Mahaffy v. State
| Decision Date | 06 May 2021 |
| Docket Number | S-20-0191 |
| Citation | 486 P.3d 170 |
| Parties | William Thomas MAHAFFY V, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Representing Appellant: Office of the Public Defender: Diane M. Lozano, State Public Defender; Kirk A. Morgan, Chief Appellate Counsel. Argument by Mr. Morgan.
Representing Appellee: Bridget L. Hill, Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney General; Joshua C. Eames, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Timothy P. Zintak, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Mr. Zintak.
Before DAVIS, C.J., and FOX, KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, and GRAY, JJ.
[¶1] William Mahaffy entered a conditional plea to methamphetamine possession and child endangerment after the district court denied his motion to suppress evidence obtained at the end of a traffic stop. He now appeals, arguing the traffic stop was unlawfully extended before a drug dog alerted. The State contends Mr. Mahaffy has changed horses and therefore waived the "new" argument he makes on appeal. In the alternative, the State argues the stop was not unlawfully extended. We decline the State's invitation to parse the issue on appeal, we conclude the stop was unlawfully extended after its initial purpose had been resolved, and we reverse and remand.
[¶2] Mr. Mahaffy was the passenger in a car driven by his wife when he threw a lit cigarette out the car window in front of Campbell County Sheriff's Deputy Joshua Knittel's patrol car. Deputy Knittel activated his body camera, turned on his overhead lights, and pulled the car over. Deputy Knittel approached the driver's side of the car, explained the reason for the stop, and obtained the car registration, proof of insurance, and Mr. and Mrs. Mahaffy's driver's licenses. Because the driver appeared very nervous, Deputy Knittel called for a drug dog on his way back to his car. He then proceeded to write the citation for the burning cigarette. While he was completing the citation, another deputy and a K-9 handler arrived.
[¶3] About twelve minutes into the stop, the other deputy asked Mr. Mahaffy to get out of the car and accompanied him to the front of Deputy Knittel's patrol car. Eleven seconds later, Deputy Knittel completed the citation and asked Mr. Mahaffy, "Is there a reason you guys are so nervous while I'm talking to you?" That discussion lasted approximately thirty seconds. Deputy Knittel then proceeded to explain the citation. At thirteen minutes, fourteen seconds, the body camera shows the dog handler walk behind Mr. Mahaffy and nod. Deputy Knittel testified:
[¶4] Twenty-three seconds later, Deputy Knittel completed his explanation and began to inquire about drugs in the car. The entire extension of the stop, from the time Deputy Knittel finished writing the citation to the time he began questioning about drugs, took approximately one and a half minutes.
[¶5] The officers searched the car and found methamphetamine and a pipe. The State charged Mr. Mahaffy with two counts child endangerment (the Mahaffys’ two children were in the back of the car) and one count methamphetamine possession. He moved to suppress "all evidence collected by law enforcement as [a] result of [the] traffic stop." The district court denied the motion after a hearing, and Mr. Mahaffy entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to seek review of the order on his motion to suppress.
[¶6] Mr. Mahaffy timely appealed, arguing the duration of the stop was improperly extended in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The State contends Mr. Mahaffy raises a new argument on appeal that is waived because it was not raised below and, in the alternative, that Deputy Knittel's questioning did not unreasonably prolong the stop.
[¶7] We first address the State's contention that Mr. Mahaffy waived the argument he now makes on appeal, and then turn to the constitutionality of the stop's duration.
I. Mr. Mahaffy Did Not Waive His Right to Appeal the District Court's Denial of His Motion to Suppress When He Raised the Issue of the Unlawful Extension of the Stop While Emphasizing One Portion of the Discussion and Merely Mentioning the Portion He Relies Upon on Appeal
[¶8] The record here is clear and the facts giving rise to waiver are undisputed, so we apply a de novo standard of review. Mills v. State , 2020 WY 14, ¶ 13, 458 P.3d 1, 7 (Wyo. 2020).
[¶9] The State contends Mr. Mahaffy waived his argument on appeal because in his motion to suppress, and at the argument on the motion, he asserted that the duration of the stop was improperly extended because of the time Deputy Knittel spent explaining the citation; while on appeal, he argues that the questions regarding nervousness caused the offending extension of the stop. It urges this Court to dissect the arguments below for the precise words that it contends are necessary to preserve argument on each segment of the stop's extension.
[¶10] A guilty plea "waives appellate review of all non-jurisdictional claims," except for those preserved under W.R.Cr.P. 11(a)(2), "which ‘allows a defendant to plead guilty while reserving the right to seek review on appeal of any specified pretrial motion.’ " Ward v. State , 2015 WY 10, ¶ 15, 341 P.3d 408, 411 (Wyo. 2015) (citations omitted). "[A]n appellant's argument is limited to those issues clearly brought to the district court's attention." Brown v. State , 2019 WY 42, ¶ 12, 439 P.3d 726, 730-31 (Wyo. 2019) (citation omitted). In addition to our specific rules governing conditional pleas, we adhere to the general rule limiting appellate issues to those raised below because "[i]t is unfair to reverse a ruling of a trial court for reasons that were not presented to it, whether it be legal theories or issues never formally raised in the pleadings nor argued to the trial court." Smith v. State , 2021 WY 28, ¶ 49, 480 P.3d 532, 543 (Wyo. 2021) (quoting Four B Props., LLC v. Nature Conservancy , 2020 WY 24, ¶ 69, 458 P.3d 832, 849 (Wyo. 2020) ). It is even less fair to deprive an appellant of a legitimate constitutional argument by applying an overly technical waiver analysis. That is why we give the appellant the benefit of the doubt, and "read any ambiguity in the conditional plea agreement ‘against the Government and in favor of a defendant's appellate rights.’ " Brown , 2019 WY 42, ¶ 13, 439 P.3d at 731 (quoting U.S. v. Anderson , 374 F.3d 955, 957 (10th Cir. 2004) ).
[¶11] Mr. Mahaffy's motion to suppress is only three pages, but it serves its purpose—to advise the State and the district court of the factual basis and the law upon which he relies. The motion contains the general statement "that law enforcement may not prolong a traffic stop with a drug sniffing dog beyond the purposes of the traffic stop absent reasonable suspicion," citing Mills , 2020 WY 14, 458 P.3d 1, and Rodriguez v. U.S. , 575 U.S. 348, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015) ;1 and it states, "The subsequent drug investigation ... wasn't lawful once the citation was completed." At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Mr. Mahaffy's counsel further expanded the scope of the issue:
The issue here today would be the mission of the traffic stop in this case, and I would submit to the Court that, per the testimony of Deputy Knitt[el], the traffic stop's mission was to rectify and determine why this lit substance, cigarette was thrown out the window and to properly address that issue, and he had explained to you that there was some general nervousness exhibited by the driver of the vehicle[.]
Counsel concluded:
And I would submit to the Court that there is no suspicion related to the search in this particular case as to my client and, therefore, it was ... an unlawful extension of the traffic stop by using a drug dog sniff to extend it in order to accomplish a further investigation that, under the terms of these two cases, is unlawful on the part of the Campbell County Sheriff's Office.
(Emphasis added.)
[¶12] In its decision letter denying the motion to suppress, the district court recognized "During his initial contact with the vehicle occupants, Deputy Knittel observed that the driver, Raina Mahaffy, appeared very nervous with shaking hands." The court began its discussion by framing the issue: "In Defendant's Motion to Suppress Evidence , he argues the purpose of the traffic stop was concluded once Deputy Knittel had finished preparing the citation for throwing a burning substance from a vehicle." It went on to discuss the time required to explain the citation, in light of our decision in Mills , 2020 WY 14, 458 P.3d 1, and the time spent on the explanation is certainly the primary aspect of the court's discussion as well as Mr. Mahaffy's. But the decision letter goes on to recognize:
He [Deputy Knittel] also asked Defendant why Defendant and his wife were so nervous. Mr. Mahaffy stated he and his wife had had an argument about driving shortly before the traffic stop. This conversation between Deputy Knittel and Mr. Mahaffy took approximately one and a half minutes, and the canine free-air sniff required only a fraction of that time.
The district court was referring to the conversation after Deputy Knittel finished preparing the citation, including both the...
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