State Of Vt. v. Fletcher

• Decision Date: 01 April 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-420.,08-420.
• Parties: STATE of Vermontv.Bridgette Brenda FLETCHER.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

996 A.2d 213

2010 VT 27

STATE of Vermontv.Bridgette Brenda FLETCHER.

No. 08-420.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

April 1, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Present: REIBER, C.J., DOOLEY, JOHNSON, SKOGLUND and BURGESS, JJ.

ENTRY ORDER

¶ 1. Defendant Bridgette Fletcher appeals the Addison District Court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence seized during a traffic stop and dismiss the charges against her. Defendant contends that the law enforcement officer lacked sufficient grounds to justify the traffic stop and that the officer did not have the requisite reasonable suspicion to justify turning the traffic stop into a drug investigation. We affirm.

¶ 2. Shortly before midnight on January 31, 2008, a state trooper in a police car with a narcotics identification dog in it observed defendant's vehicle make a left turn onto Charles Avenue in Middlebury. Defendant soon approached a stop sign, stopped completely, and then put on her right turn signal and made the turn. The state trooper followed and watched defendant as she approached a second stop sign. Again, defendant put on her turn signal only after coming to a complete stop. After making a left turn, defendant continued her drive through the town, and eventually approached a third stop sign. As before, defendant did not indicate her intention to turn until after arriving at a complete stop. At that point, the state trooper pulled defendant over for violating 23 V.S.A. § 1064(d), which requires drivers to continuously signal their intention to turn for at least one hundred feet prior to turning.

¶ 3. The officer approached defendant's car and asked for her driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance. Defendant told him that she did not have any of the requested items. He then asked for her name. Defendant gave the officer a false name, which the trooper did not know was false but recognized as belonging to a person who had been involved in drug activity based on information he had received in the past. The officer contacted one of his colleagues who confirmed the state police had received information that a person by that name had been involved with narcotics.

¶ 4. The state trooper also testified that during the stop he observed defendant pushing a purse under the car seat with her legs and acting quite nervously. The officer suggested that she check the purse to see if her license was in it. Defendant declined and stated that the purse did not contain the license. Defendant continued to cast nervous glances toward the purse throughout the encounter, behavior that the state trooper believed was an indication that the purse contained contraband.

¶ 5. At that point in the traffic stop, the officer informed defendant that he had a narcotics canine in his cruiser and that he would be doing an “exterior sniff” of the car. He released the dog, which alerted on the driver's side rear door. The total amount of time that passed between the traffic stop and the exterior sniff was less than five minutes, according to the officer. The officer then read defendant the probable cause consent form, and defendant agreed to allow a warrantless search of her person and her vehicle. Defendant signed the consent form, again using the false name. The state trooper searched the purse and vehicle and found drug paraphernalia, some containing heroin residue, and defendant's operator's license indicating her proper name.

¶ 6. Defendant was charged in Addison District Court with three misdemeanors: one count of possession of less than two hundred milligrams of heroin, one count of driving with a suspended license, and one count of providing false information to a police officer. Defendant filed an initial motion to suppress based on two arguments. First, defendant contended that § 1064(d) was overbroad and vague as applied to her. Second, she maintained that the traffic stop was “pretextual and illegal.” The court denied the motion, holding that the statute's meaning is plain and obvious. ¹

¶ 7. Defendant later filed a second motion to suppress and dismiss, expanding upon her earlier arguments by maintaining that the traffic stop was pretextual because full technical compliance with the statute could not be expected from all drivers. Furthermore, defendant argued that the officer did not take any steps to investigate the alleged traffic violation, but instead immediately turned the traffic stop into a drug investigation without a proper basis for doing so. On August 26, 2008, the district court denied this second motion, finding “nothing inappropriate about [the officer's] behavior whatsoever.” Defendant then entered a conditional guilty plea agreement with the State. The Notice of Plea Agreement preserved the “suppression issue” for appeal to this Court.

¶ 8. In reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we apply a deferential standard of review to the trial court's findings of fact, and we review the court's legal conclusions de novo. State v. Bain, 2009 VT 34, ¶ 15, 185 Vt. 541, 975 A.2d 628. Here, defendant does not challenge the trial court's factual determinations. Rather, she contests only the court's legal conclusions. “Our examination of those legal conclusions is therefore nondeferential and plenary.” State v. Bryant, 2008 VT 39, ¶ 9, 183 Vt. 355, 950 A.2d 467.

¶ 9. Defendant's first argument on appeal is that the state trooper did not have reasonable grounds to stop her for violating § 1064(d). Under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article Eleven of the Vermont Constitution, a law enforcement officer must have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of wrongdoing before making a traffic stop. State v. Lussier, 171 Vt. 19, 34 n. 2, 757 A.2d 1017, 1027 n. 2 (2000). The officer's subjective intent for making the stop is irrelevant; all that is required is that the officer have an objectively valid reason for the stop. See id. at 23-24, 757 A.2d at 1020 (“In determining the legality of a stop, courts do not attempt to divine the arresting officer's actual subjective motivation for making the stop; rather, they consider from an objective standpoint whether, given all of the circumstances, the officer had a reasonable and articulable suspicion of wrongdoing.”). Here, the state trooper observed defendant's failure to use her turn signal until just before turning on three separate occasions. If this behavior violated § 1064(d), the officer had a sufficient basis for making the traffic stop.

¶ 10. Defendant contends that her behavior did not violate § 1064(d) and that the officer therefore did not have sufficient justification to make the traffic stop. Our starting point in interpreting a statute is to give effect to legislative intent. Payne v. U.S. Airways, Inc., 2009 VT 90, ¶ 24, 186 Vt. ----, 987 A.2d 944. “In determining legislative intent, we begin with the plain meaning of the statutory language.” State v. LeBlanc, 171 Vt. 88, 91, 759 A.2d 991, 993 (2000). When the legislative intent is clear from the statutory language, our inquiry is at an end, and we enforce the statute according to its plain terms. Payne, 2009 VT 90, ¶ 24, 987 A.2d 944; LeBlanc, 171 Vt. at 91, 759 A.2d at 993. Moreover, we “presume that all language in a statute was drafted advisedly and that the plain ordinary meaning of the language used was intended.” Comm. to Save Bishop's House, Inc. v. Med. Ctr. Hosp. of Vt., Inc., 137 Vt. 142, 153, 400 A.2d 1015, 1021 (1979) (citation omitted).

¶ 11. Section 1064(d) provides that “[a] signal of intention to turn right or left when required shall be given continuously during not less than the last 100 feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.” Defendant contends that the words “when required” suggest that use of the turn signal is not mandatory in all instances, but rather only when traffic conditions are such that use of the signal is appropriate. We disagree. The plain, ordinary meaning of the statutory language indicates that the operator of a motor vehicle must indicate an intention to turn within one hundred feet of turning regardless of traffic conditions. The “when required” proviso, by its placement in the sentence, refers to the requirement to use the signal at the intersection. That requirement is contained in § 1064(a) (“Before changing direction ..., a driver shall give warning of his or her intention with the hand signals as provided in section 1065 of this title, or with a mechanical or lighting device approved by the commissioner of motor vehicles.”) and § 1065(b) (“No turn to right or left may be made without first giving a signal of an intention to do so either by hand or by signal in accordance with section 1064 of this title.”). These sections required defendant to signal for each of the turns she made; § 1064(d) required that signal to commence at least one hundred feet before the intersection. Thus, in reading the various sections of the statutory scheme together, as we must, see McAlister v. Vt. Prop. & Cas. Ins. Guar. Ass'n, 2006 VT 85, ¶ 10, 180 Vt. 203, 908 A.2d 455, the plain meaning of § 1064(d) supports the trial court's construction.

¶ 12. Our interpretation of § 1064(d) is supported by the decisions of courts from other jurisdictions that have interpreted similar statutes. See, e.g. State v. Lowman, 82 Ohio App.3d 831, 613 N.E.2d 692, 695 (1992) ( “[T]he phrase ‘when required’ simply refers to a situation in which the driver intends to change direction on the roadway.”); State v. Kelly, 229 Or.App. 461, 211 P.3d 932, 937 (2009) (“[T]he text of [the statute] appears to be plain and unambiguous. It requires continuous signaling for a specified distance: ‘not less than the last 100 feet traveled.’ ”). We recognize defendant's argument that the statute should not be interpreted according to its plain meaning because it is often violated and impossible to comply with when the operator does not know whether he or she will turn, and in what direction, until he or she reaches the intersection....