Court Opinion

ID: 9785787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:20:36.081555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:01.600780
License: Public Domain

HILL, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
[¶ 29] I respectfully dissent because I see the majority’s proposed decision as an inexplicable departure from our established precedents, as well as a divergence from the nation-wide developments in this area of the law.
[¶ 30] As a point of embarkation I think it is of value to set out in more detail our holding in State v. Welch, 873 P.2d 601 (Wyo.1994). After a detailed recitation of the facts and circumstances, which bear a significant resemblance to the facts and circumstances of this case, we determined that the detention of Welch was pursuant to a lawful and permissible traffic stop. As was the case in Welch, the evidence used to prove Damato’s guilt was the fruit of a search of his person and automobile, incidental to a traffic stop on Interstate 80:
The respondents assert that many, if not all, of Patrolman Dyer’s observations were as consistent with innocence as they were with guilt. We embrace the doctrine that even conduct which is wholly lawful and seemingly innocent may form the basis for a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 6-8, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); United States v. Glover, 957 F.2d 1004, 1013 (2d Cir.1992). Patrolman Dyer did not necessarily attribute this stop and his suspicion that the respondents were drug couriers to his drug profile training, though he had received such training. Rather, he credited his knowledge of, and experience with, similar arrests where, in fact, circumstances such as those he observed that day were correctly *711put together to form reasonable articulable suspicions.
The respondents rely upon several Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals eases, but those eases are not in point. In each case, the Tenth Circuit Court found that reasonable articulable suspicions were lacking, which was not the situation here. See United States v. Walker, 933 F.2d 812 (10th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1093, 112 S.Ct. 1168, 117 L.Ed.2d 414 (1992) (suspect acted nervous); United States v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512 (10th Cir.1988) (stop made on the basis of a hunch in the middle of New Mexico’s August desert heat; suspect nervous); and United States v. Recalde, 761 F.2d 1448 (10th Cir.1985) (stop made on the basis of a hunch alone). The Tenth Circuit decision which is most relevant to our inquiry today is United States v. Soto, 988 F.2d 1548 (10th Cir.1993). In that case, the Tenth Circuit Court distinguished Walker, Guzman, and Recalde and found that a police officer’s observations that the suspect was “panicky” and unable to give an address for his uncle from whom he had borrowed the car which he was driving formed the basis of a reasonable articulable suspicion. In the case here, Patrolman Dyer had a list of circumstances which far exceeded the circumstances enumerated in Soto and the other cases cited in Soto (e.g., United States v. Corral, 899 F.2d 991 (10th Cir. 1990) (spare tire out of place and bulge in spare tire well)). Soto, 988 F.2d at 1555.
The critical question which we must answer in more detail is whether Patrolman Dyer violated the respondents’ constitutional rights by detaining them along the highway for approximately fifty minutes while he concluded his investigation.
The case of United States v. Hardy, 855 F.2d 753 (11th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1019, 109 S.Ct. 1137, 103 L.Ed.2d 198 (1989), is directly in point. In assessing the reasonableness of a fifty-minute detention in that case of a suspected drug courier by the Georgia State Patrol, the court said:
The Georgia State Patrol could not have anticipated appellants’ journey, and appellants make no suggestion that every state trooper must be accompanied by a narcotics dog. The state patrol did have a trained dog available within twenty-five miles, a distance we find sufficiently short given the rural nature of the area.
855 F.2d at 760.
In Glover, the court held that a thirty-minute detention at a bus terminal in Buffalo, New York, while officers awaited arrival of the narcotics dog, was not unreasonable. 957 F.2d at 1013; and see Cresswell v. State, 564 So.2d 480 (Fla.1990) (tacitly approving approximately forty-five-minute detention to await arrival of narcotics dog); and 3 WAYNE R. LAFAYE, SEARCH AND SEIZURE § 9.2(f) (2d ed. 1987 & Supp.1993).
Given the circumstance that the stop in this case was made six miles east of Laramie and that a narcotics dog was transported to the scene with dispatch from twenty-five miles west of Laramie, we hold that the detention here was not unreasonable in any respect.
In summary, we hold that the district court erred in suppressing evidence obtained as a result of the “canine sniff’ of the respondents’ vehicle. The initial stop was lawful and was followed by a minimally intrusive detention of the vehicle and the respondents on a reasonably articula-ble suspicion premised upon objective facts indicating that the respondents’ vehicle contained contraband. We specifically reject the bright line rule adopted by the trial court for its judicial district. The reasonableness of the detention is to be measured by whether the police acted diligently under all the circumstances of the case and whether the detention involved delay unnecessary to a legitimate police inquiry. United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 683-88, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 1574-76, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985).
Welch, 873 P.2d at 604-605.
[¶ 31] Justice Taylor’s concurring opinion1 augmented this Court’s analysis of the Welch case:
*712I concur. I write separately to acknowledge the vital role of a police officer’s “reasonable suspicions.” The majority decisions in these appeals and in Wilson v. State, 874 P.2d [215,] 219 (Wyo.1994) illustrate that a seizure must only occur when an officer possesses articulable facts which, when combined with police experience, indicate that criminal conduct is occurring or may be about to occur.
The Fourth Amendment guarantee of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures requires fact specific inquiry by the reviewing court. Wilson, 874 P.2d at 219-220. The focus of the court’s inquiry following a seizure for an investigative stop is the objective reasonableness of the limited seizure based upon the specific and articulable facts and reasonable inferences the police officer possessed at the time of the stop. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27-28, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); United States v. Werking, 915 F.2d 1404, 1407 (10th Cir.1990).
In Wilson, the police officer, acting as a community caretaker, initially had a consensual encounter with a citizen who was having trouble walking. Wilson, 874 P.2d at 220. The encounter became a seizure when the police officer ordered Wilson to “wait” for the results of a computerized identification check. Id. at 222. The police officer admitted that he acted without a reasonable suspicion of possible criminal conduct. Id. at 222. Therefore, the seizure to complete the computerized identification check resulted in an intrusion into protected Fourth Amendment rights.
In this case, unlike Wilson, the investigating officer possessed articulable facts to justify the seizure of Welch and Michener. Patrolman Dyer stopped the pickup truck after he observed a violation of Wyo. Stat. § 31 — 5—217(b) (1989). The patrolman’s observation gave rise to the reasonable suspicion necessary to permit a limited detention for the purposes of issuing a citation. United States v. Walker, 933 F.2d 812, 816 (10th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1093, 112 S.Ct. 1168, 117 L.Ed.2d 414 (1992); United States v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512, 1519 (10th Cir.1988). See also United States v. Ferguson, 8 F.3d 385, 391 (6th Cir.1993) (holding traffic stop is not pre-textual if the officer has probable cause to believe that a traffic offense has occurred, regardless of whether this was the only basis or merely one basis for the stop).
After issuing the citation, further investigatory detention required a reasonable suspicion of possible criminal behavior. The majority of this court has correctly acknowledged that even seemingly innocent conduct can give rise to a reasonable suspicion of possible criminal behavior. Inquiring whether the conduct of Welch and Michener would create an inference of possible criminal behavior in a reasonable police officer discloses the objective validity of this detention.
During the traffic stop, Patrolman Dyer observed that the ceiling of the camper shell was sagging. The plastic liner placed in the bed of the pickup was unusually clean, as if it had been recently removed, and showed signs of having been altered. These observations suggest it was a reasonable inference that contraband could be hidden in the vehicle. However, Patrolman Dyer’s observations of the vehicle’s condition were coupled with other articula-ble facts, including: the nervous behavior of the driver; the unusual indifference of the supposedly sleeping passenger; and the mispronunciation of the registered owner’s name despite the evidence from the California speeding ticket that the driver used the vehicle in the past. Police experience would also indicate that the average interstate traveler does not carry a fist-sized clove of garlic in a vehicle to present an aromatic challenge to prying noses, human or canine.
A reasonable person, after observing the same facts Patrolman Dyer did, would want to make further inquiry. Patrolman Dyer did not need the vaunted drug courier profile to draw an inference that contraband might be hidden in this vehicle. Common sense was sufficient.
The investigatory stop provided a means to resolve Patrolman Dyer’s reasonable suspicions without undue delay to Welch and Michener. In my opinion, this was not an unreasonable intrusion into protected *713Fourth Amendment rights. Therefore, I concur in the majority opinion.
Welch, 873 P.2d at 611-612; and see Perry v. State, 927 P.2d 1158, 1160-66 (Wyo.1996).
[¶ 32] Turning now to the case at hand, these are the facts I have gleaned from a review of the transcripts and the audio/video tape that captured the arrest from beginning to end. On April 16, 2000, State Trooper David Rettinger, a patrolman with nine years of experience, stopped Damato for speeding near Mile Post 330 on 1-80. Rettinger observed that Damato’s behavior was not normal for that of someone merely stopped for speeding: “Most people are very comfortable — or I shouldn’t say very comfortable, but they’re somewhat comfortable with what law enforcement’s role is and what we do. They don’t seem very surprised when they’re pulled over or of that nature .... But he didn’t seem to have any reason to be acting somewhat jerky, unsure about his questions, really methodically thinking out what he was telling me or saying.”
[¶ 33] As is routine, Rettinger asked for Damato’s driver’s license and registration. Damato responded that he was driving a leased vehicle and fumbled to find the papers, which Rettinger could see inside the car. Rettinger pointed them out, and Dama-to handed them to him. The vehicle was a rented, rather than leased, vehicle, and Ret-tinger considered that significant because most people know the difference (ie., that a rental car is used to drive from point A to point B, whereas a leased car is usually kept for a lengthier period of time). Rettinger also asked where he had rented the vehicle and where he was going with it. Damato said he was coming from San Francisco and going home (according to his driver’s license, Illinois was Damato’s home). The paperwork for the vehicle indicated that it was rented in San Diego and was to be dropped off in Omaha. In addition, Rettinger observed there was an abundance of fast food wrappers on the floor of the car, and in his experience and training that suggested the person was “traveling hard.” Rettinger considered it significant that Damato’s luggage was in the back seat rather than in the trunk of the large luxury automobile. As Rettinger returned Damato’s paperwork and gave a warning ticket to him, he leaned into Dama-to’s ear and asked if he would be willing to answer a few questions, and Damato said he would. Rettinger questioned Damato about the discrepancies with respect to where Damato rented the car and where he was going with it. As he did so, Rettinger noted that Damato became very nervous and, when asked to be specific by the trial court, Ret-tinger said: “I seen the temple on top of his head start to bead” [later testimony clarified that Damato’s carotid artery was “pulsating hard and fast.”]. I seen the neck beading heavily. He was sweating, that he had taken a handkerchief and wiped the top of his head. It was a cool day with the wind blowing very strong. In fact, it was a bit chilly.” Damato could not maintain eye contact with Rettinger. Rettinger asked if Damato would let him search his vehicle and Damato declined. Rettinger then felt he had to let Damato go on his way and that is what he did.
[¶ 34] However, Rettinger had second thoughts about Damato. All of his experience and training made him suspect that something was wrong (i.e., that Damato might be a drug mule), so he contacted State Trooper John Bauer, who was in Cheyenne, and relayed to him all the information he had gathered. Bauer, a patrolman with over six years of experience, spotted Damato on 1-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne and began following him. Using his radar, Bauer ascertained that Damato was driving 77 miles per hour (in a 75 mph zone) as he passed a vehicle. Bauer had not yet turned on his lights to stop Damato when Bauer perceived that Damato saw him and slowed down and moved into the right-hand lane without using a signal light, also a violation of the regulations of traffic on highways. Bauer then stopped Damato as Rettinger had done earlier that day. It is of importance to our decision that all that occurred in the ensuing 50-60 minutes is on audio/video tape, so that while we rely on Trooper Bauer’s testimony, we can also judge his testimony against the audio/video record of it.
[¶ 35] Bauer assigned some significance to the fact that Damato pulled over near a bridge, which is an unsafe spot for such *714stops. It was Bauer’s experience that some persons do such a thing because they think it will reduce the likelihood of the Trooper spending as much time on the stop because of safety concerns. Bauer gave Damato his “general spiel” about why he was stopping him and asked for his license and registration. Damato initially said the registration was in the trunk, but then quickly corrected himself to say glove box. Bauer made a note of that because “to me that’s a subconscious statement.” Of course, at this point Bauer knew that Damato did not want his trunk searched because he refused to let Rettinger do it, so it can fairly be inferred that Bauer might well treat that as a subconscious statement given all the information available to him. Bauer also noted that Damato had red/pinkish eyes, what he considered “dope eyes,” and he had a bottle of visine on the console. Bauer indicated that his experience suggested that the color of Damato’s eyes looked more like those of someone who had been smoking marijuana than those of someone who had been drinking. He also noted the luggage in the back seat and the food wrappers — things that suggested Damato was making a “hard run.” Bauer also perceived that Damato was “evasive,” “didn’t want to look at me,” was “extremely nervous,” and had “beading on his forehead.”
[¶ 36] Damato had questioned that he was speeding, so Bauer wanted to show him the radar, as well as check him for marijuana intoxication. As he was walking with Dama-to to the patrol car, Bauer said he needed to pat him down, that that was a standard safety/self-preservation practice before letting someone inside the patrol vehicle. Indeed, Bauer related an incident from his personal experience where he was almost killed by a person he had stopped in 1995. Bauer found two small pocket knives in Dam-ato’s front pockets, and felt what he thought was a packet of marijuana in his back pocket. Bauer testified that his experience and training suggested to him that the object in Dam-ato’s back pocket probably was marijuana. He asked Damato what it was, and he said he did not know but “fiddled around in there for a little bit” but eventually Damato pulled out a piece of cellophane with marijuana in it. Bauer then placed Damato under arrest for marijuana possession.
[¶ 37] Next, Bauer placed Damato in the front seat of his patrol car and read him the Miranda, warnings. Damato agreed to talk with Bauer. Bauer told Damato that honesty was the best policy, and Bauer could tell that Damato was very nervous. Damato said there was nothing in the trunk of his car (by this time Bauer had requested a sniffer dog to come to the scene), but Bauer persisted in his questioning, suggesting to Damato that his body language was telling something else. Damato eventually said that it was “a trunkful of weed.” Bauer opened the trunk of the car and discovered that it was packed solid with what turned out to be more than 300 pounds of marijuana (leaving no room for luggage in the trunk). Bauer also testified that he told Damato that he was going to be arrested for marijuana possession and, incidental to that arrest and the impoundment of his vehicle, the contents of the car would have been inventoried. Within less than an hour from the initial stop, the sniffer dog, agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation, and a tow truck had arrived at the scene, and the investigation was moved into Cheyenne for further processing.
[¶ 38] The district court initially made a determination that the evidence against Damato should be suppressed. However, upon motion of the State, the district court agreed to rehear the matter and, after taking additional testimony, it reversed its decision and denied the motion to suppress, largely on the basis that Trooper Bauer had called for a sniffer dog, the sniffer dog did arrive on the scene in a timely manner, and the marijuana most certainly would have been discovered at that time, even though Bauer had opened the trunk and found it earlier.
[¶ 39] The testimony at the rehearing of the motion to suppress augments the record we must review in this case. Special Agent Jimmy Siler of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation was called as a witness and related that, from his experience and training, he had come to know that the Southwest and Southern California regions of the country are the principal sources and/or conduits of the narcotics, and more specifical*715ly marijuana, which are transported through Wyoming to markets in the Midwest.
[¶ 40] State Trooper Charles Caruthers, a 22-year veteran of the Highway Patrol, was called as a witness, and he testified that he was summoned to assist Trooper Bauer at the scene of Damato’s arrest. He helped move Damato’s car, as well as the patrol cars, across the bridge and out of harm’s way. He also related that the trunk of Dam-ato’s car was closed at the time the sniffer dog arrived on the scene.
[¶ 41] Cheyenne Police Officer Lyle Pinch, who was off duty and lives about 11 miles from the crime scene, testified that he was called at 10:30 a.m. to report to the scene, along with his dog, Carlos, to participate in the investigation. Finch was asleep when he received the call, and it took some time for him to prepare himself and Carlos to go out on duty. He related the details of his. training and experience, as well as that of Carlos. Bauer stopped Damato at about 10:27 a.m., and Finch was not able to leave for the crime scene until about 11:00 a.m. He arrived at the scene at 11:11 a.m. Finch then employed Carlos in his assigned task, according to the established protocol, and Carlos indicated that there were narcotics in the trunk of Damato’s car.
[¶ 42] The majority concludes that Damato was “commanded to exit his car” and the “pat down” search violated the Fourth Amendment because Bauer had no objectively based suspicion that Damato was armed and dangerous. I disagree with that characterization of the facts on several points. First, I cannot agree that Damato was “commanded to exit his car.” Bauer’s testimony was that he asked Damato to come back to his car and see the radar readout of his speed, and that is consistent with the audio/video tape. While Bauer may have been persistent in that regard, as well he should have been, Damato went with him voluntarily — most certainly he was not “commanded.” As a safety precaution, Bauer did a “pat down” on Damato before he allowed him into the patrol car. The videotape reveals that Bauer was extremely polite and not especially insistent about the pat down and that Damato was cooperative both with the pat down, as well as with all else that followed. Bauer was within the bounds of the Fourth Amendment in using the pat down to uncóver weapons (of which there were two), as well as contraband (marijuana). See Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 2136-39, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993); and Kate Donovan Reynaga, Annotation, Application of “Plain-Feel" Exception to Warrant Requirements — State Cases, 50 A.L.R.5th 581 (1997 and Supp.2001).
[¶ 43] I also part company with the majority with respect to Bauer’s “articulable suspicion.” In reaching this conclusion, I rely on some of the same cases cited by the majority, but I am also persuaded that a comprehensive review of the most soundly reasoned and the most directly pertinent cases counsels the opposite result, under all the facts and circumstances of this case. Thomas Fusco, Annotation, Permissibility Under Fourth Amendment of Detention of Motorist by Police, Following Lawful Stop for Traffic Offense, to Investigate Matters not Related to Offense, 118 A.L.R.Fed. 567 (1994 and Supp. 2001). When the information gathered by Rettinger is combined with the information gathered by Bauer, the “articulable suspicion” cases mandate a conclusion that the state troopers acted responsibly, within the limits erected by the Fourth Amendment (as well as the Wyoming Constitution), and in conformance with the duties they are required to carry out daily on our state’s highways. In so concluding, I find it unnecessary to further characterize or attempt to parse what the state troopers related in their testimony. I have attempted to set out what is in the transcripts accurately and completely. I am satisfied that, based upon their experience and training,, what they observed constituted “articulable suspicion.”
[¶ 44] Finally, the majority shrugs off the concept of “inevitable discovery” far too hastily. I, of course, do not think we need to reach that harbor. However, even if I were convinced that Trooper Bauer’s actions (in patting down Damato and opening the trunk of the car) transgressed the Fourth Amendment, then I can readily accept that the sniffer dog would have inevitably discovered the damning evidence, and Damato would be *716in the same hot water. The sniffer dog arrived in less than an hour, and the detention of Damato does not meaningfully exceed the line we drew in Welch. Martin J. McMahon, Annotation, What Circumstances Fall Within “Inevitable Discovery” Exception to Rule Precluding Admission, in Criminal Case, of Evidence Obtained in Violation of Federal Constitution, 81 AL.R.Fed. 331 (1987 and Supp.2001).
[¶ 45] I would affirm the suppression order and remand for execution of the sentence imposed by the district court.

. I also acknowledge that Justices Golden and Cardine dissented in the Welch case.