Blaisdell v. Commissioner of Public Safety

• Decision Date: 21 February 1986
• Docket Number: No. C8-85-959,C8-85-959
• Citation: 381 N.W.2d 849
• Parties: Randy Jay BLAISDELL, Respondent, v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY, Petitioner, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 849

381 N.W.2d 849

Randy Jay BLAISDELL, Respondent, v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY, Petitioner, Appellant.

No. C8-85-959.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Feb. 21, 1986.

Syllabus by the Court

The information provided by a clerk at a gas station to the police officer as to a motorist's possible involvement in a prior misdemeanor theft of gasoline did not justify stopping the motorist or otherwise interfering with his freedom of movement; accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred in addressing the broader issue of whether all stops for completed misdemeanor offenses are impermissible under the Fourth Amendment.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Mary B. Magnuson, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for appellant.

William G. Moore, Fridley, for respondent.

Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.

OPINION

AMDAHL, Chief Justice.

This is an implied consent proceeding. The Court of Appeals, 375 N.W.2d 880, affirmed the decision of the trial court rescinding the revocation of the driver's license of Randy Jay Blaisdell. The Court of Appeals held that the stop of Blaisdell's car, which led to the discovery that Blaisdell was intoxicated, violated Blaisdell's Fourth Amendment rights because it was a stop to investigate a completed misdemeanor. Specifically, the court held that all stops to investigate completed misdemeanors are impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. We granted the petition of the Commissioner of Public Safety but not for the purpose of deciding the issue decided by the Court of Appeals. Rather, we believe that there was an insufficient basis for the stop and that it was therefore unnecessary for the Court of Appeals to decide the broader issue of whether all stops to investigate completed misdemeanors are impermissible.

An officer of the Fridley Police Department was in the lot of a gas station. A clerk came up to him and said that a car leaving the station may have been involved in a no-pay gas theft 2 months earlier. A short time later the clerk said he was certain of it. The clerk did not give any specifics about the theft, did not give any license plate number, and did not identify the driver as the person involved in the theft. The officer followed the vehicle and stopped it, telling Blaisdell, the driver, of the clerk's allegations. When the officer seated Blaisdell in the squad car, the officer made observations of signs that Blaisdell was intoxicated. He then arrested Blaisdell for DWI and read him an implied consent advisory. Blaisdell took the implied consent test, which showed he had a blood alcohol level in violation of the implied consent law.

As we indicated, the Court of Appeals ruled that all stops to investigate completed misdemeanors are impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. The court did not try to define what it meant by "completed misdemeanors," but said that this was one and that misdemeanors committed in the "very recent past" probably are not completed ones.

The United States Supreme Court in a number of cases has indicated that in determining whether or not to stop and temporarily seize a person police must ask themselves if there is "reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity." United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). However, the first case in which the Supreme Court actually held that the stop procedure could be used to investigate a completed offense was United States v. Hensley, --- U.S. ---, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985), a case involving a completed felony. The Court of Appeals apparently attached great significance to the fact that in Hensley the Supreme Court stated, "We need not and do not decide today whether Terry stops to investigate all past crimes, however serious, are permitted." 105 S.Ct. at 681.

We express no opinion as to the correctness of the Court of Appeals' holding. We simply hold that the information provided to the officer by the clerk was not sufficient to justify the stop of Blaisdell. The officer's right to stop Blaisdell depended on the sufficiency of the information that the clerk provided. See United States v. Hensley, 105 S.Ct. at 684; Olson v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 371 N.W.2d 552 (Minn.1985). The clerk's information was vague. At first he said that the car may have been that of the thief; then he changed his mind and said that he was sure it was. He gave no license number and no indication that he had a license number or that he knew what the thief looked like. He gave no details as to the theft, other than that it occurred approximately 2 months earlier. In short, the information did not provide the officer with a reasonable basis to suspect the driver, Blaisdell, of having committed a crime. At best, the information suggested that the car possibly was connected with a theft that occurred approximately 2 months earlier. Under the circumstances, the officer was not free to interfere with Blaisdell's freedom of action but, of course, could have simply followed the car and copied the car's license number for possible future use in further investigating the vague allegations.

Affirmed on other grounds.

SCOTT, Justice (dissenting).

I respectfully dissent. In State v. McKinley, 305 Minn. 297, 232 N.W.2d 906 (1975), we recognized that a stop of a motor vehicle by a law enforcement official is constitutional if it is based on specific and articulable facts which, together with any rational inferences therefrom, reasonably warrant the intrusion. We noted in McKinley that the actual factual basis for such a stop is minimal. All that is required is that the stop not be the result of mere whim, caprice or curiosity on the part of the law enforcement official. Id. at 304, 232 N.W.2d at 911. The majority fails to point to any facts that make the stop in this case a product of such whim, caprice or curiosity.

On January 23, 1985, at approximately 2:10 a.m., Officer Wayne Pfuhl of the Fridley Police Department was sitting in his squad car parked at a Q Petroleum self-service gas station. Officer Pfuhl was approached by...