Grassi v. People

• Citation: 2014 CO 12
• Decision Date: 18 February 2014
• Docket Number: Supreme Court Case No. 11SC720
• Parties: Petitioner: Ronald Brett Grassi, v. Respondent: The People of the State of Colorado.
• Court: Supreme Court of Colorado

2014 CO 12

Petitioner: Ronald Brett Grassi,

v. Respondent: The People of the State of Colorado.

Supreme Court Case No. 11SC720

Supreme Court of the State of Colorado

February 18, 2014

Certiorari to the Colorado Court of Appeals

Court of Appeals Case No. 09CA400

Judgment Affirmed

en banc

Attorneys for Petitioner:

Douglas K. Wilson, State Public Defender

Ned R. Jaeckle, Deputy State Public Defender

Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent:

John W. Suthers, Attorney General

Brock J. Swanson, Assistant Attorney General

Denver, Colorado

JUSTICE BOATRIGHT delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 We granted certiorari to determine whether the police possessed probable cause pursuant to the fellow officer rule to draw blood from an unconscious driver following a motor vehicle accident, even though the officer who actually ordered the blood draws lacked independent probable cause.¹ We hold that the fellow officer rule imputes information that the police possess as a whole to an individual officer who effects a search or arrest if (1) that officer acts pursuant to a coordinated investigation and (2) the police possess the information at the time of the search or arrest. Because the record in this case reflects that the police as a whole, pursuant to a coordinated investigation, possessed probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed an alcohol-related offense at the time of the blood draws, the fellow officer rule imputed that probable cause to the officer who ordered the blood draws, meaning no Fourth Amendment violation occurred. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶2 On September 4, 2003, Petitioner Ronald Brett Grassi was involved in a single-car accident at approximately 3:50 a.m. Grassi, the driver of the car, suffered serious injuries, and a passenger in the car was killed. Paramedics transported Grassi to a local hospital for treatment, where he remained unconscious for several hours.

¶3 At 4:17 a.m., Trooper Benavides arrived at the crash site. Because the accident had resulted in a fatality, Trooper Benavides contacted both his supervisor and an accident reconstruction team through the police department’s dispatch unit. Trooper Benavides then “walked the crash site,” searching for the potential cause of the accident. He discovered no evidence of skid marks, yaw marks,² or roadway obstruction, nor any suggestion that the driver had applied the brakes. Furthermore, the weather conditions were “clear and dry and . . . fairly warm.” Based on his preliminary observations, Trooper Benavides could find no external explanation for the crash, instead testifying that “[i]t looked like the car just ran off the right side of the roadway.”

¶4 At 4:58 a.m., Trooper Waters, an accident reconstruction specialist, arrived on the scene. Over the next two hours, Trooper Waters examined the crash site and ultimately corroborated Trooper Benavides’s initial suspicions, concluding that no “mechanical defects or failures occurred that could have contributed to or . . . caused the crash.” Moreover, Trooper Waters deduced at the scene that the driver of the vehicle had likely followed the fog line³ off of the roadway, which “[i]ntoxicated drivers have apropensity” to do. Trooper Waters completed his investigation prior to the time of the blood draws.

¶5 Meanwhile, shortly after 5:00 a.m., Corporal Riley directed Trooper Duncan to travel to the hospital where Grassi was being treated. Specifically, Corporal Riley assigned Trooper Duncan⁴ the task of investigating whether a male driver had recently been transported from the crash site and to obtain a blood draw if Trooper Duncan determined “that alcohol was involved.” Trooper Duncan arrived at the hospital shortly after 5:30 a.m. and learned from a paramedic that Grassi was the driver who had been injured in the accident. Although Grassi remained unconscious, Trooper Duncan detected a strong odor of alcohol emanating from Grassi’s mouth. Trooper Duncan then ordered a blood draw, which a phlebotomist⁵ performed at 7:12 a.m.; the phlebotomist later conducted a second blood draw at 7:51 a.m. Prior to these blood draws, the police knew collectively that Grassi had been driving the vehicle when it crashed, that no road conditions or other external factors appeared to have caused the crash, that Grassi’s driving was consistent with that of an intoxicated driver, and that his breath smelled of alcohol. The blood draws then revealed that Grassi’s bloodalcohol content (“BAC”) exceeded the legal limit for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (“DUI”), as provided by section 42-4-1301, C.R.S. (2013).

¶6 The People initially charged Grassi with vehicular homicide, manslaughter, and driving with excessive BAC, and they later amended the complaint to add a charge for DUI. At trial, Grassi moved to suppress the evidence of his BAC, arguing that the police lacked probable cause to order the blood draws and thus violated his Fourth Amendment right to privacy. The trial court denied his motion, finding that Colorado’s express consent statute, § 42-4-1301.1(8), C.R.S. (2013), did not require the police to possess probable cause in order to draw blood from an unconscious driver. As a result, the People introduced evidence of Grassi’s BAC at trial, and a jury ultimately found him guilty of all charges.

¶7 Grassi appealed, and the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s finding regarding probable cause and remanded for further proceedings. People v. Grassi, 192 P.3d 496, 498 (Colo. App. 2008). Specifically, the court of appeals held that the police cannot draw blood from an unconscious driver absent probable cause that he had committed an alcohol-related offense. Id. The court of appeals thus remanded the case so that the trial court could determine whether the police in fact possessed probable cause to order the blood draws. Id.

¶8 On remand, the trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing, at which it heard testimony from Troopers Benavides, Duncan, and Waters.⁶ The trial court then considered “what the police knew at the time of the draw.” Applying the fellow officer rule, the trial court aggregated the knowledge of the three troopers and found that, at the time of the first blood draw, the police as a whole possessed sufficient information to reasonably believe that Grassi had committed an alcohol-related driving offense and thus had probable cause to order the blood draws.

¶9 Grassi again appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed. People v. Grassi, __ P.3d __, No. 09CA0400, 2011 WL 4837291, at *1 (Colo. App. Oct. 13, 2011). In its probable cause analysis, the court of appeals considered not only Trooper Duncan’s observations but also those of Trooper Waters, noting that Trooper Waters, the accident reconstruction specialist, had surveyed the crash site before the phlebotomist performed the blood draws. Id. at *3–4. The court of appeals then applied the fellow officer rule and held that the rule did “not require direct contact between [Troopers] Duncan and Waters in order for the latter’s observations to enter into the probable cause determination.” Id. at *4. Therefore, the court of appeals concluded that the police as a whole possessed probable cause at the time of the blood draws. See id. at *5.

¶10 We granted certiorari to consider whether the fellow officer rule provided the police with probable cause to order the blood draws.

II. Standard of Review

¶11 In reviewing a suppression order, we defer to the trial court’s findings of fact as long as they are supported by competent evidence. People v. Gutierrez, 222 P.3d 925, 931–32 (Colo. 2009). We review the trial court’s conclusions of law de novo. Id. at 931.

III. Analysis

¶12 Under Colorado’s express consent statute, a person who drives a motor vehicle within the state must submit to a breath or blood test “when so requested and directed by a law enforcement officer having probable cause to believe that the person was driving a motor vehicle in violation of the prohibitions against DUI” or other alcohol-related offenses. § 42-4-1301.1(2)(a)(I) (emphasis added). The statute further provides that “[a]ny person who is dead or unconscious shall be tested to determine the alcohol or drug content of the person’s blood . . . as provided in this section.” § 42-4-1301.1(8). Thus, the narrow issue here is whether Trooper Duncan possessed probable cause to order the phlebotomist to draw Grassi’s blood. That issue, however, implicates a specific legal question: whether Trooper Benavides’s and Trooper Waters’s observations at the scene of the accident could be imputed to Trooper Duncan -- and thus factor into the probable cause analysis -- pursuant to the fellow officer rule.

¶13 We have previously established that the fellow officer rule operates to impute information that the police possess as a whole to an individual officer. See People v. Arias, 159 P.3d 134, 139 (Colo. 2007). We now consider whether the rule imputes thatinformation either at the time of the police’s initial assignment to an outside officer (as Grassi contends) or at the time of that officer’s ultimate action (as the People contend).

A. Timing of the Fellow Officer Rule

¶14 It is well-established that law enforcement officers regularly engage in coordinated investigations when working a case. See United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 111 (1965) (“Observations of fellow officers of the Government engaged in a common investigation are plainly a reliable basis for a warrant applied for by one of their number.”). As such, “[W]here law enforcement authorities are cooperating in an investigation, . . . the knowledge of one is presumed shared by all.” Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 n.5 (1983). In some situations, however, the police expand the scope of their investigation to include other officers not currently on scene. In those scenarios, the fellow officer rule operates to integrate those outside...