Court Opinion

ID: 9701229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:11:27.532172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:21.075319
License: Public Domain

Terry Crabtree, Judge, dissenting. The trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress is not clearly erroneous because the traffic stop was not completed when the canine sniff was conducted. Therefore, I dissent. In Sims v. State, 356 Ark. 507, 147 S.W.3d 530 (2004), our supreme court recognized that, as part of a valid traffic stop, a police officer may detain a traffic offender while the officer completes certain routine tasks, such as computerized checks of the vehicle’s registration and the driver’s license and criminal history, and the writing up of a citation or warning. During this process, the officer may ask the motorist routine questions such as his destination, the purpose of the trip, or whether the officer may search the vehicle, and he may act on whatever information is volunteered. Id. The Sims court held, however, that a motorist cannot be further detained, once those routine tasks are completed, unless the officer has developed reasonable suspicion for continuing the detention. In Sims, it was clear when the legitimate purpose of the traffic stop was over. The officer declared that the “traffic stop was done” when he returned Sims’s papers to him and allowed Sims to walk back to his vehicle. Id. at 510, 147 S.W.3d at 532. Based on Sims, the majority in this case myopically concludes that the legitimate purposes of the stop came to an abrupt end with the physical transfer of the warning ticket, rental papers, and suspended driver’s license. I disagree with their application of the law to the facts of this case. Here, the officer repeated throughout his testimony that the traffic stop was not over when he ran his dog around the vehicle. The facts and evidence support that assertion. In less than one minute after the officer stopped appellant’s vehicle, the officer headed back to his patrol car with appellant’s driver’s license and the rental papers. Five minutes elapsed before the officer again approached appellant’s vehicle. At this point, the officer knew that appellant’s driver’s license had been suspended, and it appeared that the rental agreement had expired. The officer did not simply return appellant’s documents at this juncture and send appellant on his way. Not surprisingly, the officer asked appellant to step out of the vehicle whereupon he, legitimately, inquired about these and other matters. During the ensuing two-minute discussion, the officer informed appellant that his license was suspended, and pursuant to appellant’s request, he called dispatch to inquire as to when the license had been suspended. The officer advised that he was going to give appellant a warning ticket for following too closely, but that he was not ticketing him for driving on a suspended license. Appellant chatted with the officer about what speed he should travel. The officer then inquired about the expiration of the rental agreement, and he learned that appellant had obtained a verbal extension until April 2, two days prior to the stop, and that appellant had been driving the vehicle for three weeks. The officer then discussed appellant’s travel plans, and he broached the subject of transporting narcotics. It was during the sixth minute of the stop, or one minute into the two-minute conversation, and before inquiring about the rental agreement, that the officer handed appellant his license, the warning, and the rental agreement. During the seventh minute of the stop, the officer asked for, but was refused consent to search the vehicle, and he also began the canine sniff of the vehicle. When properly considered, these facts demonstrate that the legitimate purpose of this brief stop did not end with the mere transmittal of the documents. That act coincided with or occurred during the course of the officer’s conversation with appellant about matters that called for explanation concerning subjects that an officer may legitimately probe. This case illustrates that a bright line cannot always be drawn at the handing over of documents, and to draw an artificial line here at the officer’s sleight of hand is to place form over substance. Based on the facts of this case, it is my conclusion that the officer did not prolong the detention beyond the time reasonably necessary to complete the traffic stop. In addition, there was further evidence that the stop was not over with the transfer of the documents. The officer testified that he was intending to impound the vehicle because policy dictated that action when a motorist’s driver’s license is suspended. The majority makes a credibility determination and finds that the officer’s testimony was not truthful. However, our standard of review requires us to defer to the trial court in assessing witness credibility. Laime v. State, 347 Ark. 142, 60 S.W.3d 464 (2001). Moreover, that the officer did not yet tell appellant that his vehicle was to be impounded is not damning. I know of no rule requiring an officer to inform a traffic offender about his subjective intentions and planned course of action. It also makes good sense for an officer to withhold conveying distressing information so as to maintain a friendly atmosphere and thus avoid the potential of evoking an undesirable response from a motorist during the initial stage of a traffic stop. Of course, the officer in this instance did not get around to conveying this news to appellant because of the dog’s positive alert on the vehicle and the discovery of 234 pounds of marijuana in the trunk. Once this occurred, telling appellant that he had planned to impound the vehicle because of the suspended license became a moot point. The officer’s plan to impound the vehicle because of the suspended license is also cogent evidence that the contraband would be admissible under the' inevitable discovery doctrine. Under this doctrine, evidence that might otherwise be suppressed is admissible if the State proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the police would have inevitably discovered the evidence by lawful means. Thompson v. State, 333 Ark. 92, 966 S.W.2d 901 (1998); Willoughby v. State, 76 Ark. App. 329, 65 S.W.3d 453 (2002). It is well settled that police officers may conduct a warrantless inventory search of a vehicle that is being impounded in order to protect an owner’s property while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against claims of lost, stolen, or vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger. Thompson v. State, supra. Rule 12.6 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure allows an officer to impound a vehicle and inventory its contents for “any good reason.” The supreme court has held that a motorist’s suspended license is good reason to impound and inventory a vehicle, even though the motorist is not placed under arrest for driving on a suspended license. Id.; see also, e.g., Benson v. State, 342 Ark. 684, 30 S.W.2d 731 (2000); Casey v. State, 97 Ark. App. 1, 242 S.W.3d 627 (2006). Because appellant’s vehicle was going to be impounded, the contraband would have been inevitably discovered during an inventory permitted under Rule 12.6. For these reasons, I would affirm the denial of the motion to suppress. Pittman, C.J., and Glover, J., join in this opinion.