Court Opinion

ID: 9533542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:32:32.24836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:05.062552
License: Public Domain

Justice MULLARKEY
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion which upholds the trial court’s suppression of a plastic bag containing methamphetamine. I agree with Chief Justice Vol-lack’s dissent that Officer Wise’s conduct in requesting Redinger’s license and registra*90tion was proper and that the trial court erred in suppressing evidence. I write separately because I differ on the grounds for my dissent. I would hold that a police officer may request to see a driver’s license and registration in a routine traffic stop if the stop is lawful, notwithstanding that “reasonable suspicion” has dissipated by the time the officer makes the request. I differ from Chief Justice Vollaek’s dissent in that I view the stop, and the subsequent request, as one continuing event which implicates the Fourth Amendment from start to finish. However, I would find that Officer Wise’s routine request falls within the reasonable scope of the initial, lawful stop and, consequently, is not violative of the Fourth Amendment.
Both the majority and the dissent invoke an overly-formalized view of the underlying factual scenario. The interaction between Officer Wise and Redinger is properly viewed as a brief sequence of events that transpired almost instantaneously and that cannot be compartmentalized for Fourth Amendment analysis purposes.1 First, I do not consider the initial stop and the request for license and registration documentation to constitute two separate events interrupted by Officer Wise’s spotting of a temporary license plate and tags on Redinger’s automobile. Nor do the facts comprise an evolving detention where different phases of the officer/citizen interaction fall into neat compartments for Fourth Amendment purposes. See People v. Thomas, 839 P.2d 1174, 1177 (Colo. 1992) (holding that facts stemming from a traffic infraction stop commenced as an investigative detention, turned into a consensual encounter, and culminated as an arrest, all with different ramifications under the Fourth Amendment). Specifically, the situation did not evolve into a consensual encounter — Officer Wise did not inform Redinger that he was free to leave and that presentment of his license and registration was optional rather than required. Hence, the facts do not support the proposition that the Fourth Amendment is implicated in the stop but not in Officer Wise’s subsequent request.
Second, I do not find the facts before us square with the line of cases, cited by the majority, that invalidate a traffic stop and subsequent questioning unrelated to the initial stop unless the officer has additional reasonable suspicion to pursue such a line of questioning. See maj. op. at 84-85. In my view, additional reasonable suspicion is necessary in an evolving detention setting only if the police officer’s conduct exceeds the bounds of the scope of the lawful stop.
Courts have permitted routine requests for license and registration documentation in the context of routine traffic stops. See cases cited in maj. op. at 84; see also U.S. v. Pena, 920 F.2d 1509 (10th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1207, 111 S.Ct. 2802, 115 L.Ed.2d 975 (1991). Although the requests are “routine,” Fourth Amendment concerns are raised and the requests must be reasonable under the circumstances.
The United States Supreme Court has invalidated random stops for the purpose of cheeking a driver’s license and registration unless there is at least an articulable and reasonable suspicion to believe that the driver was unlicensed or the automobile not registered. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). Prior to Prouse, a number of jurisdictions had issued conflicting opinions on such stops. Id. at 651, 99 S.Ct. at 1394. In resolving the split, the Supreme Court rejected Delaware’s argument that “the State’s interest in discretionary spot checks as a means of ensuring the safety of its roadways outweighs the resulting intrusion of the privacy and security of the persons detained.” Id. at 655, 99 S.Ct. at 1397. Instead, the Supreme Court stated that:
The foremost method of enforcing traffic and vehicle safety regulations ... is acting upon observed violations. Vehicle stops for traffic violations occur countless times each day; and on these occasions, licenses and registration papers are subject to inspection and drivers without them will be ascertained.
Id. at 659, 99 S.Ct. at 1399 (emphasis added).
In Prouse, the Supreme Court, in part, invalidated random checks for a driver’s li*91cense and registration on the basis that such stops raised the specter of fear and/or embarrassment for the singled-out automobile occupant, unlike checkpoint stops. Here, there is no such concern because Redinger’s automobile had already been lawfully stopped. To request his license and registration at such a juncture is more analogous to sobriety checkpoints, for example, than random stops. Therefore, although Prouse stands for the proposition that Fourth Amendment concerns are raised in a routine request for license and registration documentation, the Supreme Court’s decision does not necessarily preclude such a routine request if the automobile has been lawfully stopped.2
I acknowledge that other jurisdictions have ruled otherwise. These decisions are relied upon and thoroughly discussed by the majority. See maj. op. at 84-85. In particular, the Tenth Circuit has considered this issue in United States v. McSwain, 29 F.3d 558 (10th Cir.1994). Although the Tenth Circuit expressly addressed and foreclosed an officer from requesting the driver’s license and registration after reasonable suspicion for the stop has dissipated, the context was different from that here. In McSwain, the police officer proceeded with an intrusive line of questioning that exceeded a routine request for license and registration papers. See Chief Justice Vollack’s dissenting op. at 84. Thus, McSwain, is not a “pure” example of a police officer following through on routine police procedure.
In State v. Hill, 606 A.2d 793 (Me.1992), the Supreme Court of Maine permitted a request for license and registration documentation under facts similar to the case now before us. The court explained that if the inception of the stop was valid, the subsequent actions of the police officer had to be reasonable under the circumstances:
In this case, Hill was validly stopped for a suspected traffic violation, Officer Low then sought to ensure that Hill was neither unlicensed nor operating an unregistered vehicle. Balancing this significant State interest against the minimal further intrusion of asking Hill for the documents, we hold that Officer Low did not unreasonably intrude in Hill’s protected fourth amendment rights.
Id. at 795. I agree with the rationale in Hill — further limited intrusion for a routine request is reasonable under the circumstances of a lawful stop. Police officers have an affirmative duty to enforce traffic laws. Restricting police officers from following through on routine police procedures, pursuant to a lawful stop, unnecessarily and unjustifiably circumscribes an officer’s ability to enforce traffic laws. Moreover, the result under the majority’s holding is an unnaturally constrained interaction between an officer and citizen during a routine everyday occurrence.
Therefore, I agree with the majority that the Fourth Amendment is implicated in a request for license and registration documentation. I disagree with the majority’s view that further detention requires additional reasonable suspicion when such further detention involves a routine request for information and nothing more. During the brief detention, pursuant to a lawful stop, Officer Wise merely requested to see Redinger’s license and registration. There was no interrogation. The stop did not become unlawful once Officer Wise viewed the temporary plate on Redinger’s automobile. Thus, I would find the request and related detention were reasonable and constitutionally permissible even though reasonable suspicion that Redinger had committed a traffic infraction had dissipated. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
KOURLIS, J., joins in this dissent.

. Although the record does not reflect the exact duration of the interaction between Officer Wise and Redinger, Officer Wise’s testimony describes a very brief interaction.

. The Supreme Court of Ohio has interpreted Prouse to require that at the time the police officer requests license and registration documentation, the officer must harbor “an ‘articula-ble and reasonable suspicion’ that [the driver] was violating the law at that time [the driver] was detained and ordered to produce his driver's license.” State v. Chatton, 11 Ohio St.3d 59, 463 N.E.2d 1237, 1239 (1984) (footnote omitted), cert, denied, 469 U.S. 856, 105 S.Ct. 182, 83 L.Ed.2d 116 (1984). I would not interpret Prouse in this limited fashion.