Court Opinion

ID: 9732028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:05:39.133933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:22.648757
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.
Defendant appeals his conviction, after court trial, for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor. He moved to suppress evidence obtained when he was stopped for running a police roadblock, claiming that the roadblock was illegal under State v. Martin, 145 Vt. 562, 496 A.2d 442 (1985). The trial court denied the motion because defendant had “abandoned the protection” of the fourth amendment by driving through the roadblock, and because the police had probable cause to arrest defendant for failing to stop. We hold defendant’s motion was improperly denied and reverse and remand.
On the night of May 31, 1986, the Vernon sheriff’s department established a roadblock, in accord with its department policy, to screen northbound cars for motorists driving under the influence. At least two cruisers were parked at the roadblock with their blue lights flashing. The roadblock was preceded by a thirty-inch, luminous sign reading “DWI roadcheck” three hundred feet before the stop. The officers at the stop were in uniform and wearing reflectorized vests, and each officer carried an illuminated flashlight with a directional cone.
At about 1:30 a.m., as Deputy Tarbox was standing in the middle of the road to flag oncoming traffic, a red pickup truck appeared at the roadblock. As the deputy signalled the truck, it jerked to a stop, then began to move again. Deputy Tarbox moved out of the way, and the truck stopped again, then traveled past the stop. Because defendant failed to stop at the roadblock, Deputy Weyant got into his cruiser and followed the truck for about a quarter mile, where it pulled over at the first intersection. As Deputy Weyant asked defendant for his license, he smelled alcohol and asked defendant whether he had had anything to drink. Defendant admitted that he had had “two drinks” and, upon exiting the vehicle, was unable to perform routine dexterity tests. He was taken to the police station and charged with driving under the influence. There was no evidence that Officer Weyant stopped defendant because of erratic driving or other suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. The parties agreed, and the trial court found, that the offi*62cer pursued and stopped defendant because he failed to stop at the roadblock.
The trial court was correct that the authorities had ample cause to stop defendant after he proceeded through the roadblock. 23 V.S.A. § 1012(a) makes it a crime for a motorist not to “promptly and carefully stop when signalled to stop by an enforcement officer wearing insignia which identifies the officer.” We are concerned here, however, with the issue of whether defendant “abandoned” his challenge to the legality of the roadblock. We hold that he did not.
It is well established in Vermont that a defendant who believes he is illegally detained may not resort to self-help. In re Provencher, 127 Vt. 558, 562, 255 A.2d 180, 183 (1969) (escape from jail not justified where detention illegal); see also State v. Peters, 141 Vt. 341, 347, 450 A.2d 332, 335 (1982) (assault on a law enforcement officer in course of arrest, pursuant to a warrant subsequently determined to be invalid, not justified). Government by rule of law “requires that we recognize its authority, and recognize likewise our duty to challenge its application by resort to proper judicial proceedings, not self-help.” Provencher, 127 Vt. at 562, 255 A.2d at 183. Thus, if a driver runs an illegal police roadblock when reasonably signalled by the police to stop, he commits a crime.
That an individual may not resort to self-help and may be prosecuted for forceful self-help, however, is an issue distinct from the individual’s right to challenge the validity of the detention. Thus, an individual instructed by a uniformed police officer to stop must do so. A person who instead flees may be punished for fleeing but does not “abandon” the right to challenge, in defense of a different crime, the legality of the initial stop. Although government by law requires that we recognize authority, it does not require that we be subjected to all consequences of baseless stops without legal recourse. Assuming a stop is illegal, the question is whether
“the evidence to which [defendant objects] has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.”
State v. Emilo, 144 Vt. 477, 483, 479 A.2d 169, 172 (1984) (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488 (1963)).
*63Emilo involved the suppression of evidence obtained after an illegal stop. The defendant was driving on an isolated road at 3 a.m. when a police officer, who had just investigated a reported robbery and concluded that the store’s alarm system had malfunctioned, noticed the car in which the defendant was driving. The car had no front license plate and a Massachusetts plate in back. The officer testified that there was nothing to tie the car to the reported robbery, that he did not believe the defendant was attempting to elude him, and that he stopped the car simply based on a “hunch.” Once the officer had stopped the car, he obtained the evidence that led to conviction on the charge of driving without consent of the owner. We held that the evidence “had been come at by exploitation” of unlawful police conduct and should have been suppressed.
In this case, there was no evidence that Officer Weyant suspected defendant was driving under the influence. The sole reason Deputy Weyant finally stopped defendant was for failure to stop at the roadblock. Because defendant’s failure to stop violated § 1012, the deputy’s actions were legal. The stop, however, would not have occurred but for the roadblock. Nevertheless, merely because the roadblock caused the stop in a “but for” sense is not sufficient to require suppression of the fruits of the stop. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603 (1975). Rather, we must analyze whether defendant’s violating § 1012 was an intervening cause that broke the causal chain between the assertedly illegal roadblock and the deputy’s stop. Id. at 603-04.
Several federal courts have held that defendant’s commission of a criminal act in the course of an illegal arrest or search may be sufficient to dissipate the taint of illegality. United States v. Bailey, 691 F.2d 1009, 1017-18 (11th Cir. 1982) (defendant’s flight from and exchange of blows with officers illegally arresting him were a “new, distinct crime” and evidence seized pursuant to arrest for that crime need not be suppressed); see also United States v. King, 724 F.2d 253, 256 (1st Cir. 1984) (shooting officer conducting an illegal search); United States v. Garcia, 516 F.2d 318, 319-20 (9th Cir. 1975) (high speed chase from illegal checkpoint); United States v. Nooks, 446 F.2d 1283, 1287-88 (5th Cir. 1971) (high speed chase and shooting at officer attempting an illegal arrest). Strong policy reasons support treating these actions as “distinct” crimes subject to prosecution *64despite their close causal nexus to illegal police conduct. See Bailey, 691 F.2d at 1017 (“extending the fruits doctrine to immunize a defendant from arrest for new crimes gives a defendant an intolerable carte blanche to commit further criminal acts so long as they are sufficiently connected to the chain of causation started by the police misconduct”). And some of these crimes will be sufficiently serious to allow searches and arrests that will provide evidence that would have been suppressed under the primary illegal search or arrest.
If § 1012 is treated as a “distinct” crime, however, the goal of the exclusionary rule, controlling police misconduct, will not be served. See United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 274 (1978) (causal connection determined by looking at fundamental tenets of exclusionary rule). Police could be less fastidious in establishing roadblocks or could even make random stops of drivers on less than probable cause, and when drivers failed, for whatever reason, to stop, any evidence gathered at the illegal stop could not be suppressed. The exclusionary rule requires more, and the state cannot pass a statute that effectively eviscerates a constitutional doctrine by “curing” an illegal police action.
The roadblock must be analyzed for legality. If the roadblock was legal, then the evidence of intoxication resulted from valid police conduct and need not be suppressed. If the roadblock was illegal, defendant did not forfeit his fourth amendment right by violating § 1012(a), and the evidence must be suppressed and the DUI charge dismissed.
Because the trial court did not reach the question of legality of the roadblock, we remand for adjudication of that issue.

Reversed and remanded.