Opinion ID: 2629758
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reasonable Suspicion to Search the Vehicle

Text: On appeal, both Rawlins and Kaleohano advance the alternative argument that Officer Serle lacked reasonable suspicion to search the vehicle. Although the circuit court viewed this case with a focus on constitutional safeguards against self-incrimination, the FOFs included in the September 27, 2000 decision and order are sufficient to address whether Officer Serle's request for consent to search Kaleohano's vehicle was supported by reasonable suspicion. Here, the parties do not dispute, and we agree, that the traffic stop initiated by Officer Serle was valid at its inception. This court has consistently held that, in determining the validity of wholly discretionary automobile stops, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. The ultimate test in these situations must be whether from these facts, measured by an objective standard, a [person] of reasonable caution would be warranted in believing that criminal activity was afoot and that the action taken was appropriate. State v. Powell, 61 Haw. 316, 321-22, 603 P.2d 143, 148 (1979) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, the trial court found that Officer Serle observed [Kaleohano's] vehicle swerving within its lane of travel and crossing over the solid double center line twice. The officer's observations were sufficient to warrant an investigative traffic stop to determine whether Kaleohano was driving while impaired. See Park v. Tanaka, 75 Haw. 271, 280, 859 P.2d 917, 921-22 (1993) (holding that testimony that driver weaved and swerved provided reasonable suspicion to stop vehicle); Kernan, 75 Haw. at 39, 856 P.2d at 1226 (holding that police officer's observation that car was speeding and weaving onto another lane justified investigative traffic stop). In light of the particular circumstances that gave rise to the traffic stop, Officer Serle was also authorized to detain Kaleohano and carry out an investigation to confirm or dispel, in as brief a time as possible, his reasonable suspicion that she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). Here, the defendants argue that Officer Serle exceeded the permissible scope of the traffic stop when he requested Kaleohano's consent to search the vehicle for drugs. [12] We disagree. In State v. Silva, 91 Hawai`i 80, 979 P.2d 1106 (1999), we clarified that police [may not] prolong the detention of individuals subjected to brief, temporary investigative stopsonce such stops have failed to substantiate the reasonable suspicion that initially justified them[.] Id. at 81, 979 P.2d at 1107. Because temporary investigative stops involve an exception to the general rule requiring that searches and seizures be supported by probable cause, the scope of such detentions must be narrow. Id. (citing Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 207-08, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979)). We recently outlined, in State v. Ketchum, 97 Hawai`i 107, 34 P.3d 1006 (2001), the permissible scope of a temporary investigative stop, noting that it is well settled that a temporary investigative detention must, of necessity, be truly temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the detention i.e., transpire for no longer than necessary to confirm or dispel the officer's reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. In other words, a temporary investigative detention must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the detention in the first place, and, thus, must be no greater in intensity than absolutely necessary under the circumstances. Id. at 125, 34 P.3d at 1024 (quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted). Determining whether a seizure pursuant to a temporary investigative stop is constitutional also involves a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50-51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). Officer Serle had reasonable suspicion to believe that Kaleohano was driving while impaired by drugs. [13] He witnessed her vehicle repeatedly crossing the highway dividing line and, upon noting the license plate, realized that the vehicle in question was one in which illegal drugs had been recovered in an earlier search conducted pursuant to warrant. Officer Serle's suspicions were heightened when he recognized the motorist as an individual who had been arrested for drug charges in the past. Although we have already emphasized that a person's prior history of drug arrests is insufficient to establish probable cause, awareness of past arrests may, when combined with other specific articulable facts indicating the probability of current criminal activity, factor into a determination that reasonable suspicion, sufficient to warrant a temporary investigative stop, exists. See United States v. Feliciano, 45 F.3d 1070, 1074 (7th Cir.1995) (emphasizing that [k]nowledge of ... recent relevant criminal conduct, while of doubtful evidentiary value in view of the strictures against proving guilt by association or by a predisposition based on past criminal acts, is a permissible component of the articulable suspicion required for a Terry stop. (Emphasis in original.)). Officer Serle testified that, after realizing that he was dealing with somebody who had prior arrests for drug possession and who was driving a vehicle in which drugs had previously been discovered, he suspected the erratic driving pattern may have been due to Kaleohano's drug impairment or her attempt to hide drugs after spotting the police vehicle on the road behind her. Officer Serle's inference that Kaleohano may have been impaired and that drugs might be involved was supported by his observation that Kaleohano's eyes were red and glassy. When Officer Serle failed to detect an odor of alcohol emanating from Kaleohano's person, it was reasonable for him to infer, through a process of elimination, that Kaleohano's impairment could be drug-related and that Kaleohano's vehicle might contain drugs. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (rational inferences arising from specific facts may support the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigative stop). The dissent suggests that, [i]f the officers believed Kaleohano was impaired so as to make driving hazardous, dissenting op. at 383, 56 P.3d at 151, they had only a limited number of options available to them, i.e., they could have secured the car and parked it or moved it and called someone to pickup Kaleohano and her co-defendant or notified them they could make such calls. Dissenting opinion at 383, 56 P.3d at 151. We disagree. Although Officer Serle's initial contact with Kaleohano allowed him to exclude alcohol as a cause of impairment, his suspicion that the impairment may have been drug-related was not similarly dispelled, and, therefore, brief questioning aimed at confirming or dispelling his remaining suspicion was justified in light of its reasonableness. Admittedly, Officer Serle's lack of training made it impossible for him to conduct a test that might have provided him with probable cause to arrest Kaleohano for driving while impaired. See Kernan, 75 Haw. at 38 n. 23, 856 P.2d at 1226 n. 23. However, we emphasize that Officer Serle's lack of training to conduct a field sobriety test did not disqualify him from briefly questioning Kaleohano. Neither the fourth amendment nor the Hawai`i Constitution require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. On the contrary, Terry recognizes that it may be the essence of good police work to adopt an intermediate response. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Weighing the strong public interest in minimizing the dangers presented by impaired drivers on our highways against the slight intrusion on Kaleohano's privacy, we cannot say that Officer Serle's attempt to confirm or dispel his reasonable suspicion through a request for consent to search was constitutionally impermissible. We, therefore, hold that, in detaining Kaleohano for the purpose of determining if she was impaired and if she would consent to a search of her vehicle, Officer Serle did not exceed the scope of a temporary investigative stop premised upon circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that Kaleohano was driving while impaired or that her vehicle might contain illicit substances.