Crowell v. State
Citation | 2000 OK CR 3,994 P.2d 788 |
Decision Date | 21 January 2000 |
Docket Number | No. M-98-1427.,M-98-1427. |
Parties | Bradley Don CROWELL, Appellant, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee. |
Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
¶ 1 Appellant, represented by counsel, was convicted in a non-jury trial of Possession of Marijuana in Case No. CM-97-373 in the District Court of Bryan County. Appellant was sentenced to one (1) year, suspended. From this Judgment and Sentence, Appellant appeals.
¶ 2 On appeal Appellant raised five propositions of error, quoted below:
¶ 3 Pursuant to Rule 11.2(A)(1), Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Title 22, Ch.18, App. (1998) this appeal was automatically assigned to the Accelerated Docket of this Court. The propositions or issues were presented to this Court in oral argument November 4, 1999, pursuant to Rule 11.2(F). At the conclusion of oral argument, the matter was taken under advisement.
¶ 4 We affirm Appellant's conviction. On July 18, 1997, at approximately 7:00 p.m. Appellant was stopped at a safety checkpoint in Durant, Oklahoma. Appellant's DUI affidavit, serving as his temporary license to drive, was checked, as was his insurance verification. While State Trooper Mark Riffe was conducting the safety check, Officer Sonny Stewart of the Durant Police Department, certified to handle drug-sniffing canines for the State of Oklahoma, had his drug-sniffing dog Gay Bo sniff the outside of Appellant's vehicle. The dog alerted on Appellant's truck. At the same time, Trooper Riffe requested that Appellant pull his vehicle over to the side of the road and step out of it so he could be issued a warning citation for failure to wear a seat belt. While the warning was being issued, Officer Stewart had the dog sniff the vehicle again, and upon the dog alerting a second time, the vehicle was searched. A baggy of marijuana was found in the vehicle, along with one rolled marijuana cigarette. Appellant was arrested and subsequently convicted of possession of marijuana.
¶ 5 We do not find, as Appellant claims, that the roadblock/checkpoint set up by the Durant Police Department, in this situation, was pretextual so as to make the search and seizure unconstitutional. There is no requirement, despite Appellant's claims to the contrary, that the State must notify the public of the roadblock, and conduct the roadblock according to a specified, written plan, in order for the roadblock/check point to be constitutionally valid. The roadblock was properly established and conducted according to all constitutionally required guidelines. All parties agree that the stated purpose of the checkpoint was to conduct a safety check and that safety checks were conducted. All vehicles proceeding through the checkpoint were stopped. It was established that most, if not all, of the vehicles stopped at the checkpoint were also sniffed1, and that Appellant was not singled out by the officers to have his vehicle stopped and/or sniffed. Consistent testimony given at the suppression hearing and Appellant's trial established that Appellant was stopped at the checkpoint and was not wearing his seat belt, clearly a safety violation. There is no question that the officer was authorized to issue Appellant a warning citation for the violation.
¶ 6 In U.S. v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), the Supreme Court noted that a canine sniff of the exterior of personal property in a public location "is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure" that it does not constitute a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Appellant has not shown that, during a stop for a legitimate safety check, the use of the drug-sniffing dog that located marijuana in his vehicle constituted an unreasonable search and seizure as contemplated by the Fourth Amendment, and the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions. Furthermore, we...
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Clark v. State ex rel. Dps
...the introduction of departmental guidelines comparable to those required in impoundment cases. We find dispositive the case of Crowell v. State, 2000 OK CR 3, ¶ 5, 994 P.2d 788, 790, wherein the court found there is no requirement that the State conduct a roadblock or checkpoint according t......