State v. Britton

• Decision Date: 13 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. C9-98-968.,C9-98-968.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Launair Gerard BRITTON, petitioner, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

604 N.W.2d 84

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Launair Gerard BRITTON, petitioner, Appellant.

No. C9-98-968.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

January 13, 2000.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Theodora Gaitas, Asst. State Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Michael A. Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul, Jay Heffern, Minneapolis City Attorney, Paula J. Kruchowski, Asst. Minneapolis

City Attorney, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

LANCASTER, Justice.

Appellant was driving a friend's car when he was pulled over by Minneapolis police officers, who suspected the car was stolen because it had a broken side window. We hold that the stop violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure and reverse the court of appeals' opinion affirming the trial court.

At approximately 11:00 p.m. on March 3, 1998, two Minneapolis police officers, on routine patrol in North Minneapolis, noticed a 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass with a broken driver-side rear passenger window covered with a plastic bag. Suspecting that the vehicle may have been stolen, the officers began to follow it.

While they were following the vehicle, the officers checked their computer to determine whether it was listed as stolen, and learned it was not. After following the vehicle for approximately four blocks, noticing no unusual or suspicious driving conduct, the officers stopped the vehicle, reporting to dispatch that they were stopping a "suspicious vehicle."

The officers approached the vehicle and questioned the driver, later identified as Launair Gerard Britton. They noticed signs that Britton was intoxicated. The officers also noted two passengers in the vehicle: the owner of the vehicle, and a 12-year-old child. The officers arrested Britton. A blood alcohol test showed Britton's blood alcohol content exceeded the legal limit.

On March 5, 1998, Britton was charged in Hennepin County District Court with an aggravated driving violation, driving with an alcohol concentration over .20 - child endangerment under Minn.Stat. § 169.121, subds. 1(f), 3(d)(1) (1996) and other driving offenses.

Britton brought a motion to suppress any evidence obtained from the traffic stop, claiming the stop violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution; Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution.¹ The sole witness called during the suppression hearing was one of the arresting officers, who testified to the basis and nature of his suspicion that the vehicle in question was stolen.

The officer testified that on March 3, 1998, he and his partner were on routine patrol when they saw the Oldsmobile Cutlass and noticed the broken window and the plastic covering on the window. He further testified that in his experience the broken window was an indication that the vehicle may have been stolen, as breaking a window is "a common practice for stealing vehicles." He stated that he had been involved in the recovery of 10 to 20 stolen cars with broken windows.

The officer also explained that the computer check he and his partner ran to see if the vehicle had been reported stolen did not dispel their suspicion that the vehicle was stolen. He noted that because owners are frequently delayed in discovering a theft, stolen vehicles often are not reported for several hours or even days after the actual theft. He said this was especially true on his watch ("dog-watch" - 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.), as owners often do not discover the thefts until the following morning. The officer estimated that he had been personally involved in the recovery of approximately ten such unreported, "fresh stolen" vehicles, although there was no testimony about whether any of those vehicles had broken windows. The officer stated that the only basis for this stop was his belief that the vehicle Britton was driving was stolen, based on his observation of the broken and plastic-covered window.

Based on the officer's testimony, the district court ruled that the stop was based on something "more than whim or caprice," and accordingly was proper under the United States and Minnesota Constitutions and the evidence obtained during the stop was admissible.

After this ruling, Britton waived his right to a trial by jury and submitted the matter to the court for trial on stipulated facts. The district court found Britton guilty of enhanced gross misdemeanor, driving with an alcohol concentration of more than .20/child endangerment.

Britton appealed. In an unpublished decision, the Minnesota Court of Appeals held that the officer's testimony provided sufficient evidence of a reasonable basis for the stop and that the evidence was therefore properly admitted. State v. Britton, No. C9-98-968, 1999 WL 43322, *1 (Minn. Feb. 2, 1999). In his dissent, Judge Foley opined that the reasons offered in the officer's testimony were not sufficient to constitute a "reasonable articulable suspicion" of ongoing criminal activity. See id. at *2 (Foley, J., dissenting).

In reviewing a district court's determinations of the legality of a limited investigatory stop, we review questions of reasonable suspicion de novo. See State v. Munson, 594 N.W.2d 128, 135 (Minn.1999)

. In doing so, we review findings of fact for clear error, "giving due weight to the inferences drawn from those facts by the district court." State v. Lee, 585 N.W.2d 378, 383 (Minn.1998) (citing Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996)).

In this case, the police stopped Britton to investigate whether the vehicle he was driving was stolen. Such limited stops to investigate suspected criminal activity are commonly known as Terry stops. See generally Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)

. Terry held that the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution applies to investigative stops by the police. Id. at 16-17, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Terry and its progeny allow the police to conduct limited stops to investigate suspected criminal activity when the police can "point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868. To justify a stop an officer must be able to state something more than an unarticulated "hunch"; the officer must be able to point to something objectively supporting that suspicion. See United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); accord State v. Johnson, 257 N.W.2d 308, 309 (Minn.1977). We have stated that a Terry-type stop "must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity." State v. George, 557 N.W.2d 575, 578 (Minn.1997) (citing United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)). In deciding the propriety of investigative stops, we review the events surrounding the stop and consider the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the police had a reasonable basis justifying the stop. See Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417,

101 S.Ct. 690.

Appellant first argues that the police did not have a reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify the stop before they checked the computer. Second, he argues that even if such suspicion did exist, it was conclusively dispelled once the computer check revealed that the Cutlass was not listed as stolen.

We address appellant's second argument first. He maintains that a reasonable suspicion, if any, would have been dispelled by the computer check that did not show the Cutlass reported stolen. We agree with the court of appeals that that argument and appellant's reliance on State v. Pike is misplaced. See generally 551 N.W.2d 919 (Minn.1996). In State v. Pike, we stated that reasonable suspicion, if actually dispelled by further investigation prior to the stop, does not justify a Terry-type seizure. See id. at 922. Here, the officer explained why the check did not dispel his suspicion. He testified that in his experience many stolen vehicles often go undiscovered and unreported overnight and sometimes for several days. Such stolen but undiscovered, unreported vehicles are termed by police "fresh stolen." Therefore, under the circumstances of this case, the computer check would not necessarily have detracted from any reasonable suspicion that the Cutlass was stolen, although it obviously did not add to it either.

The insurmountable difficulty for the state in this case is that it did not show an objectively reasonable articulable suspicion on the part of the officer before the computer check.

A thorough review of the transcript of the Rasmussen hearing convinces us that the appellant was stopped because he was driving a car with a broken window and for no other reason. That the window was covered with plastic seems neither to have added nor subtracted from the suspicion raised by the broken window. The officer testified that there was plastic covering the window, but there was no testimony about how that fact contributed to the officer's suspicion of whether the car was "fresh stolen," except the following ambiguous exchange.

Q Did the fact that there was a bag covering the window do anything to abet your suspicions?

A Yes. That's a common way of covering up the window, and also the plastic bag obstructs the view for the driver.

That testimony sheds no light on whether thieves or victims are more likely to have put plastic over broken car windows. In any event, the testimony established that it was not the plastic that gave rise to the officer's suspicion, but the broken window itself.

Accepting as true that many stolen vehicles have broken windows, does it follow that a broken window alone gives rise to an objectively reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot whenever a car with a broken window is seen? Our task is not to decide whether the particular officer's suspicion was...