Court Opinion

ID: 9793915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:55:12.291738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:55.330652
License: Public Domain

PERRY, Judge,
specially concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion, agreeing that this case is controlled by the Idaho Supreme Court decision in State v. Haworth, 106 Idaho 405, 679 P.2d 1123 (1984), which this Court must follow. I write separately only to discuss what I see to be an inconsistency in prior decisions by the Supreme Court that may have caused confusion in the trial bench and bar, and hopefully to provide some instruction in this area.
The appellant in this matter, Luna, relies heavily on Haworth. The state, not surprisingly, fails to cite Haworth in its brief before this Court. The state chooses to argue State v. Cowen, 104 Idaho 649, 662 P.2d 230 (1983), which again not surprisingly, the appellant fails to cite in his brief.
I will not belabor the facts of Haworth and Cowen here, but simply draw attention to those cases. Suffice it to say, however, that these two cases stem from arrests out of the same incident. Haworth was the driver, and Cowen was the passenger in a vehicle that was later determined by the district court to have been invalidly stopped. Both men challenged the introduction of certain evidence against them. The issue of standing to challenge the reasonableness of the stop is addressed in both opinions by the Supreme Court.
In Cowen, the Court stated:
Cowen asserts that all evidence obtained as a result of the stopping of the car and the seizure of the defendant are fruits of an illegal search inadmissible as evidence and should have been suppressed under *240Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). We do not reach the question of whether the initial stopping of the automobile was in violation of the Constitution since, even assuming the illegality of such stop, Cow-en is without standing to raise the question.
Cowen, 104 Idaho at 650, 662 P.2d at 231 (emphasis added).
Less than one year later, in Haworth, the Court concluded:
“[Shopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a ‘seizure’ within the meaning of [the fourth amendment], even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention is quite brief.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) (emphasis added). The personal rights of both Cowan as passenger and Haworth as driver “to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference from others,” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1873, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), were infringed upon by the investigatory stop. Therefore, both have standing to contest the reasonableness of the stop.
Haworth, 106 Idaho at 406, 679 P.2d at 1124 (emphasis added).
Whereas it appears well settled that a passenger may not have standing to challenge the search of the vehicle once stopped, the passenger may have standing to challenge the stop itself. If the stop, or as in this case the continued detention, of the passenger is invalid, then the passenger is indirectly being given standing to challenge the results of the search and to request suppression of the evidence as the remedy. Though, I readily admit and recognize the different constitutional principles involved — the difference between an unlawful detention of an individual and the limited expectation of privacy a passenger has in the vehicle in which he is traveling — the net effect to the state’s case is the same in either case, i.e., suppression of the evidence obtained in the search.
As guidance to the district court, I believe the approach when dealing with a non-owner passenger should be as follows. First, the court must determine whether the stop was initially valid. If valid, the passenger has no standing to challenge the evidence based on the stop or any subsequent search. If not valid or if the stop later turns into an unlawfully continued detention, the passenger has standing to challenge the evidence taken during any subsequent search because of his standing to challenge the stop.
Therefore, without either the stop being invalid, or turning into an unlawful detention, the passenger is without standing to challenge the search of the vehicle. The issue for the passenger is his standing to challenge the stop and detention, not the search. I concur with the majority that pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Haworth, the passenger has standing to challenge the stop and detention and thereby can ultimately have the evidence suppressed, in spite of the fact that he would have no standing to challenge the search.