Faith v. State
| Decision Date | 02 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 1040, Sept. Term, 2018,1040, Sept. Term, 2018 |
| Citation | 213 A.3d 809,242 Md.App. 212 |
| Parties | Shawna Lynn FAITH v. STATE of Maryland |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
242 Md.App. 212
213 A.3d 809
Shawna Lynn FAITH
v.
STATE of Maryland
No. 1040, Sept. Term, 2018
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.
August 2, 2019
Argued by: Claudia Anne Cortese (Paul B. DeWolfe, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.
Argued by: Todd William Hesel (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee.
Panel: Berger, Leahy, Glenn T. Harrell, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Berger, J.
Based on evidence recovered during a warrantless search at the scene of a traffic stop, the Circuit Court for Frederick County, in a bench trial, convicted Shawna Lynn Faith ("Faith"), appellant, of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute. Faith contends that the suppression court erred in
denying her request to exclude "the evidence recovered from a warrantless strip search ... conducted on the side of Interstate 70 in the presence of two civilians and other police officers in which her underwear was pulled from her body and her vaginal area exposed[.]"
This appeal requires us to decide whether such a visual body search, in which a female officer conducted a "look-in" at Faith's genital area, was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, given the public manner and location in which that search occurred. Because the State failed to establish any exigent reason to perform this inspection on the shoulder of a highway in the presence of onlookers, instead of a more private setting that would lessen the intrusion into Faith's personal privacy, we shall reverse her conviction. In doing so, we revisit the constitutional limits on sexually invasive searches like the one at issue here.
BACKGROUND
Before trial, Faith moved to suppress both the controlled dangerous substances ("CDS") recovered and the statements she made during and after the challenged search, on the grounds that (a) this was a "visual body cavity" search that is unreasonable under constitutional standards, and (b) her statements were obtained from a custodial interrogation that occurred before she received Miranda advisements. The suppression court denied the motion as to the drug evidence but granted it as to Faith's statements before she was Mirandized.
Because the sole issue in this appeal is whether the court erred in failing to suppress the drug evidence, our focus is on the suppression record summarized below. See Lewis v. State, 398 Md. 349, 358, 920 A.2d 1080 (2007).
At 7:18 p.m. on April 21, 2017, Frederick County Sheriff's Deputy Douglas Storee1 "was doing traffic enforcement" in a marked police vehicle "on Interstate 70 at Route 144, the New
Market Inn," which is "at Exit 55." Storee observed Faith's vehicle "following too closely, within a car and a half length" of another vehicle traveling westbound at the 70 mph speed limit in "moderate to heavy traffic[.]" When Storee initiated a traffic stop, Faith's vehicle pulled over on the right shoulder of the highway "at South Street[.]"
Faith was in the driver's seat, a female companion was in the passenger seat, and Faith's three-year-old son was in the back seat. Faith was wearing cut-off jean shorts and a top that did not cover her arms.
While informing Faith of why he made the stop, Deputy Storee noticed track marks on her arms, which "is common for someone that's administering CDS intravenously." The deputy asked where Faith was coming from. She answered that they were returning home to Cumberland, after taking "someone else's child down to Baltimore[.]" Storee considered a five-hour round trip for that purpose to be "odd." During the conversation, he observed that the two women "seemed to be squinting, which appeared ... that maybe they were under the influence of drugs" because "[s]ometimes eyes can be sensitive to light."
Storee returned to his vehicle and requested a K-9 unit at the scene. A marked cruiser occupied by Deputy Miller Yackovich and K-9 Officer Ike arrived two minutes later, at 7:22 p.m., while Storee was still completing paperwork regarding the stop. In accordance with standard procedures, the occupants were asked to vacate the vehicle before the canine scan began. After pat-down searches yielded no suspected weapons, all three individuals were "walked back" from Faith's car to Storee's vehicle.
The dog alerted at the doors of Faith's car. Deputy Storee, having called for an officer to "conduct a female search[,]" proceeded to search the vehicle.
Storee's search yielded drug paraphernalia and crack cocaine. A "glass pipe" with burnt residue that Storee believed to be crack cocaine was found under the driver's seat. A "metal spoon" commonly used to mix and inject heroin was "in
the driver's compartment door" with "a whitish-tannish residue" that Storee, "based on [his] training and experience," believed to be heroin. In a purse "on the floorboard" by the front passenger seat was "a bag of crack cocaine[,]" divided into Ziploc packets. That purse contained identification belonging to Faith's passenger.
While Storee was searching the vehicle, Faith, her companion, and her child stood with Deputy Yackovich "on the bumper along the passenger side of" Storee's vehicle, which was "lined up behind the suspect vehicle." Yackovich's cruiser was next in line behind Storee's vehicle. Both police cars had their lights flashing throughout the stop.
While that vehicle search was underway, Sergeant Amanda Ensor arrived, parking her marked vehicle, also with lights flashing, as the fourth car lined up along the
shoulder of Interstate 70. Deputy Storee had done "multiple" "female searches" with Sergeant Ensor "[i]n the field[.]" The sergeant also had "done female searches on [Deputy Yackovich's] traffic stops[.]"
According to Yackovich, he did not know whether Sergeant Ensor routinely "looks underneath females' clothes" because "[t]he way she searches is up to her." According to Storee, "typically we – especially if it's a female, they'll take them to the rear of the vehicle, away from everybody else." Storee explained that during Sergeant Ensor's searches, he does not "look because things happen .... from people doing things on their own, not necessarily just because of a search." Although he claimed that he "never expect[s] someone's vagina is going to be exposed on the side of the road[,]" he acknowledged that in the past, "things happened where people have pulled their clothes off in their own excitement[.]"
While it was still daylight outside, Sergeant Ensor searched Ms. Faith. As moderate to heavy traffic passed on the highway, and Faith's companion and son stood with Deputy Yackovich at the front of Deputy Storee's vehicle, Sergeant Ensor "took Ms. Faith back to the rear of" that vehicle, a car-length away. According to Deputy Storee and Deputy Yackovich,
Faith was searched while standing "between [Storee's] vehicle and Deputy Yackovich's vehicle[,]" while "facing into oncoming traffic," with her back to the male officers and vehicle passengers. During the search, both deputies testified, they were "facing away" from Faith because "obviously there's a privacy issue." Yet Storee did "try to keep an eye as best [he could] on Sergeant Ensor[.]" And Faith's companion, who was holding her son, was next to Deputy Storee.
Sergeant Ensor testified that her search of Ms. Faith was consistent with her routine practice for roadside searches involving suspected CDS. On direct, she recounted that during her fifteen years as a police officer, she had been "frequently called to conduct female searches." She had "[s]everal hours at the academy in the detection of deception and behavior" and "too many" trainings "to name[,]" "in addition to conducting numerous arrests [herself] and assisting and aiding with other arrests for deputies." She estimated that she had conducted "[t]housands" of "female searches[.]"
When asked about her typical approach to such a search, she detailed her standard operating procedure, as follows:
[PROSECUTOR]: And what's your procedure when you arrive on the scene to conduct a female search?...
[SGT. ENSOR]: Systematically for an incident like this where we're on a heroin interdiction operation and we are specifically looking for criminal behavior. I have a systematic approach to my searches. Basically, I do take the person's – their feelings, everything into account. Their reaction to me, their behaviors, their statements, their inconsistencies in stories; and my searches stem from there, but they're always systematic.
I initially ask them if they have anything on them. I let them know specifically if they do and I'm typically very confident that they do have something on them that I will find it. I ask if they have anything that's going to poke me, stick me, anything like that. Sometimes they will be honest and say yes. Others, they
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...are "the scope, manner, and location of the search."). In his argument to this Court, Appellant relies substantially on Faith v. State, 242 Md.App. 212 (2019). The likewise cites us to Faith , but argues that it is distinguishable and does not support Appellant's arguments. In Faith , Fre......