State v. Coleman, 101,621.

• Citation: 257 P.3d 320
• Decision Date: 12 August 2011
• Docket Number: No. 101,621.,101,621.
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee,v.Myron COLEMAN, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Kansas

257 P.3d 320

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Myron COLEMAN, Appellant.

No. 101,621.

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Aug. 12, 2011.

Syllabus by the Court

1. During a routine traffic stop, a law enforcement officer may request a driver's license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration; run a computer check; and issue a citation. As a general principle, the driver must be allowed to leave without further delay once the officer determines that the driver has a valid license and is entitled to operate the vehicle.

2. In the absence of consent, an officer may expand the investigative detention beyond the purpose of the initial stop only if there is an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity was or is taking place. The detention must be reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the initial interference.

3. On a motion to suppress evidence, this court generally reviews the factual findings underlying the district court's suppression decision by a substantial competent evidence standard and the ultimate legal conclusion drawn from those factual findings by a de novo standard. The court does not reweigh the evidence. When the parties do not dispute the material facts, however, the suppression question is solely one of law.

4. Whether reasonable suspicion exists is a question of law and is reviewed de novo. In reviewing an officer's belief of reasonable suspicion, an appellate court determines whether the totality of the circumstances justifies the detention.

5. Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause and requires a showing considerably less than a preponderance of the evidence, but the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires at least a minimal level of objective justification. The officer must be able to articulate more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch of possible criminal activity.

6. A traffic violation provides an objectively valid reason for conducting a traffic stop.

7. The fact that a car rental agreement has expired does not deprive the driver of a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to the contents of the car.

8. In general, parolees have a lower expectation of privacy than probationers and other citizens, because parole is more akin to punishment than is probation. Parole is a variation on imprisonment of convicted criminals, and the essence of parole is release from prison before the completion of the sentence on the condition that the prisoner obey certain rules while serving the balance of the sentence. Parole contrasts with probation in that it is meted out in addition to incarceration, not, like probation, in lieu of incarceration.

Randall L. Hodgkinson, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause, and Sean G. Whittmore, legal intern, was with him on the brief for appellant.Keith E. Schroeder, district attorney, argued the cause, and Thomas R. Stanton, deputy district attorney, and Steve Six, attorney general, were with him on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by ROSEN, J.:

On review of an unpublished opinion by the Court of Appeals affirming his convictions, Myron Coleman appeals from his bench-trial convictions of possession of cocaine with intent to sell, possession of cocaine without tax stamps, and possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to package a controlled substance for sale. He challenges the detention and search that produced the evidence leading to his convictions.

The events leading up to this appeal began at 12:30 in the morning of August 17, 2007, when Deputy Sheriff Matt Tatro stopped a car for speeding on a highway between Wichita and Hutchinson in Reno County and identified Coleman as the driver. Tatro determined that the car was rented and was registered to Conklin Cars of Hutchinson. The rental agreement had expired 2 days earlier, but Coleman explained that he had renewed the agreement over the telephone. The possibility of a telephone renewal struck Tatro as “odd.”

As part of his normal procedures following a stop, Tatro ran a check on the driver and learned that Coleman was on parole. The stop at that point had lasted approximately 5 minutes. Tatro then received a call from Deputy Cory Griffiths, who was involved in the drug enforcement unit. Griffiths informed Tatro that deputies with the unit had “specific knowledge” that Coleman was moving cocaine between Wichita and Hutchinson. Ed Mora, a parole officer with the Kansas Department of Corrections, then called Tatro and reported that Coleman's parole officer had expressed concerns about Coleman's repeated trips between Wichita and Hutchinson. Mora asked Tatro to detain Coleman for a search.

Two backup officers arrived, and then, 35 minutes to an hour after the initial stop, Mora arrived at the scene. Mora informed Coleman that he was not under arrest, but he nevertheless placed Coleman in handcuffs. A search of Coleman's person produced $1,035 in cash, and a search of the car revealed small rocks loose on the front seat and larger rocks wrapped in plastic in a coffee cup; these rocks field tested positive for cocaine and subsequently lab-tested positive for cocaine. The search also produced a pair of latex gloves and a box of sandwich baggies.

Tatro ultimately did not give Coleman a ticket for speeding. The State eventually charged Coleman with one count of possession of cocaine with intent to sell, K.S.A. 65–4161; one count of possession of cocaine without tax stamps, K.S.A. 79–5204; and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to package a controlled substance for sale, K.S.A. 65–4152(a)(3).

Coleman filed a motion to suppress the seized evidence. The parties agreed to submit the motion based on written pleadings and the transcript of the preliminary hearing. The district court denied the motion, ruling that the circumstances of the stop and information available to the police, in combination with Coleman's parole status, sufficed to legitimize the search and that the search was not arbitrary or capricious. Coleman filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that the court had applied an overly lenient burden to the State's evidence. The district court reconsidered the issue and denied the motion for reconsideration on different grounds, finding that the police had a reasonable suspicion justifying the search. The court found that the grounds for the reasonable suspicion were that Coleman was on parole, that the car rental agreement had expired 2 days earlier, that an officer with the drug enforcement unit was “aware of information” that Coleman “was known” for trafficking drugs, and that Coleman's parole officer was aware of no reason for Coleman to be traveling from Wichita to Hutchinson.

The parties proceeded to a bench trial on stipulated facts. The district court found Coleman guilty of all three counts and sentenced him to a midrange sentence of 49 months for possession of cocaine and concurrent midrange sentences of 6 months and 11 months for failure to have a tax stamp and possession of drug paraphernalia. The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, and this court granted review.

Coleman challenges the admissibility of evidence discovered in the search of his rental car.

During a routine traffic stop, a law enforcement officer may request a driver's license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration; run a computer check; and issue a citation. United States v. Elliott, 107 F.3d 810, 813 (10th Cir.1997). As a general principle, the driver must be allowed to leave without further delay once the officer determines that the driver has a valid license and is entitled to operate the vehicle. United States v. Wood, 106 F.3d 942, 945 (10th Cir.1997); State v. Anderson, 281 Kan. 896, 902, 136 P.3d 406 (2006).

An officer's inquiries or actions unrelated to the justification for an initial traffic stop do not convert the stop into an unlawful seizure so long as they do not measurably extend or prolong the stop. In the absence of consent, an officer may expand the duration of the investigative detention beyond an initial stop when the responses of a detainee and the circumstances relating to the stop give rise to suspicions unrelated to the traffic offense. The officer may then satisfy those suspicions, graduating the police response to the demands of the situation. State v. Morlock, 289 Kan. 980, 986–89, 218 P.3d 801 (2009) (citing Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 129 S.Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 [2009] ). Further, an officer may expand the investigative detention beyond the purpose of the initial stop only if there is an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity was or is taking place. United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 682, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985); United States v. Williams, 271 F.3d 1262, 1267 (10th Cir.2001); State v. Thomas, 291 Kan. 676, Syl. ¶ 8, 246 P.3d 678 (2011); K.S.A. 22–2402.

The issues now before this court are whether the facts known to the officer created a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity that justified further investigation and extending the detention, and, if they did not, whether the officer had the authority to arrest Coleman and conduct a search incident to that arrest. Notwithstanding Mora's statement to Coleman that he was not under arrest when he was placed in handcuffs, Coleman was under arrest at that point in time. See K.S.A. 22–2405(1)

On a motion to suppress evidence, this court generally reviews the factual findings underlying the district court's suppression decision by a substantial competent evidence standard and the ultimate legal conclusion drawn from those factual findings by a de novo standard. The court does not reweigh the evidence. State v. Ransom, 289 Kan. 373, 380, 212 P.3d 203 (2009). When the parties do not dispute the material facts, however, the suppression question is solely one of law. Thomas, 291 Kan. at 682, 246...