Court Opinion

ID: 9724702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:09:08.181113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:04.846967
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
In the case at bar, the arresting officer stopped defendant’s moving motor vehicle “even though he did not observe any traffic violations or erratic driving by the defendant, who was driving the vehicle at that time.” He admitted, under oath, he had no basis for stopping the vehicle. The only basis for the officer’s stop of defendant’s vehicle thus becomes a private citizen’s report that the driver of an Arizona station wagon “appeared to be driving in an intoxicated manner.” (Emphasis supplied mine.) This is loose language. When the officer first observed the vehicle, there was no one in it and the dispatch report did not indicate who was driving, the manner of driving, or a description of the driver. Thus, when defendant and another individual entered the vehicle and drove away, the officer had no way of knowing if defendant was the driver who precipitated the citizen’s report.
In State v. Jim Anderson, 359 N.W.2d 887, 892 (S.D.1984) (Henderson, J., concurring in result), I did not subscribe to the view that a police tip (based on hearsay) could, in and of itself, constitute articulable suspicion to stop a moving vehicle.
It is apparently a mental difficulty for some lawyers to realize that stopping a car on a highway by a law enforcement officer without a reasonable basis for doing so is an unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments are implicated in this case because *61stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a “seizure” within the meaning of those Amendments, even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 556-558, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116, 96 S.Ct. 3074 [3082-3083] (1976); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878, 45 L.Ed.2d 607, 95 S.Ct. 2574 [2578-2579] (1975); cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 88 S.Ct. 1868, [1877] 44 Ohio Ops.2d 383 (1968). The essential purpose of the proscriptions in the Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of “reasonableness” upon the exercise of discretion by government officials, including law enforcement agents, in order “ ‘to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions....’” Marshall v. Barlow’s Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 312, 56 L.Ed.2d 305, 98 S.Ct. 1816 (1978), quoting Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 18 L.Ed.2d 930, 87 S.Ct. 1727 [1730] (1967).
Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653-54, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660, 667 (1979) (footnotes omitted). There must be a factual basis to establish specific and articulable facts. Dear students of the law, where are the facts here? The one— the only — supposed fact is a conclusion; a conclusion by a citizen that it “appeared.” We, in South Dakota, have abandoned the sanctity of the Fourth Amendment, i.e., to protect people in motor vehicles from unreasonable searches or seizures by this decision. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); and Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660.
For the reasons expressed in Jim Anderson, 359 N.W.2d at 892-94, and for the reasons expressed in State v. Richard Anderson, 331 N.W.2d 568, 573 (S.D.1983) (Henderson, J., concurring in result), I dissent from the reasoning and conclusion of the majority opinion. As I believe the trial court’s order was correct, I respectfully dissent.