Court Opinion

ID: 9650392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:34:52.23313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:20.179483
License: Public Domain

NOBLE, Vice Chancellor,
Dissenting:
Defendant-appellant Kevin McDonald was convicted of drug offenses based on evidence seized following a warrantless stop of the automobile in which he was a passenger. Drugs were found in the vehicle; he was arrested; a subsequent search revealed more drugs secreted on his person. A few hours later, the arresting state trooper executed an Affidavit of Probable Cause for his arrest. McDonald contends that the state trooper lacked probable cause for the warrantless stop. Apart from his challenge to the vehicle stop, McDonald raises no challenge to his conviction.
The majority, in condemning the vehicle stop, focuses on the Affidavit of Probable Cause supporting the arrest warrant. From that separate and distinct magisterial process, it draws factual findings that diverge from those of the trial judge who heard the suppression hearing testimony and, exercising his discretion, found the facts associated with the stop and concluded that the state trooper had sufficient cause for his actions.
At the suppression hearing, the State sought to justify the warrantless vehicle stop on several grounds; some of them, accepted by the trial judge, do not, as properly pointed out by the majority, with*1082stand appellate review. The state trooper, however, had probable cause to believe that the vehicle was not properly registered. He had twice entered the tag number and each time the database response indicated that it was an invalid number. Thus, when the vehicle was traveling on the public road at the time of the stop, he had a reasonable and good faith belief that a motor vehicle violation was occurring. Unfortunately, the state trooper had entered the tag numbers incorrectly and the vehicle was, in fact, properly registered. Even though the state trooper was wrong about the factual basis for this reason to stop the vehicle, a police officer’s good faith mistake of fact is not a reason under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution to suppress the evidence resulting from that stop. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I.
Although it is said that this Court reviews a trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress under an abuse of discretion standard,24 more accurately, the trial court’s findings of historical fact are reviewed under the “deferential ‘clearly erroneous’ ” standard,25 but its conclusion as to probable cause, or more specifically its application of the law of search and seizure to those historical facts, is considered de novo.26
II.
The Court is called upon to review the Superior Court’s determination that the state trooper had probable cause to stop the vehicle.27 The Superior Court recognized four possible factors supporting probable cause for the warrantless stop: (1) the right turn from the parking lot without use of a blinker light; (2) the vehicle was parked at a convenience store, a known forum for drug transactions, and a pedestrian was seen close to the vehicle; (3) the driver of the vehicle hastily exited the parking lot shortly after the state trooper’s arrival; and (4) the state trooper’s mistaken belief that the vehicle was not properly registered. As the majority concludes, the first three items in this listing do not support probable cause for the warrantless stop.
*1083First, as the majority properly determines, the right turn from the parking lot without the use of a blinker was not a violation of Delaware law and thus could not justify a warrantless stop. A police officer’s good faith mistake of law, even one that is reasonable, does not survive scrutiny under the United States Constitution as the basis for a warrantless stop.28
Second, the Superior Court’s reference to the driver’s “unprovoked flight” is not supported by the record, even with recognition that the Superior Court’s findings of fact are entitled to deference.
Third, the presence of McDonald at a location known for drug trafficking, by itself, does not support the vehicle stop. Perhaps it might serve as an additional factor to consider under different circumstances, but it does not inform any judgment with respect to suspicion of a motor vehicle offense, the remaining criminal conduct identified by the state trooper.29
Consequently, the only remaining basis to support the warrantless stop is the state trooper’s understanding that the vehicle was not properly registered. Of course in this instance, the police officer entered the registration numbers incorrectly and thereby obtained incorrect information, when, indeed, the vehicle’s registration complied with the law. As a general matter, under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a police officer’s good faith mistake of fact will not taint an arrest that would have been lawful if the basis for his suspicion of criminal conduct had in fact been accurate.30 Furthermore, motor vehicle violations may *1084serve as the basis for warrantless searches and seizures.31
In short, the Superior Court found that the state trooper stopped the vehicle for several reasons, including a belief that the vehicle, which was being driven on a public road, was not properly registered.32 That finding of historical fact — that the police officer reasonably believed that there was a vehicle registration violation — should, in my view, end our inquiry under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The majority, however, concludes that the Superior Court erred in considering the potential registration violation as a basis for the warrantless stop and, instead, holds that the only possible ground available to the Superior Court for sustaining the stop was the right turn from the parking lot. To reach that conclusion, the majority looks to the Affidavit of Probable Cause prepared by the state trooper to secure a warrant for McDonald’s arrest a few hours after the vehicle stop. The purpose of that affidavit, of course, was not to justify or support the earlier warrant-less stop. Nonetheless, the majority invokes the “four corners” test, under which a court reviewing the sufficiency of cause to support the issuance of a warrant is limited to the facts set forth in the affidavit presented to the issuing judicial officer. Because the affidavit did not mention the perceived registration violation, the majority concludes that the Superior Court should not have given any weight to that ground for the stop.
I respectfully suggest that the majority’s reliance upon the “four corners” test is misplaced for two reasons. First, the “four corners” test is appropriate for evaluating whether probable cause existed for the issuance of a warrant, a warrant issued in reliance upon an affidavit. The test is, by definition, focused on the purpose of the warrant — in this instance, McDonald’s arrest. By limiting its review of the historical facts to the supporting affidavit, an appellate court is able to mimic precisely the work of the issuing magistrate by confining its factual considerations to those set forth in the affidavit that was before the magistrate.33 In other words, by limiting any review to the four corners of the affidavit, it is possible for the appellate court to have exactly the same factual understanding as the magistrate; in addition, the “four corners” test avoids the risks necessarily caused by the passage of time and faded memories.
On the other hand, a police officer making an unanticipated and warrantless arrest does not first prepare a text supporting his actions.34 There is no precisely memorialized set of facts upon which he acted. For that reason, the validity of a warrantless search or seizure is measured contextually or in light of all the circumstances.35 The root invasion of Fourth Amendment rights challenged by McDonald occurred as the result of the warrantless vehicle stop, not his arrest *1085pursuant to a warrant. Because the “four corners” test is not properly applied to a warrantless vehicle stop, it does not limit the universe of facts that the Superior Court was entitled to consider (or that the State had the right to proffer) in support of the vehicle stop.
Second, the majority’s approach intrudes unnecessarily into the discretionary province of the trial judge: historical fact finding. Perhaps the majority’s analysis reflects skepticism about the veracity of the state trooper’s testimony.36 The majority correctly observes that the Affidavit of Probable Cause did not refer to any possible registration violation,37 but the state trooper was under no duty to set forth all of his reasons for the warrantless stop; the facts that supported McDonald’s eventual arrest were, of course, tied to the vehicle stop, but the state trooper had no reason to give a complete explanation or justification for the vehicle stop in the affidavit used to obtain a warrant for McDonald’s later arrest.38 Nevertheless, the majority dismisses the state trooper’s testimony because of the affidavit’s contents.39
*1086Thus, without having had the opportunity to observe and assess the state trooper’s credibility, the majority declines to credit his testimony and the conclusions drawn by the Superior Court after hearing that testimony. The state trooper testified, and the Superior Court accepted as historical fact, that one of the reasons why he suspected criminal activity was the result of his inquiry into the status of the vehicle’s registration. Given the deference to which a trial judge is entitled on review of his historical factual findings, those are facts which this Court should accept.40 That limited set of facts demonstrates that the state trooper had an objectively reasonable belief that the vehicle was being operated without a valid registration and suffices to support the warrantless stop of the vehicle under the United States Constitution.41
III.
In sum, because the vehicle stop was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, there is no reason to suppress the evidence obtained from any subsequent search. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment below.

. E.g., Guy v. State, 913 A.2d 558, 563 (Del.2006); Donald v. State, 903 A.2d 315, 318 (Del.2006).

. Lopez v. State, 861 A.2d 1245, 1248 (Del.2004); see also State v. Henderson, 892 A.2d 1061, 1066 (Del.2006).

. Donald, 903 A.2d at 318. See also Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696-97, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996), explaining the nature of appellate review of a trial court’s probable cause determination:
The principal components of a determination of reasonable suspicion or probable cause will be the events which occurred leading up to the stop or search, and then the decision whether these historical facts, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer, amount to reasonable suspicion or to probable cause. The first part of the analysis involves only a determination of historical facts, but the second is a mixed question of law and fact; “[T]he historical facts are admitted or established, the rule of law is undisputed, and the issue is whether the facts satisfy the [relevant] statutory [or constitutional] standard, or to put it another way, whether the rule of law as applied to the established facts is or is not violated.”
(alterations in original).

.Probable cause for a warrantless vehicle stop equates with "a reasonable ground for belief of guilt.” Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371, 124 S.Ct. 795, 157 L.Ed.2d 769 (2003) (quotation omitted). This Court has recognized that, in this context, probable cause is “determined by the totality of the circumstances and requires a showing of a probability that [illegal] activity is occurring or has occurred.” Bease v. State, 884 A.2d 495, 498 (Del.2005).

.See United States v. Tyler, 512 F.3d 405, 411 (7th Cir.2008) (‘‘[A] mistake of law (as opposed to a mistake of fact) cannot justify an investigative detention.”); United States v. Booker, 496 F.3d 717, 722 (D.C.Cir.2007) ("Unlike stops premised on mistakes of fact, stops premised on a mistake of law, even a reasonable, good-faith mistake, are generally held to be unconstitutional.” (quotation and alteration omitted)); United States v. Coplin, 463 F.3d 96, 101 (1st Cir.2006) ("Stops premised on a mistake of law, even a reasonable, good-faith mistake, are generally held to be unconstitutional.”); United States v. Chanthasonxat, 342 F.3d 1271, 1279 (11th Cir.2003) ("[T]he correct question is whether a mistake of law, no matter how reasonable or understandable, can provide the objectively reasonable grounds for reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And to that question we join the Fifth and Ninth Circuits in holding that a mistake of law cannot provide reasonable suspicion or probable cause to justify a traffic stop.”); United States v. Lopez-Soto, 205 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir.2000) (“[Tjhere is no good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule for police who do not act in accordance with governing law.”); United States v. Lopez-Valdez, 178 F.3d 282, 289 (5th Cir.1999) ("But if officers are allowed to stop vehicles based upon their subjective belief that traffic laws have been violated even where no such violation has, in fact, occurred, the potential for abuse of traffic infractions as pretext for effecting stops seems boundless and the costs to privacy rights excessive.”). But see United States v. Bueno, 443 F.3d 1017, 1024 (8th Cir.2006) ("We have held, however, that neither mistake of law nor mistake of fact renders a traffic stop illegal so long as the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable in the circumstances.”); United States v. Planells-Guerra, 509 F.Supp.2d 1000, 1002 (D.Utah 2007) ("The good-faith exception applies to both warrantless searches and to objectively reasonable police officer mistakes of law.”).

. Presence in an area known for criminal activity is not enough, standing alone, to support reasonable suspicion. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 51-52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); Jones v. State, 745 A.2d 856, 871 (Del.1999). As Jones explains, presence in a high crime area may be used "as additional support to bolster a finding of reasonable suspicion, not as the sole bas[i]s of that finding.” Id.

. See United States v. Moody, 240 F. App’x 858, 859 (11th Cir.2007); United States v. Dowthard, 500 F.3d 567, 569 (7th Cir.2007); supra note 5.

. See, e.g., Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813-14, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996).

. See 21 Del. C. § 2101.

. See, e.g., Dorsey v. State, 761 A.2d 807, 811 (Del.2000); Pierson v. State, 338 A.2d 571, 573-74 (Del. 1975).

. In assessing the propriety of a warrantless arrest or search, as the Court is required to do here, the question is materially different. The reviewing court's task is to examine the circumstances surrounding the' search or seizure from "the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer.” Pringle, 540 U.S. at 371, 124 S.Ct. 795.

.See, e.g., Coleman v. State, 562 A.2d 1171, 1177 (Del.1989).

."[S]tatements, ... having been made when memory was more recent and when less time for the play of influence has elapsed, are often inherently more trustworthy than the testimony itself.” McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 34 (Edward W. Cleary, ed., 2d ed. 1972). See also Kelly v. City of San Jose, 114 F.R.D. 653, 667 (N.D.Cal.1987) (stating that the quality of information developed close in time to events in question is likely to be high). The majority may be seen as drawing upon sound fact finding methodology and that is consistent with my reservation that it is engaging in the finding of historical fact. The majority states that Affidavit of Probable Cause in support of arrest has "determinate probative value because it is the only contemporaneous evidence of why [the state trooper] stopped the motor vehicle....” Usually, near-contemporaneous accounts of events are afforded more weight than later accounts, but the mere existence of contemporaneous evidence should not foreclose consideration of later evidence. Contemporaneity is instead a factor for a trial judge to consider when determining what weight to give certain evidence. Cf., e.g., McAllister v. Kallop, 1995 WL 462210, *17 (Del.Ch. July 28, 1995) ("Because I do not find it credible, I give no weight to Kallop’s testimony that he believed further steps were necessary to complete the transfer of his share. I find the language of the Letter Agreement, the best contemporaneous evidence of Kallop’s intent, to be much more persuasive.”). Evidence is not rendered "determinative” or "dispositive” because it is the only contemporaneous evidence in a given case-other evidence, found credible by the trial judge, exists in this case: the state trooper’s testimony below.

. The majority points to testimony given by the state trooper at the suppression hearing to support its factual conclusion that the potential registration violation was not a basis for the stop:
Defense Counsel: Officer, you would agree with me in the Affidavit of Probable Cause, the only basis that you identify for stopping the vehicle that Mr. McDonald was riding in was the fact that it failed to signal its intent to proceed in a right-hand direction from the parking lot?
Corporal Hake: That’s correct.
Instead of demonstrating that the only reason that the state trooper had for stopping the vehicle was the right-hand turn out of the parking lot, the truthful testimony of the state trooper at the suppression hearing was that the only reason set forth in the affidavit was the right-hand turn. The state trooper’s unremarkable confirmation of the words contained in the Affidavit of Probable Cause for McDonald’s arrest does not constitute testimony by the state trooper (or otherwise support the inference) that the right turn was the only basis for the stop.

. To the extent that the affidavit and the state trooper’s testimony do not perfectly coincide, that, at most, goes to the weight to be attributed to his testimony, not its admissibility. See, e.g., Demby v. State, 945 A.2d 593, 2008 WL 534273, at *2 (Del. Feb.28, 2008) (Table).

. McDonald did not argue to the Superior Court that he was the victim of a pretextual traffic stop, see State v. Heath, 929 A.2d 390 (Del.Super.2006) (applying the Delaware Constitution), and, therefore, no such claim *1086may be asserted now. See Demby, 2008 WL 534273, at *3.

. The majority accurately points out that the state trooper did not expressly state at the suppression hearing that the perceived registration violation was among his reasons for stopping the vehicle. It is clear, however, that the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the trial judge understood that to have been one of the reasons invoked by the State to justify the stop. For example, McDonald’s suppression motion challenged its use; both prosecutor and defense counsel addressed it at some length during the suppression hearing; and the trial judge relied upon it in his decision. McDonald’s counsel urged the trial judge not to accept the perceived registration violation as a basis for the stop; he did not contend that the prosecution had failed to meet its burden to put the registration violation before the trial judge. Moreover, the state trooper testified at the suppression hearing that he had removed the tag from the vehicle to preserve it as evidence of what he believed at the time was the use of a fictitious tag. Although it is not apparent precisely when the tag was removed, it was done before the state trooper learned that the registration was valid. That is evidence, either contemporaneous or substantially contemporaneous with the stop, that supports the reasonable inference, as drawn by the trial judge, that the registration violation was one of the several factors animating the state trooper’s conduct of stopping the vehicle. Thus, it is clear- — as it was to all involved in the suppression hearing — that the perceived registration violation was one of the grounds upon which the state trooper claimed to have relied in making the warrantless stop.

. McDonald had also invoked the Delaware Constitution in his effort to suppress the evidence used to convict him. He relies upon Dorsey which held that, for purposes of Article I, Section 6 of the Delaware Constitution, actual probable cause, not merely a good faith belief in probable cause, is necessary for the issuance of a search warrant. 761 A.2d at 820. Dorsey, however, has not been applied in the context of a warrantless vehicle stop, and because McDonald's conviction will be reversed under the Fourth Amendment as applied by the majority, there is no reason to address now whether Dorsey’s reach should be extended.