Court Opinion

ID: 9659112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:32:29.832909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:04.119934
License: Public Domain

CRIPPEN, Judge
(dissenting).
Facing an issue not previously addressed by Minnesota’s appellate courts, the trial court suppressed the statute’s Intoxilyzer evidence. This holding depends on a constrained reading of authorities that should lead to another result.
Officer Dennis Hanson had the power to act as a private citizen when making an arrest outside the City of Litchfield. State v. Filipi, 297 N.W.2d 275, 278 (Minn.1980). A private person may make an arrest for a public offense committed in his or her presence. Minn.Stat. § 629.37 (1990). It is dis-positive in this case to determine whether a police officer acting as a private citizen can stop an individual based on articulable suspicion an offense is occurring. Whether or not this power to stop can be claimed by any citizen, prior Minnesota decisions suggest that a police officer enjoys the power.
In State v. Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d 105 (Minn.1983), the supreme court approved a *332prearrest investigative stop for an officer acting in another municipality. The court observed that the stop was justified because of three minor violations, but said it was “also” appropriate because the officer
was justified in suspecting, based on the [driver’s] erratic driving behavior, that there might be something wrong with the driver, that he was either lost or confused.
Id. at 109. We recited the same principle in State v. Halvorson, 356 N.W.2d 376, 377-78 (Minn.App.1984), stating that an officer acting as a private citizen has authority to stop a vehicle “[w]here circumstances lead a police officer to suspect something may be wrong with a driver.”
In State v. Juncewski, 308 N.W.2d 316 (Minn.1981), the supreme court upheld an officer’s extraterritorial arrest of an individual in physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Id. at 321. Pertinent to the case at hand, the court also examined prearrest police activity of officers having only citizen arrest powers. Although the officers investigated the driver’s conduct without making a stop, the court upheld their prearrest alcohol screening because they “had specific and articulable facts as a basis for administering the test.” Id.
We cannot adequately explain disregard for the preceding authorities. Moreover, there is no policy reason to exclude investigatory stops from the authority of a police officer in circumstances like those in this case. Police intervention, even for laudatory curiosity, is strictly limited by the law, but there are no evident policy reasons for extending those limits by disapproving stops for articulable suspicion arising from observations of ongoing behavior both before and immediately after crossing the boundary of a neighboring jurisdiction.
Finally, the supreme court has suggested that an officer’s use of police authority in a neighboring jurisdiction, even if suspect, is a mere technical error which does not justify the suppression of evidence. See Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d at 108-09 (discussing rationale, but finding it unnecessary to the case); see also State v. Smith. 367 N.W.2d 497, 504-05 (Minn.1985) (suppression is not required for technical statutory violations).
I respectfully dissent.