People v. Guthrie, 50

Citation30 N.E.3d 880,2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 02867,25 N.Y.3d 130,8 N.Y.S.3d 237
Decision Date07 April 2015
Docket NumberNo. 50,50
PartiesThe PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Rebecca GUTHRIE, Respondent.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals

Richard M. Healy, District Attorney, Lyons (Bruce A. Rosekrans of counsel), for appellant.

James S. Kernan, Public Defender, Lyons (Andrew D. Correia and Richard W. Youngman of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

STEIN

, J.

In this appeal, we are asked to decide whether there is probable cause to make a traffic stop for a suspected violation of law in accordance with article I, § 12 of the New York State Constitution

and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution if the justification for the stop is based upon a police officer's objectively reasonable, but mistaken, view of the law. We conclude that where, as here, the officer's mistake about the law is reasonable, the stop is constitutional.

I

At approximately 12:15 a.m. on September 27, 2009, a police officer stopped defendant's vehicle after observing the vehicle drive past a stop sign without stopping. The stop sign was located at the edge of a supermarket parking lot in the Village of Newark, Wayne County, and defendant was exiting the lot onto a public street. Upon stopping defendant, the officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol. After defendant failed field sobriety tests and a breath analysis revealed that her blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, the officer arrested defendant and charged her with failing to stop at a stop sign in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1172(a)

and driving while intoxicated under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192(2) and (3).

Asserting lack of probable cause for the initial stop, defendant moved to suppress the evidence resulting therefrom. The Newark Village Court took judicial notice of the location of the stop sign and that it was not registered in the Village Code (see Code of Village of Newark § 140–46). The court granted the suppression motion and dismissed the charges on the ground that the stop was not justified because the stop sign was not properly registered, as required by

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100(b)

.1 County Court of Wayne County affirmed, concluding that because the stop sign was not legally authorized, the traffic stop was improper because the officer's good faith was insufficient to “blink away any irregularities in the laws he [was] attempting to enforce.” A Judge of this Court granted the People leave to appeal (22 N.Y.3d 1156, 984 N.Y.S.2d 640, 7 N.E.3d 1128 [2014]

), and we now reverse.

II

As this Court has previously explained, “any exercise of police power under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and our State constitutional corollary must be reasonable—a seizure by the police may not be arbitrary” (People v. Robinson, 97 N.Y.2d 341, 353, 741 N.Y.S.2d 147, 767 N.E.2d 638 [2001]

; see

Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. ––––, ––––, 135 S.Ct. 530, 536, 190 L.Ed.2d 475 [2014] ). A traffic stop is a seizure and is permissible under the Fourth Amendment and article I, § 12 of the State Constitution when “a police officer has probable cause to believe that the driver of an automobile has committed a traffic violation” (Robinson, 97 N.Y.2d at 349, 741 N.Y.S.2d 147, 767 N.E.2d 638 ; see

Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809–810, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 [1996] ). Probable cause, in turn, “does not require proof sufficient to warrant a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt but merely information sufficient to support a reasonable belief that an offense has been or is being committed or that evidence of a crime may be found in a certain place” (People v. Bigelow, 66 N.Y.2d 417, 423, 497 N.Y.S.2d 630, 488 N.E.2d 451 [1985] [emphasis added]; see

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 [1996] ). Thus, [a] police officer who can articulate credible facts establishing reasonable cause to believe that someone has violated a law has established a reasonable basis to effectuate a [traffic] stop” (Robinson, 97 N.Y.2d at 353–354, 741 N.Y.S.2d 147, 767 N.E.2d 638 ).

Generally, a traffic stop is justified when an officer observes a vehicle fail to stop at a stop sign (see Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1172 [a]

; People v. Davis, 32 A.D.3d 445, 445, 821 N.Y.S.2d 217 [2d Dept.2006], lv. denied 7 N.Y.3d 924, 827 N.Y.S.2d 693, 860 N.E.2d 995 [2006] ). However, the parties here are in agreement that the stop sign at issue was not legally valid because it was not properly registered as required by Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100(b). Thus, the People concede that defendant could not be prosecuted for a stop sign violation. Nevertheless,

the People argue that the traffic stop was constitutionally justified because the officer observed what he reasonably believed to be a violation of the Vehicle and Traffic Law. Defendant counters that the officer made a mistake of law and that such a mistake, even if reasonable, can never provide justification for a traffic stop.

Although defendant and the dissent correctly note that the officer's good faith belief that she violated the Vehicle and Traffic Law was not sufficient to justify the traffic stop (see Bigelow, 66 N.Y.2d at 426–427, 497 N.Y.S.2d 630, 488 N.E.2d 451

), the relevant question before us is not whether the officer acted in good faith, but whether his belief that a traffic violation had occurred was objectively reasonable (see

People v. Estrella, 10 N.Y.3d 945, 946, 862 N.Y.S.2d 857, 893 N.E.2d 134 [2008], cert. denied 555 U.S. 1032, 129 S.Ct. 608, 172 L.Ed.2d 457 [2008] ; see also

Robinson, 97 N.Y.2d at 349–350, 353–354, 741 N.Y.S.2d 147, 767 N.E.2d 638 ).2 Recently, in Heien v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court of the United States clarified that the Fourth Amendment tolerates objectively reasonable mistakes supporting such a belief, whether they are mistakes of fact or mistakes of law (574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 539

). Heien involved a traffic stop of a vehicle that had only one working brake light, which the officer mistakenly believed to be a violation of North Carolina law (see 574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 534–535 ). The Court noted that, in its more recent precedent, it had “recognized that searches and seizures based on mistakes of fact can be reasonable,” and concluded that [t]here is no reason, under the text of the Fourth Amendment or our precedents,” why the same result should not be acceptable “when reached by way of a similarly reasonable mistake of law” (574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 536 ). Citing a number of its nineteenth century decisions “explaining the concept of probable cause” (574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 537 ), the Court stated that its cases dating back two centuries support treating legal and factual errors alike in this context” (574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 536–537 ). In light of “the reality that an officer may suddenly confront a situation in the field as to which the application of a statute is unclear—however clear it may later become” (

574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 539

[internal quotation marks omitted] )—the Court concluded that the officer's misreading of the statute at issue, which was susceptible of multiple interpretations and had not been definitively construed by the North Carolina appellate courts, amounted to a reasonable mistake of law justifying the traffic stop (see 574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 540 ). Thus, while the defendant could not be prosecuted under North Carolina law for having only one brake light, his cocaine-trafficking conviction—which flowed from a search incident to the traffic stop—was upheld (see 574 U.S. at ––––, 135 S.Ct. at 540 ).

Similarly, in People v. Estrella, this Court affirmed an Appellate Division order upholding the denial of a motion to suppress cocaine recovered after a traffic stop based upon car windows that were over-tinted under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 375 (12–a) (b)

but permissible in Georgia, the state in which the vehicle was registered (10 N.Y.3d at 946, 862 N.Y.S.2d 857, 893 N.E.2d 134, affg. 48 A.D.3d 1283, 1284–1285, 851 N.Y.S.2d 793 [2008] ).3 The Fourth Department concluded that suppression of the drugs found as a result of the traffic stop was not warranted because, among other things, “it is unreasonable to require that police officers be familiar with the equipment requirement laws of every state, and presumably other countries, in order to effectuate a proper stop for a violation of New York State law” (Estrella, 48 A.D.3d at 1285, 851 N.Y.S.2d 793 ). Two dissenting Justices would have reversed on the ground that the officer who stopped the vehicle made a mistake of law and, therefore, lacked probable cause to believe that defendant had committed a traffic infraction. The dissenters reasoned that a “mistake of law, as opposed to a mistake of fact, cannot justify the stop of a vehicle and the ensuing search and subsequent seizure of evidence therefrom,” and that “police officers must be charged with the objective standard of knowing whether [a traffic] infraction occurred” (id. at 1287, 851 N.Y.S.2d 793

).

On appeal, we affirmed, rejecting the rationale of the dissenting Justices. Without drawing any distinction between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law in the context of traffic stops, we determined that “[t]he record supports the finding that the officer who stopped the car reasonably believed the windows to be over-tinted in violation of [the] Vehicle and Traffic

Law” (Estrella, 10 N.Y.3d at 946, 862 N.Y.S.2d 857, 893 N.E.2d 134

[emphasis added] ). We concluded that the officer was not chargeable with knowledge that the window tinting was legal in Georgia (see id. ).

III

So too here, we look to the reasonableness of the officer's belief that defendant violated the Vehicle and Traffic Law, without drawing any distinction between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law. In Estrella, the arresting officer would have been expected to know that Vehicle and Traffic Law § 250(1)

provides an...

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1 cases
  • People v. Guthrie
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • April 7, 2015

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