Opinion ID: 2575795
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Existence of Probable Cause to Arrest for Drugs

Text: The State also asserts that the officers' reasonable suspicion ripened into probable cause to arrest Anderson after Golston was found to be holding drugs and arrested, the drug dog alerted, and the officers thoroughly searched the truck and found no additional drugs. The State wants us to conclude that additional drugs had to be somewhere and that the somewhere was on Anderson's person 30 to 40 feet away from the truck. We are not willing to do so. Rather, we adopt the Court of Appeals' analysis of this issue. Not only did no probable cause to arrest Anderson for drugs develop when the unproductive search of the truck was completed; the justification for the Terry detention ended. In Judge Henry Green's words: At this point, the officers' reasonable suspicions that Anderson was involved in drug activity should have lessened. The officers had pursued a method of investigating the suspected drug activity that did not produce anything which would point to Anderson. The search of the truck did not produce any incriminating evidence. Although officers had discovered drugs and money on Golston, they found no incriminating evidence which would indicate that Anderson could be linked to these items. . . . When the officers failed to discover drugs in the truck, the officers had no reasonable basis for continuing their detention of Anderson, and they should have released him. The continued detention of Anderson after the officers failed to discover drugs in the truck became unreasonable. It is apparent that the officers' continued detention of Anderson was based on a hunch. . . . [R]easonable suspicion cannot rest upon the hunch of an experienced officer, even if that hunch turns out to be right. See United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7. As a result, we determine that at that point the officers' continued detention of Anderson became an unlawful detention. . . . . [The officers' reasonable] suspicion never ripened into probable cause giving officers the authority to arrest Anderson. . . . . The State argues that the following circumstances had the effect of ripening the officers' level of suspicion to probable cause to believe that Anderson was involved in drug activity: the drugs and $1,300 discovered on Golston, the drug dog's alert on the truck, Anderson's attempt to abscond from the scene, and Anderson's attempt to throw out the baggies of drugs. The State maintains that at a minimum, there was probable cause to believe that Anderson was aiding and abetting Golston. We do not endorse the State's attempt to bootstrap Anderson's flight from the officers and his action of discarding the drugs into the factors giving the officers probable cause to believe that Anderson was involved in drug activity. As noted in 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.2(d) (4th ed. 2005), when a warrantless arrest is made, `the information to be considered is the totality of facts available to the officer at the time of the arrest or search. ' (Emphasis added.) Here, Anderson did not flee the scene and discard the drugs until after the officers had attempted to arrest him. Therefore, these factors are not relevant in determining whether the officers had probable cause to arrest Anderson. [T]he remaining factors that the State argues had the effect of ripening the officers' suspicions to the level of probable cause are: (1) the drugs and $1,300 that were found on Golston; and (2) the drug dog's alert on the truck. . . . [W]hen the search of Anderson's truck did not produce anything, this should have dispelled the officers' suspicions pertaining to the drug dog's alert on the truck. Moreover, if the officers possessed reasonable suspicion of Anderson being involved in drug activity, this suspicion should have been lessened after the search of Anderson's truck produced nothing. It is also important to note that officers did not discover anything during the pat-down search of Anderson. It is inconceivable to determine that after the search of Anderson's truck produced no drug evidence, the officers' reasonable suspicion increased to the level of probable cause. Furthermore, the fact that Golston had drugs and money on his person does not show that Anderson was guilty of drug activity. Noting that the search or seizure of a person must be supported by probable cause particularized to that person and cannot be avoided by simply pointing out that there is probable cause to search or seize another person, the United States Supreme Court in Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91, 62 L. Ed. 2d 238, 100 S. Ct. 338 (1979), stated: `[A] person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person. Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 62-63, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917, 88 S. Ct. 1889 (1968). Where the standard is probable cause, a search or seizure of a person must be supported by probable cause particularized with respect to that person. This requirement cannot be undercut or avoided by simply pointing to the fact that coincidentally there exists probable cause to search or seize another or to search the premises where the person may happen to be. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments protect the `legitimate expectations of privacy' of persons, not places. [Citations omitted.]' Here, there was no incriminating evidence discovered during the detention that would indicate that Anderson had drugs on his person or which would link the evidence found on Golston to Anderson. The United States Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 92 L. Ed. 2d 210, 68 S. Ct. 222 (1948), provides further support for the conclusion that the drugs and money found on Golston, a passenger in Anderson's truck, did not give the officers probable cause to arrest Anderson. In that case, an informant told an investigator with the Office of Price Administration that he was going to buy counterfeit gasoline ration coupons from one Buttitta at a designated place. The investigator and a detective followed Buttitta's car to the designated place. The officers found the informant in the backseat holding the counterfeit ration coupons. The informant told the officers that he had bought the coupons from the driver, Buttitta. Di Re was a passenger in the car. The officer arrested all three occupants of the car. At the police station, when Di Re was asked to empty the contents of his pockets and later when he was searched, it was discovered that he had possession of counterfeit ration coupons. The Di Re Court's opinion turned on whether there was probable cause to arrest Di Re. The Government attempted to defend Di Re's arrest on the theory that there was probable cause to believe he was guilty of conspiracy. Nevertheless, the Court found that the facts of the case did not warrant an inference of participation in conspiracy. The Court noted that there was no evidence establishing that Di Re was in the car when the informant obtained the coupons from Buttitta or that Di Re overheard or participated in any conversation on the matter. The Court further noted that the meeting occurred in a public street in a large city in broad daylight in plain sight of bypassers and that it did not necessarily involve a visibly criminal act. Moreover, the Court stated that `whatever suspicion might result from Di Re's mere presence seems diminished, if not destroyed, when Reed, present as the informer, pointed out Buttitta, and Buttitta only, as a guilty party.' 332 U.S. at 594. Like the facts of Di Re, here there was a singling out or incrimination of the other occupant of the car, Golston, to the exclusion of Anderson. At the time of Anderson's arrest, the officers had no information that would implicate or point to Anderson. Moreover, after the search of the car revealed no incriminating evidence, the officers had nothing to link Anderson to the drugs that were found on Golston, that is, to show that Anderson and Golston were involved in a common enterprise of drug activity. Therefore, the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Anderson. Anderson, 34 Kan. App. 2d at 388-92. The State's only support for a contrary conclusion is United States v. Anchondo, 156 F.3d 1043, 1045 (10th Cir. 1998). In Anchondo, a drug-sniffing dog twice alerted on defendant's vehicle, which was stopped at a highway checkpoint; no drugs were found. Officers then performed a pat-down of defendant, who had been detained in a trailer, and the pat-down yielded a package of cocaine strapped to the defendant's stomach. Four such packages ultimately were recovered from the defendant. The Anchondo panel held that the warrantless search of the defendant after the dog alerted on the car but no drugs were discovered in it was valid as a search incident to arrest, even though the arrest did not occur until after the search of defendant's person revealed drugs. In the panel's view, the dog's alert and the failure to discover drugs in the vehicle created probable cause to believe that drugs were on the defendant's person. 156 F.3d at 1045. This court has cited Anchondo for unrelated propositions concerning searches incident to arrest. See State v. Conn, 278 Kan. 387, 393, 99 P.3d 1108 (2004) (quoting Anchondo, 156 F.3d at 1043, and Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 111, 65 L. Ed. 2d 633, 100 S. Ct. 2556 [1980]). One Kansas Court of Appeals case and a handful of published and unpublished United States District of Kansas Court opinions also have cited Anchondo, but not in regard to the proposition at issue here. See State v. Brown, No. 90,139, unpublished opinion filed June 10, 2005); Agustonelli v. Springer, 2004 WL 825300, at  (D. Kan. April 14, 2004); Lewis v. Fairbanks, 2001 WL 789251, at  (D. Kan. June 15, 2001); United States v. Valenzuela Ruiz, 2000 WL 33417503, at  (D. Kan. August 8, 2000); United States v. Prieto-Zubia, 103 F. Supp.2d 1292, 1295 (D. Kan. 2000); United States v. Lee, 2000 WL 968783, at  (D. Kan. June 13, 2000); United States v. Charles, 2000 WL 575043, at  (D. Kan. May 1, 2000); United States v. Hernandez, 1999 WL 318090, at  (D. Kan. February 23, 1999). Although this court has held that a drug dog's alert is sufficient to constitute probable cause to search a vehicle, see State v. Barker, 252 Kan. 949, 959-60, 850 P.2d 885 (1993), we do not agree with the Anchondo panel's decision that such an alert followed by an unsuccessful search of the vehicle gives law enforcement license to search or arrest the vehicle's driver. Only one other court appears to have endorsed Anchondo's approach. See State v. Voichahoske, 271 Neb. 64, 81, 709 N.W.2d 659 (2006) (arrest and strip search of vehicle passenger permitted when dog alerted while passenger inside and passenger appeared to be under influence of drugs). Cases from other jurisdictions are aligned with our Barker decision and do not go so far as Anchondo, i.e., a drug dog's alert can provide probable cause to search a vehicle but not to arrest its driver. See State v. Perry, 2005 WL 3031741, at  (Ohio App. November 14, 2005) (once second drug dog alerted to defendant's vehicle, trooper had probable cause to conduct warrantless search of vehicle); State v. Simms, 2005 WL 3210724, at  (N.J. Super. December 1, 2005) (probable cause to search vehicle for drugs did not exist until drug dog reacted positively outside it). One state has specifically rejected Anchondo's holding. See State v. Gibson, 141 Idaho 277, 286, 108 P.3d 424 (2005) (To the extent [ Anchondo ] endorses a rule in which a dog's alert on a car, and the subsequent failure of a search of that car to disclose drugs, establishes probable cause to arrest an occupant, we disagree that a similar rule should govern the use of drug detection dogs during routine traffic stops in Idaho.). And several of our sister jurisdictions have declined to adopt a similar holding when presented with similar facts. See State v. Wallace, 372 Md. 137, 155-157, 812 A.2d 291 (2002) (drug dog alerted twice on car containing defendant, others; defendant removed from car; defendant searched; cocaine found; arrest followed; court holds dog's general alert on car did not give officers probable cause to search passengers); State v. Kelly, 2001 WL 1561543, at -4 (Ohio App. December 1, 2001) (ruling canine alert to presence of drugs in car gave police probable cause to search interior of car, but not occupants; general canine alert not specific to defendant); People v. Fondia, 317 Ill. App. 3d 966, 969, 740 N.E.2d 839 (2000) (drug dog alerted on car containing defendants; officer removed defendant from car, searched him, found drug paraphernalia; arrested him; canine alert on car's exterior does not, without more, provide probable cause to search persons of car's occupants). While we are aware that Tenth Circuit precedent may be persuasive, this court is not bound to follow it. See, e.g., Wilkins v. Tourtellott, 42 Kan. 176, 197, 22 Pac. 11 (1889). In this instance, we conclude that adherence to Anchondo would be unwise, particularly on the facts of this case. The behavior of the officers who arrested Anderson demonstrated that they knew they lacked probable cause to arrest him without a warrant when their search of the truck came up empty. They did not attempt to arrest him until their efforts to contact the Department of Corrections resulted in Sackhoff's oral arrest and detain order. The sequence of their efforts speaks volumes. There was no probable cause to arrest Anderson for drugs; if his arrest was lawful, it had to be because of his conditional release status and Sackhoff's order. We therefore move to discussion of that aspect of this case.