Opinion ID: 891585
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legality of the Initial Stop.

Text: {13} Consistent with the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment, police officers may stop a person for investigative purposes where, considering the totality of the circumstances, the officers have a reasonable and objective basis for suspecting that particular person is engaged in criminal activity. State v. Werner, 117 N.M. 315, 317, 871 P.2d 971, 973 (1994) (relying on Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and its progeny) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). A valid investigatory stop allows an officer to detain suspects briefly to verify or quell that suspicion. Id. {14} Defendant appealed and briefed both the district judge's decision that the initial stop was lawful and the judge's decision that the officers did not impermissibly prolong the stop by taking the time to speak privately with the passenger. The Court of Appeals appears to have believed that Defendant's arguments in the alternative may have meant that he had abandoned his challenge to the lawfulness of the initial stop. See Sewell, 2008-NMCA-027, ¶ 14 (Defendant assumes in his brief that the stop of his car was reasonable, arguing only that the scope of the stop exceeded its initial basis.). Defendant strenuously argues that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted what were meant to be arguments in the alternative, and the State agrees in its briefing before this Court that [t]he [o]pinion was mistaken in that respect. Although Defendant has requested that this Court address the reasonable suspicion issue on the merits, neither party has properly brought it before us for review on certiorari. Our grant of certiorari was limited to the State's request that we review the issues involved in the Court of Appeals' determination that the officers unreasonably extended the roadside detention after the car search for the period of time it took to talk to the passenger in private. Under the appellate rules, it is improper for this Court to consider any questions except those set forth in the petition for certiorari. Fikes v. Furst, 2003-NMSC-033, ¶¶ 8-9, 134 N.M. 602, 81 P.3d 545 (citing Rule 12-502(C)(2) NMRA). But see State v. Javier M., 2001-NMSC-030, ¶ 10, 131 N.M. 1, 33 P.3d 1 (allowing review of foundational issue[s] which [are] integral to a complete and thorough analysis of the specific question presented in the petition for writ of certiorari). We agree with the State that we are bound by the posture in which the case comes before us on certiorari from the Court of Appeals, taking as a given that the initial stop was lawful and focusing on the issue of whether the investigatory detention was impermissibly expanded. Nothing in this opinion should therefore be interpreted as taking any position on either the legality of the stop or any purported abandonment of the issue, and we leave it to the parties and the Court of Appeals to address those questions on remand.