Title: State v. Douglas
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 119170
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: May 31, 2019

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 
 
No. 119,170 
 
STATE OF KANSAS, 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
CHRISTOPHER SHANE DOUGLAS, 
Appellee. 
 
 
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 
 
When a district judge's legal ruling in favor of the defense on a motion to suppress 
is infected with an obviously incorrect assessment of the State's evidence that is 
equivalent to an arbitrary disregard of a portion of that evidence, an appellate court 
cannot be certain if the district judge, once the error is pointed out, would arrive at the 
same or a different conclusion. In such circumstances, the wisest course for the appellate 
court is to reverse and then give the district judge another chance to review the record and 
explain himself or herself. 
 
Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed December 21, 
2018. Appeal from Reno District Court; TRISH ROSE, judge. Opinion filed May 31, 2019. Judgment of the 
Court of Appeals reversing the district court is affirmed. Judgment of the district court is reversed and the 
case is remanded with directions.  
 
Natasha Esau, assistant district attorney, Keith Schroeder, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, 
attorney general, were on the brief for appellant.  
 
Shannon S. Crane, of Hutchinson, and Sam S. Kepfield, of Hutchinson, were on the briefs for 
appellee. 
 
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The opinion of the court was delivered by 
 
BEIER, J.:  This case concerns reversal of a district judge's decision to suppress 
evidence and appropriate instructions for her further action on remand.  
 
We affirm the Court of Appeals majority's twin decisions to reverse the district 
judge's ruling and remand the case, but we would alter its instructions to match those 
suggested in the dissent of Judge Thomas E. Malone. The district judge should not be 
directed to deny the defendant's motion but to reconsider it in light of a corrected 
understanding of the evidence before her. 
 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
 
Reno County Sheriff's Deputy Mikel Bohringer stopped defendant Christopher 
Shane Douglas for speeding. As Douglas leaned over to look inside the glove 
compartment, Bohringer saw a capsule he suspected of containing methamphetamine 
sticking out of Douglas' pocket. 
 
Bohringer called for backup after returning to his vehicle. Once backup arrived, he 
ordered Douglas out of the truck and seized the capsule from the driver's seat, where 
Bohringer had seen it fall on Douglas' exit. Field testing revealed the capsule contained 
methamphetamine. Searches of Douglas and the truck followed, and the search of 
Douglas' person apparently uncovered additional contraband. Douglas was arrested and 
charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. 
 
Douglas filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing Bohringer violated his 
federal and state constitutional rights. 
 
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At the hearing on the motion, Bohringer testified that, using his flashlight, he had 
"observed a clear capsule with a crystalized substance inside of it, just hanging out of 
[Douglas'] left front [pants] pocket" for about five seconds and suspected it contained 
methamphetamine.  
 
The district court judge agreed with Douglas that his rights had been violated 
because law enforcement extended the traffic stop longer than necessary to issue a 
speeding ticket without reasonable and articulable suspicion, and she suppressed the 
evidence. In her order, she said in pertinent part: 
 
"FINDINGS OF FACT 
 
"1. Sheriff officer Mikel Bohringer stopped defendant for a speeding violation. 
 
"2. Officer Bohringer observed a capsule in defendant's pants pocket . . . .  
 
"3. Defendant was detained beyond the time necessary to issue a speeding ticket while 
the capsule was seized and tested. 
 
. . . . 
 
"DISCUSSION 
 
"Officer Bohringer testified he observed a capsule in defendant's pants pocket 
when defendant reached for the vehicle registration. The State introduced evidence 
consisting of two videos, the patrol car video and Officer Bohringer's body camera video. 
No description of the capsule was provided to the court. The capsule itself was not 
provided to the court to examine. The videos did not show the capsule. The court has no 
basis on which to find the detention was based on a reasonable and articulable suspicion. 
 
 
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"CONCLUSION 
 
"The State has failed in its burden to prove the seizure of defendant and search of 
defendant's vehicle was reasonable. The motion to suppress is sustained." (Emphasis 
added.)  
 
The State appealed. A majority of the reviewing Court of Appeals panel reversed 
the district judge's decision and remanded with instructions to deny the motion to 
suppress. Judge Malone concurred in the reversal and remand but argued that the district 
judge should be permitted to reconsider the motion with a corrected understanding of the 
evidence before her. State v. Douglas, No. 119,170, 2018 WL 6711314 (Kan. App. 2018) 
(unpublished opinion).  
 
We accepted Douglas' petition for review. He argues that substantial competent 
evidence existed to support the district judge's suppression decision, even if she made an 
error when she stated in her order that she had heard no description of the capsule, and 
the Court of Appeals should not have reversed the suppression and remanded the case. 
 
DISCUSSION 
 
Appellate courts typically use a bifurcated standard of review when reviewing 
district court decisions on motions to suppress. 
 
"The factual underpinnings regarding a motion to suppress are reviewed for 
substantial competent evidence, but the legal conclusion drawn from those facts is 
reviewed de novo. . . . 
 
. . . . 
 
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"Substantial competent evidence is legal and relevant evidence a reasonable 
person could accept to support a conclusion. This court normally gives great deference to 
the factual findings of the district court. The appellate court does not reweigh evidence, 
assess the credibility of witnesses, or resolve conflicts in evidence." State v. Talkington, 
301 Kan. 453, Syl. ¶¶ 1, 3, 345 P.3d 258 (2015).  
 
When a warrantless search or seizure is challenged, the State bears the burden of 
showing the applicability of a specific recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment's 
warrant requirement. See K.S.A. 22-3216(2); State v. Daniel, 291 Kan. 490, 496, 242 
P.3d 1186 (2010).  
 
When a district judge rules that a party has failed to sustain its burden of proof, a 
reviewing court applies the standard of review for a negative finding of fact. A "'negative 
finding will not be rejected on appeal unless the party challenging the finding proves 
arbitrary disregard of undisputed evidence, or some extrinsic consideration such as bias, 
passion, or prejudice.'" State v. Smith, 303 Kan. 673, 679, 366 P.3d 226 (2016). 
 
The Court of Appeals majority applied the usual bifurcated standard of review 
applicable to district court decisions on motions to suppress. Although it believed 
substantial competent evidence existed to support the district judge's findings of fact that 
were labeled as such, it held that the judge's ultimate legal conclusion was erroneous. The 
majority identified the district judge's statement that "'[n]o description of the capsule was 
provided to the court'" as incorrect and treated it as an indicator that the judge had 
ignored Bohringer's testimony. Douglas, 2018 WL 6711314, at *3. That testimony, the 
majority ruled as a matter of law, supported the lengthening of Douglas' detention and 
thus the searches of the truck and his person that uncovered the incriminating evidence. 
This meant that the appropriate remedy was reversal and remand with directions that the 
district judge deny the motion to suppress. Douglas, 2018 WL 6711314, at *3-4. 
 
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Judge Malone took a slightly different tack. Although the district judge's incorrect 
statement that there was no description of the capsule in evidence was not labeled a 
"finding of fact" in her written order, Judge Malone recognized that the statement 
constituted such a finding rather than a part of her conclusion of law. He further 
recognized that this finding was not supported by substantial competent evidence and 
qualified—in the lingo of the standard of review for a negative finding of fact—as an 
arbitrary disregard of undisputed evidence. Because he could not be certain that the 
district judge's ultimate legal conclusion did not rest on an otherwise adequate credibility 
judgment or alternate evidence-weighing calculus inappropriate for appellate judges to 
perform, he would have directed the judge on remand  
 
"to reevaluate [her] findings based on the evidence that Bohringer did, in fact, describe 
the capsule that he saw in Douglas' pants pocket . . . . [T]he district court should clarify 
its factual findings to conform to the evidence admitted at the suppression hearing[] and 
make specific credibility determinations of witness testimony to the extent that it is 
necessary, in order to justify the court's ultimate legal conclusion on whether Douglas' 
motion to suppress should be granted or denied." 2018 WL 6711314, at *5 (Malone, J., 
dissenting). 
 
We agree with this approach. When a district judge's legal ruling in favor of the 
defense on a motion to suppress is infected with an obviously incorrect assessment of the 
State's evidence that is equivalent to an arbitrary disregard of a portion of that evidence, 
we cannot be certain if the district judge, once the error is pointed out, would arrive at the 
same or a different conclusion. In such circumstances, the wisest course for the appellate 
court is to reverse and then give the district judge another chance to review the record and 
explain himself or herself. Reversal and remand with directions to draw an opposite 
conclusion of law short-circuits that chance.  
 
 
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CONCLUSION 
 
The judgment of the district court is reversed and the case remanded for further 
proceedings in keeping with this opinion. The decision of the Court of Appeals is 
affirmed but its instructions to the district court on remand are modified.