Court Opinion

ID: 9692689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:00:51.007823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:36.111583
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
¶ 39. concurring. I agree with the majority and join the opinion to make it the opinion of the Court. I write, however, to make two additional related points.
¶ 40. First, there is an alternative way to reach the same result that is, to some extent, preferable. There is, in the many cases that reach us involving search and seizure, the unstated assumption that there are no limits on the powers of law enforcement officers except those we find are embodied in the Constitution. The corollary to this assumption is that neither the common law nor statutory law should be expected to play any significant role in the definition of those powers. I find the corollary and the assumption unfortunate. It discourages policy formulation in the legislative branch and constitutionalizes every decision, making it difficult to change.
¶ 41. In fact, police officers, like deputy sheriffs, are “entrusted a portion of the sovereign authority of the State, and [their] duties are performed in the execution of the law, in the exercise of power and authority bestowed by law.” Gross v. Gates, 109 Vt. 156, 162, 194 A. 465, 468 (1937) (emphasis added); see also 20 V.S.A § 1914 (state police have law enforcement power of sheriff). Much of the power of police officers is governed by the common law. See, e.g., Holyoke Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Horton, 100 Vt. 228, 231, 136 A. 385, 386 (1927). In the absence of power derived from the common law, an officer’s actions must be authorized by statutory law. See Mazzolini v. Gifford, 90 Vt. 352, 354, 98 A. 904, 904 (1916) (because Legislature had not explicitly authorized arrest without a warrant for crime of selling goods on Sunday, arrest was unlawful).
¶ 42. We have never defined the common law power of a police officer to order a motor vehicle operator to exit the motor vehicle and enter the police cruiser. Other state courts have, however, detailed this power. Thus, in People v. Mickelson, 380 P.2d 658, 660 (Cal. 1963), the California Supreme Court held: “If the circumstances warrant it, [the officer] may in self protection request a suspect to alight from an automobile or to submit *139to a superficial search for concealed weapons.” That statement, which is representative of decisions in the area, states the common law in terms very similar to our statement of the constitutional rule in this decision. It appears that the common law rule and the constitutional requirement are the same.
¶ 43. The Legislature has not addressed the question before us, at least in sufficient detail to form a grounds for our decision. Section 1012(a), (b) of Title 23 requires an operator who is stopped for a suspected motor vehicle violation to “give his or her name and address and the name and address of the owner of the motor vehicle” and to “produce his or her operator’s license and the registration certificate for the motor vehicle.” Section 1013 authorizes an enforcement officer to “make reasonable orders in enforcement of this title or to prevent or alleviate traffic congestion, property damage or personal injury.” The general authorization for “reasonable orders” provides us little guidance and, in the absence of any justification, we would find that the order to exit was not reasonable in this case.
¶ 44. In short, we can reach the same result without invoking the Vermont Constitution and leave more flexibility to the Legislature for a response.
¶ 45. My second point is that there is an additional, different constitutional problem related to exit orders. It is apparent from the large volume of incidents that give rise to the use of exit orders. The Vermont Judicial Bureau opened 113,734 cases in fiscal year 2002, over 110,000 of which were based on traffic tickets. This means that the facts of this case, at least up until the discovery of the drugs, were replicated thousands and thousands of times during the course of the year. In many of those cases, the officer ordered the driver, and possibly the passenger(s), to exit from the vehicle; in many, the officer did not order an exit. This record suggests there was no clear standard for that choice; it is based on the officer’s judgment. The record also suggests that the intrusiveness of the encounter will increase if there is an exit order since it may involve a search of the vehicle operator.
¶ 46. I do not think case-by-case adjudication will work well to develop the law in this context. The weakness of a case-by-case adjudication approach has been described by one commentator:
Both the authority of law enforcement officers to engage in certain activities and the limits on that authority might be developed in case law. Perhaps, however, this method is unacceptably ineffective and expensive. It may not produce the comprehensive guidelines necessary to acceptable *140administration of police authority. Or, if the case law does produce comprehensive guidelines, it may accomplish this only after a prolonged period of uncertainty during which the authority is exercised within insufficient limits. To the extent that the case law method contains these defects, legislative action may be both desirable and constitutionally necessary.
G. Dix, Nonarrest Investigatory Detentions in Search and Seizure Law, 1985 Duke L. J. 849, 912 (1985). This has been the criticism of the decision in Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 711 N.E.2d 108 (Mass. 1999). See A. Small, Developments in State Constitutional Law: 1999, 31 Rutgers L. J. 1383, 1393-95 (2000).
¶ 47. Chief Justice Amestoy has attempted to avoid the deficiency of case-by-case adjudication by describing the burden to justify an exit order as very light. I am skeptical that this attempt will be entirely successful, as Gonsalves itself demonstrates. Gonsalves involves a passenger who was stopped in a taxicab at night. The events unfolded as follows:
In the course of questioning the driver, the trooper trained his flashlight on the occupants of the car, something which he routinely did on such stops for his personal safety. The trooper thought the defendant was extremely nervous. His hands were trembling and moving from his lap to the seat and back to his lap again, and he appeared to be breathing heavily. Because the defendant appeared nervous, the trooper ordered him to step out of the taxi.
711 N.E.2d at 110. Unlike this case, where the officer pointed to no facts to justify the exit order, Gonsalves represents a judgment that some facts are not enough, a judgment that may not be easy to apply.
¶ 48. More important, the constitutional requirement which we will shape on a case-by-case basis does not address the uniformity of application of any use of exit orders. With over 100,000 traffic stops per year, I believe we have to be concerned how discretion to order this additional seizure is exercised. In many respects, the situation is comparable to DUI roadblocks, where we recognized that we were balancing the public’s safety interest against the privacy interest of motorists. See State v. Martin, 145 Vt. 562, 568, 496 A.2d 442, 446-47 (1985). This Court upheld roadblocks if they met a number of criteria:
In addressing the constitutionality of a particular DUI roadblock, the trial court should review the roadblock’s characteristics so that when it balances the degree to which the *141roadblock serves the public interest against the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy, it will be better able to analyze which criteria it must consider and how much weight it should give to each one in deciding whether a roadblock has sustained all Fourth Amendment challenges. As a general rule, a DUI roadblock will pass constitutional muster if: (1) the initial stop and the contact between the officers in the field and the motorist involves an explanation of the nature of the roadblock and minimal detention of a nonimpaired driver; (2) the discretion of the officers in the field, as to the method to be utilized in selecting vehicles to be stopped, is carefully circumscribed by clear objective guidelines established by a high level administrative official; (3) the guidelines are followed in the operation of the roadblock; (4) approaching drivers are given adequate warning that there is a roadblock ahead; (5) the likelihood of apprehension, fear or surprise is dispelled by a visible display of legitimate police authority at the roadblock; and (6) vehicles are stopped on a systematic, nonrandom basis that shows drivers they are not being singled out for arbitrary reasons.
Id. at 571, 496 A.2d at 448. We applied the same standards under Article 11. See State v. Record, 150 Vt. 84, 88, 548 A.2d 422, 425 (1988); see also State v. Berard, 154 Vt. 306, 314, 576 A.2d 118, 122 (1990) (“clear, objective guidelines” required by Article 11 for random searches of prison cells). I am not suggesting that all of the roadblock criteria are necessary for exit orders. I do think the requirement of “clear, objective guidelines” is applicable.
¶ 49. I have made these two points together because I believe the issue before us is better resolved by the legislative and executive branches because they are in the position to develop clear, objective guidelines for the use of exit orders that are much preferable to our case-by-case adjudication and much preferable to continuing constitutional development in this area. Of course, if these branches develop an authorization that conflicts with Article 11, we have to enforce the constitutional requirement. We should, however, give these branches room to develop a workable balance between officer safety, and the need to investigate suspected criminal activity, and the privacy interests of the operator and passengers.