State v. Britt, 04-584.

• Decision Date: 22 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-584.,04-584.
• Citation: 327 Mont. 1,2005 MT 101,111 P.3d 217
• Parties: STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ronald W. BRITT, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

111 P.3d 217

2005 MT 101

327 Mont. 1

STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ronald W. BRITT, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 04-584.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs March 30, 2005.

Decided April 22, 2005.

For Appellant: Brian Lilletvedt, Bosch, Kuhr, Dugdale, Martin & Kaze, PLLP, Havre, Montana.

For Respondent: Hon. Mike McGrath, Attorney General; Jon Ellingson, Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana, Cyndee Peterson, County Attorney; Gina Bishop, Deputy County Attorney, Havre, Montana.

Justice BRIAN MORRIS delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶ 1 Ronald W. Britt (Britt) appeals from the denial of his Motion to Suppress Evidence by the Twelfth Judicial District Court, Hill County. We affirm.

¶ 2 We must address whether the District Court properly denied Britt's motion to suppress evidence based upon the police officer's particularized suspicion to justify an investigative stop.

BACKGROUND

¶ 3 Pete Kuhr (Kuhr), a Havre area rancher, called the Hill County Sheriff's Department and reported that a car with three occupants had been parked five to six miles outside of Havre along a gravel road for most of the day. Kuhr told the dispatcher that he had stopped and asked the occupants if they needed help and the occupants had advised him that everything was okay. The dispatcher relayed the location and license plate number to Deputy Monte Reichelt (Reichelt), an officer with 27 years of experience.

¶ 4 Reichelt arrived at the intersection where the car initially had been reported by the dispatcher approximately forty-five minutes after receiving the call. Although the car was not at the intersection, Reichelt did find the car parked to the side of the same gravel road, pointing southbound, and next to a shelter belt of trees. The car drove onto the road as Reichelt approached, proceeded past him, and turned east onto another road toward Havre.

¶ 5 Reichelt saw that the car had the same license plate number and noted that a Native American male was driving the car with a Caucasian female passenger. After identifying the car, Reichelt continued on for a short distance until he could turn around and catch up to it. During that brief moment of time, until he came to the corner and turned east himself, Reichelt lost sight of the car behind a shelter belt of trees. When he caught up and approached the car, Reichelt observed the car driving near the center of the gravel road, and although he did not specifically observe the occupants do so, he saw that they had switched drivers. Reichelt then turned on his siren and stopped the car. His subsequent search of the car uncovered illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.

¶ 6 The State charged Britt with criminal possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving while his license was suspended or revoked. Britt moved to suppress the evidence found in his car based on Reichelt's lack of particularized suspicion to justify the investigatory stop. At the hearing, Reichelt testified about the stop and James Oliver Catt, Jr., a defendant witness who investigated the gravel road at issue, also testified. The District Court denied Britt's motion and Britt entered into a plea agreement reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Britt exercises that right in this appeal.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7 We review a district court's denial of a motion to suppress evidence to determine whether the court's finding that the officer involved had a particularized suspicion to justify the investigatory stop is clearly erroneous. State v. Steen, 2004 MT 343, ¶ 5, 324 Mont. 272, ¶ 5, 102 P.3d 1251, ¶ 5 (citation omitted). Findings of fact are clearly erroneous if they are not supported by substantial evidence, the district court misapprehended the effect of the evidence, or the record shows that the district court committed a mistake. State v. Eixenberger, 2004 MT 127, ¶ 13, 321 Mont. 298, ¶ 13, 90 P.3d 453, ¶ 13.

DISCUSSION

¶ 8 Britt contends that the District Court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence because Deputy Reichelt did not possess the necessary particularized suspicion to justify an investigative stop. To determine whether such particularized suspicion exists, the State must show: (1) objective data from which an experienced officer could make certain inferences, and (2) a resulting suspicion that the occupant of the vehicle in question is or has been engaged in some wrongdoing. Section 46-5-401, MCA; Steen, ¶ 7 (citation omitted). "Whether a particularized suspicion exists is a question of fact dependent on the totality of the circumstances surrounding the investigative stop." Steen, ¶ 7 (citation omitted). We evaluate the totality of the circumstances by considering the quantity, or content, and quality, or degree of reliability, of the information available to the officer. State v. Gilder, 1999 MT 207, ¶ 11, 295 Mont. 483, ¶ 11, 985 P.2d 147, ¶ 11 (citations omitted).

¶ 9 We preface our discussion with a comment about Reichelt's testimony that "[t]he driver was a Native American guy and the passenger was [a] little white girl." Reichelt's reference to racial classifications seems gratuitous, at best, in light of the fact that race was not a basis to form a particularized suspicion in this instance. We find no evidence in the record that Reichelt specifically relied on racial profiling to justify the stop of the car. See e.g. State v. Belgarde (1990), 244 Mont. 500, 506-07, 798 P.2d 539, 543

(finding that defendant's claim of a police officer's racial discrimination in stopping his car, and the alleged "jail or bail" police policy based on being a Native American, was not supported by any objective evidence in the record). Similar to Belgarde, under the circumstances in the present case, Reichelt possessed objective data, other than the fact that the driver was Native American and his passenger was a "little white girl," on which to base his particularized suspicion.

¶ 10 Britt argues that the objective data Reichelt relied on to form his particularized suspicion does not reconcile with our case law. We disagree. Reichelt investigated a report of a suspicious car parked alongside a gravel road in a remote area. Although Reichelt did not find the car in the precise place it had been reported, he did locate it in the general vicinity, and it matched the reported car's license plate numbers. When the car's occupants saw Reichelt and his patrol car, they pulled out from their parked position and drove toward town. Reichelt conceded that he did not...