Juliano v. State
| Decision Date | 12 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 320, 2019,320, 2019 |
| Citation | 254 A.3d 369 |
| Parties | Heather JULIANO , Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Delaware |
Thomas D. Donovan, Esquire, Dover, Delaware, for Appellant Heather Juliano.
John R. Williams, Esquire, Department of Justice, Dover, Delaware, for Appellee State of Delaware.
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA, VAUGHN, TRAYNOR, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.
In Whren v. United States ,2 a unanimous United States Supreme Court held that a police officer's use of a traffic stop supported by the suspicion of a minor motor vehicle violation as a means to investigate more serious violations of the law, as to which the requisite suspicion does not exist, does not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures. In this case, the appellant asks us to hold otherwise under Article I, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution.
Although we once again recognize that Article I, § 6's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures are different and broader than the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment, in this opinion we join the vast majority of states that have either followed Whren or cited it with approval. In so holding, we confirm the standard by which the lawfulness of motor vehicle stops have been judged for several decades, albeit under the Fourth Amendment and not Article I, § 6. Under that standard, motor vehicle stops must be based on specific articulable facts indicating a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the law, including a traffic violation, has occurred. But we also recognize that legitimate concerns have been raised about law enforcement's use of seemingly arbitrary traffic stops as a means to investigate unrelated wrongdoing. These concerns are, however, most appropriately addressed by a vigilant application of our holding in Caldwell v. State, which condemned the use of "marginally applicable traffic laws as a device to circumvent constitutional search and seizure requirements,"3 rather than by the adoption of a new standard that places unnecessary restrictions on law enforcement's ability to detain violators of the law.
On January 29, 2019, Heather Juliano was a passenger in a sport-utility vehicle driven by Shakyla Soto in the vicinity of the Capital Green development in Dover. Corporal Robert Barrett of the Dover Police Department was patrolling the area, accompanied by Probation Officer Rick L. Porter, as part of the Department's Safe Streets program. According to Corporal Barrett, the Safe Streets program targets "violent offenders, ... guns and drugs,"4 and the probation officer was riding along to facilitate the questioning and search of any probationers the two might encounter during the patrol.
Corporal Barrett spotted Soto's SUV exiting Capital Green and noticed that the occupant of the front passenger seat was not wearing a seat belt. Although at first—that is, as he decided to pull the vehicle over—Barrett thought that the unrestrained passenger was a black male in his early twenties, upon executing the stop, he learned that it was the 15-year old Juliano.5
Barrett approached the SUV on the driver's side, while Porter was on the passenger side. Barrett recognized the passenger as Juliano and noticed that she was putting her seat belt on. Almost immediately after Barrett initiated contact with the driver, he heard Porter say "1015 which means take ... everybody into custody."6 As of that moment, Barrett had not smelled an odor of marijuana or noticed any other evidence of foul play, and he was not sure why Porter was directing him to take all of the car's passengers, including back-seat passengers, Zion Saunders and Keenan Teat, into custody. At the time, Barrett speculated that Porter had detected "an odor of marijuana or a weapon or contraband."7 Porter later told Barrett that, indeed, it was the odor of marijuana that prompted his instructions.
Three other Dover Police Department officers arrived on the scene in very short order. In fact, one of the officers—James Johnson, the one who took custody of and searched Juliano—arrived on the scene before any of the car's occupants had exited the vehicle.8
In response to Porter's "10-15" directive, Barrett took Soto into custody and placed her in handcuffs. Barrett then searched Soto—like Juliano, a female—and found nothing. But as Barrett escorted Soto to the rear of the SUV for the purpose of searching her, he "could smell marijuana very strong coming from Ms. [Juliano]."9
According to Barrett, all four occupants of the SUV were removed from the vehicle and handcuffed in response to Porter's order. The SUV was then searched, but no contraband was found. The officers then searched each of the vehicle's occupants. Barrett confirmed that these searches went beyond a pat-down for weapons:
One officer searched Teat and found a knotted bag containing crack cocaine in one of his pants pockets. Another officer searched Saunders and found both marijuana and heroin in his jacket pockets. But when Officer Johnson searched Juliano, he found no contraband. He did, however, find $245.00.
Officer Johnson described his search of Juliano at the scene:
Even though the officers found no contraband on Juliano's person or in the passenger compartment of Soto's SUV, Corporal Barrett decided to take Juliano back to the police station to be strip-searched. The record is a bit murky here regarding Juliano's custodial status—whether she was under arrest or merely subject to custodial detention—at this point. It seems that the police officers were unconcerned with such distinctions. For his part, Officer Johnson believed that all of the vehicle's occupants were under arrest.
The suppression hearing record suggests that the decision to take Juliano into full custody for the purpose of strip-searching her was made the moment the controlled substances were found in Teat's and Saunders's pockets, and arguably sooner. Barrett sought to justify this action because, based on his experience, "it's common ... for drug dealers to pass off narcotics and weapons to females that are with them because they know that [police don't] do as thorough of a search on females."12 He acknowledged, though, that he "didn't see anybody in the car handing off anything."13 Barrett did not explain—nor did Juliano question—why this notion was in play here; after all, all of the vehicle's occupants were searched for weapons, and none were found, and neither Teat nor Saunders had handed off their drugs to anyone—the drugs were still in their pockets.
So because drugs were found on Teat and Saunders, Juliano was taken back to the Dover police station. Upon arrival there, Barrett asked his supervisor to approve a strip search of Juliano. The supervisor in turn asked his supervisor for approval. Eventually, Sergeant DiGirolomo—Barrett's supervisor's supervisor—confronted Juliano with the fact that "a more thorough search was going to be done by a female and asked [Juliano] if she had anything on her;"14 rather than consent to the strip search, Juliano admitted that she did. Juliano was then escorted to another room where she retrieved a bag of marijuana and a bag of cocaine from within her pants. The ensuing strip-search of Juliano yielded nothing. Juliano was charged with Tier 1 possession of narcotics plus an aggravating factor (aggravated possession of cocaine), drug dealing, and possession of marijuana.
Juliano moved the Family Court to suppress "all evidence seized as a result of her arrest and subsequent warrantless search and seizure."15 According to Juliano's motion:
[t]he officers' stop of the vehicle operated by Ms. Soto was not based on reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation or other criminal activity had occurred, and thus not justified. In fact, the officers' stopping of the vehicle and subsequent search was entirely pretextual. Furthermore, the officers' arrest and subsequent search of [Juliano] was not supported by probable cause, and thus not justified. The officers' threat of strip searching a juvenile, without a warrant, was not justified and a violation of her right to privacy.16
At the evidentiary hearing on the motion, the police all but admitted that Juliano's arrest was the product of a pretextual stop—that is, a motor vehicle...
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