State Of Ind. v. Richardson

• Decision Date: 03 June 2010
• Docket Number: No. 49S02-0910-CR-428.,49S02-0910-CR-428.
• Citation: 927 N.E.2d 379
• Parties: STATE of Indiana, Appellant (Plaintiff below),v.Robert RICHARDSON, Appellee (Defendant below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

927 N.E.2d 379

STATE of Indiana, Appellant (Plaintiff below),v.Robert RICHARDSON, Appellee (Defendant below).

No. 49S02-0910-CR-428.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 3, 2010.

Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General of Indiana, Cynthia L. Ploughe, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.

Joseph M. Cleary, David R. Hennessy, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-0807-CR-583

SULLIVAN, Justice.

Defendant Robert Richardson was stopped for driving his pickup truck without wearing a seatbelt. The police officer's subsequent inquiry regarding a “large, unusual bulge” in his pocket led to the discovery of cocaine. The trial court concluded that this inquiry went beyond that authorized by Indiana's Seatbelt Enforcement Act. We agree with the trial court's determination.

Background

On July 10, 2007, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer Tanya Eastwood was working an overtime shift when she drove past a pickup truck stopped at a stop sign and noticed that the driver, Robert Richardson, was not wearing a seat belt.¹ Officer Eastwood approached the truck and recognized Richardson from a prior traffic stop, during which she had encountered no problems with him. Richardson was immediately cooperative with Officer Eastwood and admitted that he did not have his seat belt on. While speaking to the passenger, Officer Eastwood noticed “a very large, unusual bulge” in Richardson's pocket. Officer Eastwood asked Richardson what was in his pocket, and he told her that it was his handgun. Officer Eastwood requested Richardson's handgun permit and asked him to exit the vehicle so she could retrieve his gun.

Richardson's handgun permit appeared tattered and wrinkled. The issue date of the permit was “06/12/2006,” but the last digit of the year of the expiration date was illegible.² Officer Eastwood's personal routine was to perform a criminal background check on anyone with a handgun, regardless of the presence of a permit, so she radioed headquarters.³

Headquarters initially informed Officer Eastwood that Richardson had a “prior conviction for possession of cocaine and public intox.” (Tr. at 22.) Richardson told Officer Eastwood that his prior conviction was a misdemeanor, and Officer Eastwood therefore asked two sources at headquarters if Richardson's prior conviction was a felony or a misdemeanor. Despite three inquiries, headquarters was unable to respond definitively, ultimately telling Officer Eastwood:

it shows up that it is a felony D possession of cocaine and the strange thing is I looked under sentencing and I know he got probation, it doesn't tell me what probation he got. [B]ut it shows him only serving 20 days so I don't know how accurate that is.

Id. Officer Eastwood did not use her laptop computer in her patrol car to check Richardson's criminal history, nor did she check the validity of Richardson's handgun permit with headquarters.

Officer Eastwood then placed Richardson under arrest for “having a firearm with a prior felony conviction within the last fifteen years.” (Tr. at 33.) Another police officer who had arrived to assist Officer Eastwood started to pat down Richardson and felt a large object in Richardson's underwear. Richardson began to struggle with the officers and attempted to flee. The officers forced Richardson down onto an embankment where he continued to resist and attempted to place his hands in his pants. During the struggle, Richardson kicked Officer Eastwood in the chest, and Officer Eastwood attempted to use a taser on him. Although this proved ineffective, the officers were eventually able to subdue Richardson. The object in Richardson's underwear was later determined to be cocaine.

On July 11, 2007, the State charged Richardson with Class A felony dealing in cocaine, Class C felony possession of cocaine, Class C felony possession of cocaine and a firearm, Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement, and Class A misdemeanor battery on a law enforcement officer. Richardson filed a motion to suppress the evidence, and the trial court held a hearing on this motion and subsequently granted Richardson's motion to suppress.

The State appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the officer's questions and actions were reasonable under the totality of the circumstances and that the trial court erred in granting Richardson's motion to suppress the evidence seized in connection with the seat belt violation. State v. Richardson, 906 N.E.2d 263 (Ind.Ct.App.2009). Richardson sought, and we granted, transfer. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).

Discussion

I

Richardson contends that the search incident to arrest offends the proscriptions on unreasonable searches and seizures contained in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 11 (“Section 11”), of the Indiana Constitution. Because we resolve Richardson's claim on statutory grounds, we do not address Richardson's constitutional arguments.

Indiana Code section 9-19-10-3.1, also known as the Seatbelt Enforcement Act (“Act”), provides that “a vehicle may be stopped to determine compliance with this chapter. However, a vehicle, the contents of a vehicle, the driver of a vehicle, or a passenger in a vehicle may not be inspected, searched, or detained solely because of a violation of this chapter.” In Baldwin v. Reagan, 715 N.E.2d 332 (Ind.1999), we upheld the constitutionality of Indiana Code section 9-19-10-3⁴ against a challenge that the statute unconstitutionally provided authority for entirely pretextual traffic stops. We reasoned that the statute could be constitutionally applied because under it law enforcement officers could stop motorists only where they had reasonable suspicion that a seat belt violation had occurred. On the basis of the language of the statute, we agreed with the Attorney General's position that “the statute requires that when a stop to determine seat belt law compliance is made, the police are strictly prohibited from determining anything else, even if other law would permit.” Baldwin, 715 N.E.2d at 339. We also stated that the statute could be read to prohibit a police officer making a seat belt stop from even asking the driver for consent to search the vehicle or its occupants. Id. at 339 n.8.

At the same time, the police are not ousted of authority to investigate further if the circumstances warrant. “[A] brief police detention of an individual during investigation is reasonable if the officer reasonably suspects that the individual is engaged in, or about to engage in, illegal activity.” Id. at 337. We place the burden on the State to show that under the totality of the circumstances its intrusion was reasonable. Id.

In Trigg v. State, 725 N.E.2d 446, 448 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), the Court of Appeals interpreted Baldwin to allow for a limited search for weapons when an officer makes a traffic stop based on reasonable suspicion that a seat belt violation has occurred. However, the Court said that a limited search for weapons must be “the result of actions or behavior on the part of the defendant after the initial stop that led a police officer to fear for his safety.” Trigg, 725 N.E.2d at 448 (emphasis added). The Court reasoned that under such circumstances, a limited search for weapons after a stop under the Act is not a search “solely because of a violation” of the seat belt law. Id. at 448-49. The search is not to discover evidence of a crime, but to permit the officer to pursue the investigation without fear for his or her own safety and that of others. Id. at 449. The Court concluded that where circumstances existed beyond the seat belt violation itself, a limited search for weapons was not prohibited by the Act. Id. See also Pearson v. State, 870 N.E.2d 1061, 1066 (Ind.Ct.App.2007) (where a defendant is cooperative, a limited pat-down search for weapons during a seat belt stop is usually unreasonable, but ultimately concluding that the limited search for weapons was reasonable given the police officer's knowledge of the defendant's violent conduct on two prior occasions) trans. denied; State v. Morris, 732 N.E.2d 224, 228 (Ind.Ct.App.2000) (cautioning that a traffic stop based solely upon the failure of the driver or the passenger to wear a seat belt does not provide reasonable suspicion for the officer to “unilaterally expand [an] investigation and ‘fish’ for evidence of other possible crimes.”).

Did Officer Eastwood's inquiry, during a traffic stop for a seat belt violation, regarding a “large, unusual bulge” in the defendant's pocket, cross the line? The State relies on our decision in State v. Washington, 898 N.E.2d 1200, 1207-08 (Ind.2008), to contend that Officer Eastwood's inquiry was entirely proper because under Section 11, an officer may ask a motorist whether he or she has a weapon on his person. However Washington did not involve a seat belt stop; the defendant was stopped for inter alia, repeatedly driving a moped left of center. Id. The language of the Act and subsequent case law clearly dictate that in adopting the Act, the Legislature intended the statute to limit, rather than expand, police authority with respect to seat belt enforcement stops and sought to circumscribe the power of police to use a seat belt stop as an opportunity to inspect, search, or detain on other grounds, even if constitutional law would permit such police behavior. See Baldwin, 715 N.E.2d 332. Given the language of the Act itself, the Attorney General's own position in Baldwin interpreting that language, and the case law, the Act simply does not permit investigatory behavior based solely on a seat belt violation unless circumstances arise after the stop that independently provide the officer with reasonable suspicion of other crimes.

Trigg, Morris, and Pearson comport with Baldwin. An officer may conduct a limited search or inquiry concerning weapons without obtaining a search warrant if the...