Court Opinion

ID: 9781744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:20:03.766005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:36.298332
License: Public Domain

COATS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
University of Alaska Anchorage Police Officer Seott Chafin initiated a traffic stop of the defendant, David Seott Campbell, for violating the regulation prohibiting driving without headlights more than thirty minutes after sunset. 1 But when Officer Chafin activated his overhead lights, Campbell turned his van into the Fred Meyer parking lot and sped up noticeably. Chafin activated his siren. He estimated Campbell's speed through the parking lot to be 40-45 miles per hour. Judge Suddock concluded that it was "equally conceivable" that Campbell's speed was 30 miles per hour.
According to Officer Chafin, he realized that Campbell was going to jump his vehicle over the curb at the edge of the parking lot and flee west on Northern Lights Boulevard. Chafin concluded that pursuing Campbell was too dangerous. He stopped and turned off his overhead lights and siren. But after jumping the eurb onto Northern Lights Boulevard, Campbell drove across all four lanes of traffic and up on the adjacent sidewalk. Then Campbell jumped out of the van and attempted to climb a nearby fence. As Campbell climbed, one of the boards broke free from the fence and he fell to the ground. Campbell then broke additional boards from the fence and ran into the back yard of the adjacent home. The homeowner quickly tackled Campbell. Officer Chafin then arrested Campbell. Campbell told Chafin that he was a commercial airline pilot and had been drinking.
The State indicted Campbell for failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer in the first degree, 2 a class C felony. The State also charged Campbell with several misdemeanor offenses, including driving while under the influence and resisting arrest.
Campbell filed a motion to suppress, arguing that Officer Chafin had attempted an illegal stop and that all the evidence of Campbell's subsequent actions had to be suppressed since they were caused by Chafin's illegal action. Following evidentiary hearings at which only Officer Chafin testified, Judge Suddock granted Campbell's motion to suppress. He found that Officer Chafin's conduct in attempting to stop Campbell for the headlight violation was not justified. He concluded that, in fleeing, Campbell had not endangered anyone to a greater extent than he had before the stop, and therefore all of the evidence against Campbell had to be suppressed.
The majority upholds Judge Suddock's ruling. But I conclude that this ruling is inconsistent with the long-established law of the Alaska Supreme Court.
The decision in this case is governed by state constitutional law. In California v. Ho-dari D., 3 the United States Supreme Court held that evidence that the police obtained while a person was fleeing from unlawful police detention was not subject to the exelu-sionary rule. 4 But in Joseph v. State, 5 we rejected Hodari D. as a matter of state constitutional law. 6
In Miller v. State, 7 decided almost forty years ago, the Alaska Supreme Court con*1176cluded that a person who is subjected to a peaceful unlawful arrest has no right to physically resist that arrest. 8 The rule at common law was that a person was privileged to use reasonable force to prevent an unlawful arrest. 9 But the supreme court concluded that, as a policy matter, the remedy for a person who was subjected to an illegal arrest was to sue the officer for false arrest rather than to resist with force. 10
The court set out several reasons for its decision:
The legality of a peaceful arrest may frequently be a close question. It is a question more properly determined by courts than by participants in what may be a highly emotional situation. Because officers will normally overcome resistance with necessary force, the danger of escalating violence between the officer and the arrestee is great. What begins as an illegal misdemeanor arrest may culminate in serious bodily harm or death. 11
The court went on to say:
We feel that the legality of a peaceful arrest should be determined by courts of law and not through a trial by battle in the streets. It is not too much to ask that one believing himself unlawfully arrested should submit to the officer and thereafter seek his legal remedies in court. Such a rule helps to relieve the threat of physical harm to officers who in good faith but mistakenly perform an arrest, as well as to minimize harm to innocent bystanders. The old common law rule has little utility to recommend it under our conditions of life today. We hold that a private citizen may not use force to resist peaceful arrest by one he knows or has good reason to believe is an authorized peace officer performing his duties, regardless of whether the arrest is illegal.... 12
It seems to me that the reasoning of Miller applies in this case. First, it is almost impossible for a driver to determine whether an officer is making an illegal stop. An officer can legally stop a driver for numerous things, including equipment violations such as a burned-out taillight or an obscured license plate. Therefore the supreme court's observation in Miller that a citizen will frequently not know whether an arrest is legal or illegal is even more compelling in the case of a traffic stop. Furthermore, a person who is subjected to an illegal arrest faces a much greater intrusion into his personal liberty than does a person who is subjected to an illegal traffic stop. But most importantly, it seems to me that the act of fleeing from a traffic stop is more dangerous to the person fleeing, the officer, and innocent bystanders than the act of resisting an arrest. A person fleeing in an automobile is fleeing in what can easily become a dangerous and deadly weapon. It seems reasonable to assume that the person who is fleeing from the officer will be paying attention to the pursuing officer rather than to his driving. Therefore, a person fleeing from the police almost invariably puts innocent members of the public in danger. Onee Campbell started to flee, Officer Chafin almost immediately stopped his pursuit in compliance with the local policy in this jurisdiction and many others. This policy is based upon the conclusion that pursuing suspects who are fleeing from the police is exceptionally dangerous. Yet if the suspect commits a sufficiently dangerous act in fleeing from the police, the police can then make a lawful arrest.13
You also have to question why someone would flee from a traffic stop. Is this something we really want to encourage? In the present case we have a good idea why Campbell fled. He was a commercial airline pilot and he had been drinking, apparently enough to result in a charge of driving while under the influence. He was concerned that being *1177caught by the police would affect his commercial pilot's license.
Therefore, it seems to me that the policy set out in the majority opinion tends to encourage suspects to flee and the police to pursue. We are not talking about doing away with the exclusionary rule. Had Campbell stopped, all of the evidence against him would have been suppressed. All of the charges against Campbell arose from his illegal, and potentially dangerous, act of fleeing from the police. As I have pointed out, the evidence that arose from his attempt to elude the traffic stop would be admissible under federal law. Why would we want to interpret the Alaska Constitution to encourage this behavior? The decision by the Alaska Supreme Court in Miller points the way. When a police officer initiates a traffic stop, the sensible thing for the citizen to do is to pull over and submit to the stop, rather than flee. Why would we want to send any other message? I conclude that Campbell's motion to suppress should have been denied.

. 13 Alaska Administrative Code 04.010(a)(1).

. AS 28.35.182(a).

. 499 U.S. 621, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991).

. Id. at 629, 111 S.Ct. at 1552.

. 145 P.3d 595 (Alaska App.2006).

. Id. at 596.

. 462 P.2d 421 (Alaska 1969).

. Id. at 426-27.

. 5 Am.Jur2d Arrest § 89 (2008); Jeffrey F. Ghent, Annotation, Modern Status of Rules as to Right to Forcefully Resist Illegal Arrest, 44 A.L.R.3d 1078, § 2(a) (1972).

. Miller, 462 P.2d at 426.

. Id.

. Id. at 427.

. 3 Wayne R. LaFave, et al., Criminal Procedure § at 464-66 (3d ed.2007).