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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF IDAHO

Docket No. 42637

STATE OF IDAHO,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

NATASHA LYNN BLY,

Defendant-Appellant.

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2016 Opinion No. 2

Filed: January 7, 2016

Stephen W. Kenyon, Clerk

Appeal from the District Court of the Third Judicial District, State of Idaho, 

Canyon County. Hon. George A. Southworth, District Judge. 

Judgment of conviction for possession of a controlled substance, vacated.

Sara B. Thomas, State Appellate Public Defender; Justin M. Curtis, Deputy 

Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for appellant. 

Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Nicole L. Schafer, Deputy 

Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. 

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GUTIERREZ, Judge

Natasha Lynn Bly appeals from her judgment of conviction entered upon her conditional 

guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance. Bly challenges the district court’s denial of 

her motion to suppress. For the reasons set forth below, we vacate.

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The following facts were revealed through testimony and were set forth by the district 

court in denying Bly’s motion to suppress. The Nampa Police Department had received 

evidence of significant drug activity occurring at hotels located near the downtown area of 

Nampa. While patrolling the area, an officer ran the license plates of one of the cars legally 

parked in the parking lot of a motel. The search revealed that the owner of the car was a male 

with an active drug-related warrant. After the officer unsuccessfully tried to locate the owner of 
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the car inside the hotel, the officer witnessed three women pull up in another vehicle, enter the 

hotel for a few minutes, and then leave. He believed that their behavior was consistent with a 

drug transaction. At no time did the officer see Bly interact with the women, nor did the officer

form any belief that Bly was associated with the women. 

At some point during the officer’s observation of the hotel, he received information that 

there were two males on foot in the area, possibly armed, that were eluding police officers. The 

officer suspected that these men might be connected to the vehicle he had been watching. 

Shortly after the three women left the hotel, the officer witnessed Bly exit the hotel and approach 

the same car the officer had been watching. Bly got into and out of the car several times before 

she finally drove the car from the east side of the parking lot over to the west side of the parking 

lot. She parked the car, reentered the hotel, and then immediately came back out. The officer 

approached Bly and told her to “hold on a minute.” 

While interacting with Bly, the officer noticed that Bly smelled like burnt marijuana, had 

bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and blisters on her tongue consistent with smoking marijuana. 

The officer then physically detained Bly. During a search incident to arrest, officers found 

methamphetamine. The State charged Bly with possession of a controlled substance. Bly moved 

to suppress all evidence, arguing that it was discovered as a result of an unlawful detainment. 

Although the district court found that Bly was detained when the officer told her to “hold on a 

minute,” the court found that the detention was reasonable.1 Bly entered a conditional guilty 

plea to possession of a controlled substance, Idaho Code § 37-2732(c)(1). She reserved her right 

to appeal the denial of her motion to suppress. 

II.

ANALYSIS

On appeal, Bly argues that the district court erred by denying her motion to suppress. 

The standard of review of a suppression motion is bifurcated. When a decision on a motion to 

suppress is challenged, we accept the trial court’s findings of fact that are supported by 

substantial evidence, but we freely review the application of constitutional principles to the facts 

as found. State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 559, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct. App. 1996). At a 

 

1 Although not at issue in this appeal, the court did suppress Bly’s statements admitting to 

marijuana use because she made the statements after being arrested without Miranda warnings. 

See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 
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suppression hearing, the power to assess the credibility of witnesses, resolve factual conflicts, 

weigh evidence, and draw factual inferences is vested in the trial court. State v. Valdez-Molina, 

127 Idaho 102, 106, 897 P.2d 993, 997 (1995); State v. Schevers, 132 Idaho 786, 789, 979 P.2d 

659, 662 (Ct. App. 1999). 

In this case, the district court found, and the State does not dispute, that Bly was detained 

pursuant to an investigative detention when the officer instructed her to “hold on a minute.” The 

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and 

seizures. Generally, evidence obtained as a result of an unreasonable search or seizure must be 

suppressed. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 485 (1963). And typically, seizures must 

be based on probable cause to be reasonable. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 499-500 (1983). 

However, limited investigatory detentions, based on less than probable cause, are permissible 

when justified by an officer’s reasonable articulable suspicion that a person has committed, or is 

about to commit, a crime. Id. at 498. Reasonable suspicion must be based on specific, 

articulable facts and the rational inferences that can be drawn from those facts. Terry v. Ohio, 

392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968); State v. Sheldon, 139 Idaho 980, 983, 88 P.3d 1220, 1223 (Ct. App. 

2003). The quantity and quality of information necessary to establish reasonable suspicion is 

less than that necessary to establish probable cause. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 

(1990). Still, reasonable suspicion requires more than a mere hunch. Id. at 329. Whether an 

officer possessed reasonable suspicion is evaluated based on the totality of the circumstances 

known to the officer at or before the time of the detention. United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 

411, 417 (1981); Sheldon, 139 Idaho at 983, 88 P.3d at 1223.

The State points to the following facts available to the officer before Bly’s detention to 

support finding the detention justified: (1) Bly was in a high drug-crime area; (2) there was other 

activity taking place in the area that was consistent with a “drug transaction”; (3) Bly accessed 

and drove a car belonging to a suspect with an outstanding warrant; and (4) Bly exhibited strange 

behavior by getting into and out of the car several times and by relocating the car within the 

same parking lot. The State suggests that the officer, being trained in drug interdiction, was 

justified in his suspicion that criminal activity was afoot based upon the totality of the 

circumstances. 

Bly argues, and we agree, that none of these facts, when considered independently, would 

be sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion particularized to her. Bly’s presence in a high-
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crime area, without more, is insufficient. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000) (“An 

individual’s presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to 

support a reasonable particularized suspicion that the person is committing a crime.”). Bly’s

proximity to the group of men and women suspected of criminal activity, without more, is also

insufficient. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979) (holding that “a person’s mere 

propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give 

rise to probable cause”). Bly’s implicit association with the car owner who had an outstanding 

warrant for drug-related activity is insufficient. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 64 (1968);

see also United States v. Hudson, 405 F.3d 425, 438 (6th Cir. 2005) (holding that “reasonable 

suspicion . . . must rest on specific facts . . . tending to show that the person stopped is in fact the 

person wanted in connection with a criminal investigation”). And, Bly’s lawful, albeit unusual,

conduct of entering the car numerous times and then relocating it within the same parking lot is 

not enough. See White v. State, 846 S.W.2d 427, 431-32 (Tex. Ct. App. 1992) (holding 

“eccentric or strange behavior must rise to the level of indicating criminal activity to justify 

detention”). 

However, as set forth above, our analysis of the reasonableness of the suspicion must be 

evaluated based upon the totality of the circumstances. The Supreme Court has previously held 

that otherwise innocent acts, when considered together, can be sufficiently suspicious so as to 

justify an investigative detention. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1989). An officer 

can utilize law enforcement training to draw reasonable inferences based upon objective facts to

justify his or her suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418; State v. Roe, 

140 Idaho 176, 180, 90 P.3d 926, 930 (Ct. App. 2004). 

Here, none of the objective circumstances preceding the officer’s detention of Bly justify 

his suspicion that she was involved in criminal activity. The officer did not testify to any facts 

connecting Bly to the women suspected of engaging in drug-related activity. The only fact 

linking the women with Bly was that they exited from the same public hotel--there was no 

indication that they came from the same hotel room. But see State v. Crooks, 150 Idaho 117, 

122, 244 P.3d 261, 266 (Ct. App. 2010) (holding that reasonable suspicion was justified where 

officer knew that drug transactions were occurring in the specific apartment where defendant 

was located). Likewise, the officer could not articulate any objective facts connecting the males 

eluding officers to the car that Bly was accessing; his belief that they were somehow related was 
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nothing more than a hunch based on proximity. Additionally, beyond generally stating that Bly’s 

behavior in accessing the car was “strange or suspicious,” the officer did not articulate any basis 

to support a reasonable inference that she had either committed, or was about to commit, a crime. 

In State v. Holcomb, 128 Idaho 296, 912 P.2d 664 (Ct. App. 1995), we held that the 

officers’ reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity was justified 

where they observed the defendant and his companion “bending over and engaging in body 

movements that were consistent with inhalation of drugs.” Id. at 302, 912 P.2d at 670. This case 

is distinguishable from Holcomb because here, the officer articulated no basis justifying why 

Bly’s conduct in accessing and relocating the car was consistent with criminal activity.

Furthermore, although the officer testified that he considered Bly’s behavior suspicious 

based upon the totality of the circumstances, when pressed, he admitted to approaching Bly for 

the purpose of locating the owner of the car. He acknowledged that he had written in his police 

report that he stopped Bly “in an attempt to locate the registered owner [of the car] who had a 

confirmed warrant.” This motivation is understandable, but it does not negate Fourth 

Amendment guarantees. 

In State v. Pike, 551 N.W. 2d 919 (Minn. 1996), the court held that it was reasonable for 

the officer to presume that the driver of a car was its owner, thus justifying the officer’s detention 

of the driver based upon the owner’s revoked license. Id. at 922. However, the court limited its 

holding stating:

This holding . . . applies only while the officer remains unaware of any 

facts which would render unreasonable the assumption that the owner is driving 

the vehicle. Thus, for example, if the officer knows that the owner . . . is a 22-

year-old male, and the officer observes that the person driving the vehicle is a 50-

or 60-year-old woman, any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity evaporates. 

Absent other articulable facts which would give rise to such suspicion, it would be 

unconstitutional for the officer to make a stop in such a situation.

Id. We agree with the Pike court’s reasoning. Here, the officer’s observation of a “slender 

female” driving or accessing a car owned by a male with an outstanding warrant could not 

establish reasonable suspicion to justify her detainment. Absent other articulable facts that Bly 

was engaged in criminal activity herself, the officer’s detainment was unjustified. Therefore, we 

hold the district court erred in denying Bly’s motion to suppress.
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III.

CONCLUSION

Looking at the facts known to the officer and the inferences reasonably drawn from the 

totality of those circumstances, we hold that the facts presented by the State do not support a 

reasonable suspicion that Bly was involved in criminal activity. Therefore, we hold that the 

district court erred in denying Bly’s motion to suppress. Accordingly, we vacate Bly’s judgment 

of conviction. 

Chief Judge MELANSON and Judge HUSKEY CONCUR.