, must involve both the vehicle

proceeding from a stopped position with flashing lights and the use or contemplated

use of the same traveled portion of the roadway by other vehicles, especially when the

roadway has curves, as here, that tend to reduce lines of vision between traveling,

approaching, overtaking and passing vehicles.

Notwithstanding, the court focuses only on Sherbrooke's truck and reaches the

unusual and, in my view, unsupportable conclusion that the instant his slower-moving

motor vehicle reached a "reasonable and prudent speed[]," whatever speed that may

have been, any traffic hazard automatically abated and it became unlawful for him to

continue to operate the flashing lights. Ante at 6. Such speed, says the court, will

always be less than the posted maximum speed. Ante at 6.

This idea turns a proper interpretation of section 169.64, subdivision 3, on its

head. And, the record indicates that Officer Sachs must have thought so as well. He

testified that he stopped Sherbrooke, not because he was violating subdivision 3, but

because upon seeing the flashing hazard lights in operation, he exercised his

community caretaker obligation to see if Sherbrooke or a passenger might need help.

Appellants' Appendix at 70. Sachs' later actions, as clearly enunciated in the record,

totally undermine any argument that the stop was actually an exercise of this caretaker

obligation. For this reason, the court properly disregards this claim by Sachs.

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The court takes issue with my characterization of its interpretation of the

statute. Cf. ante at 6. I continue to believe my analysis appropriate in the

circumstances of this case. I agree with the court that "[v]ehicles may operate

lawfully at reasonable and prudent speeds below the maximum without constituting

a vehicular traffic hazard." In the abstract, they can, of course. But, that is not the

issue here. The issue is whether Sherbrooke violated section 169.64 by operating

hazard flashers at speeds up to 55 miles-per-hour on Route 59 while accelerating from

a stop when, as shown by Minnesota studies, up to 75 percent of overtaking vehicles

will almost certainly be exceeding the speed limit. Common sense indicates that a

traffic hazard continues to be presented under such circumstances and Sherbrooke was

not violating the law.

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The court's construction of section 169.64, subdivision 3 defies common sense,2

disregards the rules of statutory interpretation, ignores studies of motor vehicle

operation and places the statute's meaning in the hands of the police officers charged

with enforcing, not interpreting, the law. Any assumption by a driver in Sherbrooke's

shoes that an overtaking motorist, possibly exceeding the posted speed limit, needs

warning that there is an accelerating vehicle in the roadway, is, according to the

court's rationale, a traffic violation. With this result I disagree. Under the undisputed

facts here, "reasonable and prudent" driving required continuing, not less, warning.

Minnesota law permits a driver to stop and park beside a paved highway so long

as the vehicle is off of the improved portion of the road. Minn. Stat. § 169.32(a). So,

Sherbrooke violated no traffic regulation when he stopped to make the telephone call.

And, as the court states, there is no legal requirement that a vehicle ever reach the

maximum-posted speed. Ante at 6. This is correct, of course, because in Minnesota,

absent the presence of a special hazard, any speed not in excess of a posted maximum

is reasonable and prudent. Minn. Stat. § 169.14, subd. 2(3). But as Dawydowycz

notes, section 169.64, subdivision 3, requires that the speed of traveling, approaching,

overtaking or passing vehicles be reduced in the presence of a traffic hazard. 220

N.W.2d at 480. Thus, when Sherbrooke moved from his stop onto the paved portion

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of Highway 59, subdivision 3 not only permitted him to operate his hazard lights but

the Minnesota Supreme Court's reasoning in Dawydowycz required him to do so.

And, subdivision 3 permitted him to continue to do so at least until his vehicle had

reached the prudent velocity of any conceivable overtaking traffic.

In 1997, a national survey of speeding and other unsafe driving activities was

commissioned by the United States Department of Transportation. More than one in

five respondents to that survey (23 percent) admitted they had driven at least ten miles

over the posted speed limit on an interstate highway within the past week. See U.S.

Dep't of Transp., National Survey of Speeding and Other Unsafe Driving Activities,

Vol. II: Driver Attitudes and Behaviors: Executive Summary, available at

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/aggressive/unsafe/att-beh/Chapt1-2.html.

Additionally, speeding is a significant contributing factor in many fatal

accidents. For example, in the state of Minnesota, "illegal or unsafe speed was a

contributing factor in 764 fatal crashes resulting in 843 deaths" between 2002 and

2006. Minn. Dep't of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety, 2006 Minnesota

Speeding Facts, available at http://www.dps.state.mn.us/ots/enforcement_programs/

default.asp. A study conducted by the Minnesota Transportation Department "showed

that 75 percent of the vehicles surveyed in 55-mph zones were speeding, the highest

rate among reporting states that conducted similar surveys for the federal

government." Robert Whereatt, Senate committee defeats attempt to eliminate

loophole in speed law, Star Tribune, Mar. 31, 1989, at 4B. 

With these studies in mind, it is clear that a driver entering upon an improved

highway at a reduced speed creates a temporary hazard for other traffic that may be

in the area, allowing the prudent use of flashing hazard lights, at least until the vehicle

reaches the posted maximum speed limit. Accordingly, Sherbrooke's actions

complied with any reasonable interpretation of section 169.64, subdivision 3.

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The further and alternative idea expressed by the court is that an officer

observing a vehicle "come around the curve with its flashing lights activated" may

reasonably (even mistakenly) believe that the vehicle operator is violating section

169.64, subdivision 3. Ante at 7. Standing along, this is an even more untenable

holding. Indeed, if this is a correct expression of the law under the circumstances of

this case, it is hard to imagine any situation, no matter how unlikely, that would not

support a police officer's detention of a passing motorist. The court seems to be

saying that a reasonable officer may jump to almost any conclusion, even a mistaken

one, and use the circumstance to make a lawful arrest or detention. There is no

precedent for this argument.

The court cites United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767 (8th Cir. 2005) in support

of its contention. But Smart is so factually off the mark here that it is totally

inapposite. The validity of a stop depends upon whether it is objectively reasonable

in the circumstances. Id. at 770. Thus, there needed to be a reasonable evidentiary

predicate for the creation of an "objectively reasonable basis [for stopping

Sherbrooke's] vehicle." Id. In Smart an Iowa police officer observed Smart driving

a motor vehicle in Iowa without a front license plate. Iowa law, of course, requires

the display of two license plates. The officer also knew that other states permitted

operation with but one plate, but he did not remember which states nor could he

discern the state of issue of the plate on Smart's car. So, the officer stopped Smart to

make this determination. It turned out to be a Georgia plate on a validly registered

Georgia automobile, a state that requires but one plate. Thus, the officer was

reasonably mistaken under the circumstances permitting a valid stop.

In an attempt to apply Smart in support of Sachs' motion, the court bifurcates

(or, perhaps, trifurcates) the undisputed material facts, isolating a 500-feet portion of

the roadway evidence while totally disregarding the balance of the proof. But, to the

contrary, Sherbrooke is entitled to even-handed consideration of all material facts, not

just those purportedly beneficial to the court's argument on behalf of Sachs. And,

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Sherbrooke is, likewise, entitled to all favorable inferences that may be gleaned from

all of the material evidence in the record.

There were simply no violations of state law here. The stop of Sherbrooke by

Sachs was a pretext for making another DWI arrest that weekend. While the outcome

at trial is another matter, a trial is nonetheless required on this issue.

I concur in the balance of the court's opinion. I dissent from its finding (or

mistaken finding) of a violation of Minnesota Statute § 169.64, subdivision 3, and

would affirm the district court's denial of qualified immunity on that discrete issue.

______________________________

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