Singleton v. Commonwealth

• Citation: 364 S.W.3d 97
• Decision Date: 26 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2010–SC–000078–DG.,2010–SC–000078–DG.
• Parties: Joseph A. SINGLETON, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (Kentucky)

364 S.W.3d 97

Joseph A. SINGLETON, Appellant,
v.
COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

No. 2010–SC–000078–DG.

Supreme Court of Kentucky.

April 26, 2012.

[364 S.W.3d 99]

Theodore H. Lavit Cameron Cole Griffith Theodore H. Lavit & Associates, P.S.C. Lebanon, KY, Counsel for Appellant.

Jack Conway, Attorney General, Christian Kenneth Ray Miller, Michael Louis Harned, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Frankfort, KY, Counsel for Appellee.

Opinion of the Court by Justice VENTERS.

Appellant, Joseph A. Singleton, was charged in the Casey Circuit Court with driving under the influence, trafficking in marijuana, eight ounces or less (second or subsequent offense), and possession of drug paraphernalia (second or subsequent offense). All of these charges were based on evidence obtained by police officers of the City of Liberty after they stopped Appellant at a traffic checkpoint and searched his vehicle. Appellant moved to suppress the evidence and the Casey Circuit Court granted his motion. The Commonwealth subsequently brought an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeals.¹

The Court of Appeals reversed the circuit court's order, concluding that the evidence was properly obtained. We granted Appellant's motion for discretionary review to determine whether the police traffic checkpoint that led to the seizure of Appellant and the search of his vehicle were permissible under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.² We

[364 S.W.3d 100]

reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the order of the Casey Circuit Court suppressing the evidence.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The essential facts of the case are not disputed. The Casey Circuit Court found that an ordinance of the City of Liberty, Kentucky, requires that persons who either live or work within the city limits must obtain a “city sticker,” and display the sticker upon any motor vehicle they operate in the city. The stickers are obtained from the city upon payment of a ten dollar fee. After receiving complaints that several teachers employed at a local school had failed to obtain a city sticker, the Liberty Police Department set up a traffic checkpoint at an intersection leading to the school to catch offenders. The checkpoint was established using a protocol previously adopted by the police department. Advance notice of the checkpoint was published in the local newspaper.

Each automobile that approached the checkpoint was stopped by a police officer. If a city sticker was observed, the vehicle was waved through the checkpoint. If no sticker was observed on the vehicle, the police detained it long enough to ask the driver if he or she lived or worked within the Liberty city limits. Those found in violation of the ordinance were issued a warning.

Appellant approached the checkpoint in his truck and stopped as commanded. The officers at the checkpoint asked him to roll down his window so they could talk with him. He readily complied. Although the police determined that Appellant was not in violation of the sticker ordinance, while conducting the inquiry, they detected the aroma of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. When questioned about the odor, Appellant admitted that he had smoked marijuana an hour earlier. He was then removed from his truck for a sobriety check. A warrantless search of the truck followed, resulting in the discovery of a partially smoked marijuana cigarette, a bag of marijuana, hand scales, and some clear plastic bags. Appellant was then arrested and charged with the above described offenses.

Appellant moved to suppress the evidence obtained at the checkpoint, arguing that his detention at a traffic checkpoint set up to enforce the vehicle sticker ordinance was a seizure of his person without probable cause or articulable suspicion in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. He argued that the unconstitutional seizure of his person and the ensuing search of his truck tainted the evidence and rendered it inadmissible.

The trial court granted Appellant's motion and suppressed the evidence. Relying primarily upon the United States Supreme Court decision in City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) and this Court's opinion in Commonwealth v. Buchanon, 122 S.W.3d 565 (Ky.2003), the trial court reasoned that stopping a motorist at a traffic checkpoint without any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing cannot be justified under the Fourth Amendment when the purpose of the checkpoint was unrelated to highway safety or border security.

However, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. It concluded that the use of a traffic checkpoint to verify compliance with the City of Liberty's sticker ordinance was similar in purpose to the checkpoints set up to ascertain compliance with driver's licensing and vehicle registration laws previously approved by the United States Supreme Court in

[364 S.W.3d 101]

Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)³ and by the Court of Appeals in the unpublished opinion of Salmon v. Commonwealth.⁴ We granted discretionary review to examine these competing views and determine whether a traffic checkpoint established to detect violations of city ordinances such as the one involved here unreasonably intrudes upon the liberty interests protected by the Fourth Amendment.

II. ANALYSIS A. The Constitutionality of Traffic Checkpoints

It is appropriate to begin our analysis with a review of the constitutional underpinnings of a traffic checkpoint (sometimes referred to as a police roadblock) in which government authorities briefly detain persons occupying vehicles who have exhibited no suspicious behavior and without an individualized determination of probable cause to believe that illegal conduct is occurring. In pertinent part, the Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated[.]” “The basic purpose of [the Fourth] Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of [the United States Supreme Court] is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials. The Fourth Amendment thus gives concrete expression to a right of the people which ‘is basic to a free society.’ ” Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949).

1. Even a brief restraint by a police officer is a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment which must be justified with an objective, articulable suspicion of wrongdoing.

In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the United States Supreme Court established that even a brief detention of a person for questioning by a police officer, known as a “stop and frisk”, constitutes a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and therefore may properly be undertaken only if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion based upon objective, articulable facts that the subject of the inquiry may be involved in some criminal activity. “[W]henever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.” Id. at 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868.

Our predecessor court, in Phillips v. Commonwealth, 473 S.W.2d 135 (Ky.1971), concluded that Terry 's requirement for objective, articulable suspicion applied to automobile stops: “[T]he search of an individual regardless of whether he is in his home, in an automobile, or walking on the street is governed by the Fourth Amendment.” The Unites States Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in United States v. Brignoni–Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881–82, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975):

We hold that when an officer's observations lead him reasonably to suspect that a particular vehicle may contain aliens who are illegally in the country, he may stop the car briefly and investigate the

[364 S.W.3d 102]

circumstances that provoke suspicion. As in Terry, the stop and inquiry must be “reasonably related in scope to the justification for their initiation.”

It is now well established that “stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants is a ‘seizure’ within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, even when the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief.” Prouse, 440 U.S. at 653, 99 S.Ct. 1391;see also Buchanon, 122 S.W.3d at 568.

2. Brief traffic stops without individualized suspicion may be constitutional in limited circumstances where the governmental need is sufficiently important.

A traffic checkpoint inherently generates tension between an individual's legitimate privacy interests under the Fourth Amendment and the state's responsibility for law enforcement and public safety concerns. Thus, while the Fourth Amendment generally bars police officers from effecting a search or seizure without individualized suspicion, nevertheless, some searches and seizures conducted without specific grounds to suspect particular individuals of wrongdoing have been upheld. The United States Supreme Court has recognized exceptions to the...