Burkett v. State
| Decision Date | 18 March 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 34A02-0209-CR-718.,34A02-0209-CR-718. |
| Citation | 785 N.E.2d 276 |
| Parties | Matt T. BURKETT, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Kelly Leeman, Leeman & Burns, Logansport, IN, Attorney for Appellant. Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, ELlen H. Meilaender Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Matt T. Burkett appeals his conviction for Possession of a Controlled Substance,1 a class D felony. He presents the following dispositive issue for review: Did the trial court err in denying Burkett's motion to suppress?
We reverse.
The facts most favorable to the conviction reveal that on January 21, 2001, Indiana State Police Trooper Robert Burgess stopped Matt Burkett for driving sixty-seven miles per hour in a fifty-five-miles-per-hour zone. Burkett smelled of alcohol and had red, watery eyes. Trooper Burgess asked Burkett to get out of his car. Trooper Burgess then administered the horizontal-gaze-nystagmus test and an alco-sensor test, for which Burkett tested.10. Trooper Burgess read Burkett the implied-consent law, and Burkett agreed to take a chemical test.
Trooper Burgess handcuffed Burkett and drove him to the Howard County Jail to administer the test. The test is administered in a secured portion of the jail facility. Before removing the handcuffs from Burkett, Trooper Burgess performed a pat-down search for weapons. He felt a hard, cylindrical object in Burkett's pants pocket. When asked what it was, Burkett shrugged and did not reply. Trooper Burgess pulled out the object, which was an amber-colored pill bottle containing five and one-half yellow pills.
Trooper Burgess gave the pill bottle to Officer Brian Sheetz so that he could contact Poison Control to determine the nature of the pills while Trooper Burgess was administering additional field sobriety tests to Burkett. Officer Sheetz made that call from the same room, only a few feet from Trooper Burgess, and returned the pills to him in about fifteen minutes, along with the conclusion that they were probably Alprazolam, a controlled substance. Officer Sheetz then administered an Intoxilyzer test to Burkett. The Intoxilyzer test yielded a result of .09.
Although Burkett was not arrested for operating while intoxicated,2 the police retained the pills for further testing. The State subsequently charged Burkett with class D felony possession of a controlled substance based on the pills obtained through the pat-down initiated at the jail. Prior to trial, Burkett filed a motion to suppress claiming that the pills were found during an illegal warrantless search. The trial court denied the motion, finding that the police acted reasonably in searching a person brought into a secured portion of the jail. Burkett renewed his motion to suppress at trial and made contemporaneous objections to the physical evidence during trial. He now appeals, contending that there was neither an evidentiary nor legal basis for the search.
The admissibility of evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be disturbed absent a showing that the trial court abused its discretion. Our review of a denial of a motion to suppress is similar to our review of other sufficiency matters. We will disturb the trial court's ruling only upon a showing of abuse of discretion. When reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, we will examine the evidence most favorable to the ruling, together with any uncontradicted evidence. We will not judge witness credibility, or reweigh the evidence.
Wright v. State, 766 N.E.2d 1223, 1229 (Ind.Ct.App.2002) (citations omitted).
Both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution protect the privacy and possessory interests of individuals by prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. Barfield v. State, 776 N.E.2d 404 (Ind.Ct.App.2002). Generally, a lawful search requires a judicially issued search warrant. Id. When a search is conducted without a warrant, the State has the burden of proving that an exception to the warrant requirement existed at the time of the search. Id. The United States Supreme Court recognized one such exception to the warrant requirement in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
Terry permits a
Wilson v. State, 745 N.E.2d 789, 792 (Ind. 2001) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868)...
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