Bailey v. State

• Decision Date: 12 October 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-268.,99-268.
• Parties: Mindy Sue BAILEY, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

12 P.3d 173

Mindy Sue BAILEY, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 99-268.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

October 12, 2000.

Representing Appellant: Sylvia Lee Hackl, State Public Defender, and Donna D. Domonkos, Appellate Counsel. Argument by Ms. Domonkos.

Representing Appellee: Gay Woodhouse, Wyoming Attorney General; Paul Rehurek, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Georgia L. Tibbetts, Senior Assistant Attorney General; and Denise Timmermans, Student Intern. Argument by Ms. Timmermans.

Before LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, GOLDEN, HILL, and KITE, JJ.

HILL, Justice.

Mindy Sue Bailey (Bailey) pleaded guilty to felony possession of a controlled substance in violation of Wyo.Stat.Ann. § 35-7-1031(c)(ii) (LEXIS 1999)¹ subject to appeal of the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence seized from her vehicle after her arrest on an outstanding traffic warrant. We find that the trial court's decision denying Bailey's motion to suppress was correct under federal constitutional law. We also conclude that Bailey failed to preserve for consideration on appeal any claims under state law. We affirm the trial court's decision denying Bailey's motion to suppress.

Bailey presents a single issue for our consideration:

Whether the district court erred when it denied Bailey's motion to suppress evidence found during a search incident to arrest when the search was neither necessary to protect the arresting officers nor to preserve evidence of a crime?

The State reframes the issue slightly:

Did the district court err in denying Appellant's motion to suppress the evidence seized during a search of her vehicle incident to her arrest?

FACTS

On July 14, 1998, Officer Spears of the Campbell County Sheriff's Department was on patrol when he received a report that a bail bondsman was attempting to detain someone. Officer Spears was informed by police dispatch that the bondsman was following Bailey on State Highway 59, and that there was an active Crook County, Wyoming, arrest warrant for her. The officer subsequently stopped Bailey on Interstate Highway 90.

The vehicle Bailey was driving belonged to her employer and with her was a friend's young child. After being informed that she was under arrest for the outstanding warrant, the officer allowed Bailey to make telephone calls to arrange for someone to take care of the child. Bailey was also allowed to call her employer, who made arrangements to come out to the highway and retrieve the vehicle.

After arresting Bailey on the outstanding warrant, the officer proceeded to search the cab of the vehicle, a Ford Ranger pick-up with an extended cab. The officer specifically limited his search to only those areas in the cab that had been within Bailey's reach. In the glove compartment, the officer found three syringes, one of which contained a liquid substance; a spoon; a leather or string tie; a wooden marijuana pipe; a black film container; and a prescription bottle with Bailey's name on it. Behind the driver's seat, the officer also discovered a tin that smelled of marijuana and another pipe. The film container and the prescription bottle contained a white powder later identified as methamphetamine. Likewise, the liquid in the syringe was also identified as methamphetamine.

On July 15, 1998, Bailey was charged with felony possession of 0.33 grams of methamphetamine in a liquid form and 2.30 grams of methamphetamine in a powder form, in violation of § 35-7-1031(c)(ii). Bailey filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from the truck on the grounds that the search was illegal. After a hearing on the motion, the district court issued a decision letter denying the motion:

It is abundantly clear that the search of Ms. Bailey's vehicle had nothing to do with officer safety. It also appears that the search was in no way necessitated to preserve evidence relating to the underlying offense for which the warrant was executed.

Nevertheless, since Ms. Bailey was in custody pursuant to a valid arrest warrant, the officer was permitted to conduct a warrantless search of the passenger compartment of the vehicle and any containers therein without her consent. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460[, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768] (1981). While the rationale for Belton is officer safety and evidence preservation it does not appear that those factors are factual predicates to unconsented searches of the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to an arrest of the driver. It seems that the United States Supreme Court intended to establish a "bright line rule" which permitted such searches without the requirement of a case by case justification. For that reason the Motion to Suppress must be denied and it is unnecessary to extend the inquiry in this case to the question of whether the arresting officer is entitled, under the evidence preservation rationale of Belton, to search for evidence of any crime or merely evidence relating to the crime for which the defendant was arrested.

Subsequently, Bailey entered into a conditional guilty plea pursuant to W.R.Cr.P. 11(a)(2)², reserving the right to challenge the denial of her motion to suppress. The district court accepted the plea, and the propriety of the ruling denying the motion to suppress is now before this Court.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

When reviewing an order denying a motion to suppress evidence, the findings of the trial court regarding the motion to suppress are binding on this Court unless clearly erroneous. Neilson v. State, 599 P.2d 1326, 1330 (Wyo.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1079, 100 S.Ct. 1031, 62 L.Ed.2d 763 (1980). Whether an unreasonable search or seizure occurred in violation of constitutional rights presents a question of law and is reviewed de novo. Gronski v. State, 910 P.2d 561, 563 (Wyo.1996).

Vasquez v. State, 990 P.2d 476 at 480 (Wyo. 1999).

DISCUSSION

Federal Analysis

Bailey claims that the warrantless search of her vehicle was in contravention of the United States Constitution. Bailey's claim is predicated upon her belief that the United States Supreme Court in Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 S.Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492 (1998) held that warrantless searches of vehicles in those situations where concerns for officer safety and evidence preservation did not exist were not permissible, thus modifying the "bright line" rule established in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). Bailey argues that since the district court specifically concluded that neither scenario justified the search in this instance, the district court erred in denying her motion to suppress.

In Belton, the United States Supreme Court held "that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." 453 U.S. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864. The justification for allowing a warrantless search of an automobile and the containers found therein is based on considerations of preserving evidence of criminal conduct and the need to disclose the existence of weapons to ensure officer safety. 453 U.S. at 461, 101 S.Ct. at 2864. However, the Belton court noted that the actual existence of either consideration was not determinative of the validity of such a search since a lawful arrest in itself provided sufficient justification for the intrusion created by the search. Id. (quoting United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 476, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973)).

In Knowles, the court was faced with an Iowa law that allowed an officer to issue a citation for a violation in lieu of making an arrest. 525 U.S. at 114,119 S.Ct. at 486-87. The law also provided that the officer's authority to effectuate a search of a vehicle was not diminished by his decision to issue a citation instead of making an arrest. Id. The court ruled that a police officer could not conduct a search without probable cause based solely on the issuance of a citation for a traffic violation even if the officer could have arrested the driver for the violation. 525 U.S. at 118,119 S.Ct. at 488. As the court put it:

In [United States v.] Robinson, [414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.ed.2d 427 (1973)], we held that the authority to conduct a full field search as incident to an arrest was a "bright-line rule," which was based on the concern for officer safety and destruction or loss of evidence, but which did not depend in every case upon the existence of either concern. Here we are asked to extend that "bright-line rule" to a situation where the concern for officer safety is not present to the same extent and the concern for destruction or loss of evidence is not present at all. We decline to do so.

Clearly, the court's decision did not affect the continued vitality of the Belton decision; it simply refused to expand the parameters of Belton beyond custodial searches. See United States v. Dhinsa, 171 F.3d 721, 726 (2nd Cir.1999)

and Polke v. State, 241 Ga.App. 891, 528 S.E.2d 537, 540 (2000).

Hence, Bailey's reliance on Knowles is misplaced. Bailey was arrested pursuant to an outstanding warrant authorizing a search of the passenger compartment of her vehicle incident to that arrest under the Belton rule. Therefore, the district court did not err when it refused to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of her vehicle under federal law.

State Analysis

Bailey argues that the search of her vehicle was illegal under the Wyoming Constitution pursuant to our recent decision in Vasquez. Relying on the district court's findings that officer safety or evidence preservation concerns were not present in this case, Bailey contends that the search was not reasonable under the circumstances. 990 P.2d at 488.

Initially, we must consider the State's argument that Bailey failed to raise a state constitutional issue below and,...