State v. Crawford

• Decision Date: 18 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 88,250,88,250
• Parties: STATE OF KANSAS, Appellant, v. WILLIAM ALFRED CRAWFORD, JR., Appellee.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

275 Kan. 492

67 P.3d 115

STATE OF KANSAS, Appellant, v. WILLIAM ALFRED CRAWFORD, JR., Appellee.

No. 88,250

Supreme Court of Kansas

Opinion filed April 18, 2003.

Steven J. Obermeier, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, Vanessa M. Fowler, assistant district attorney, Paul J. Morrison, district attorney, and Carla J. Stovall, attorney general, were with him on the briefs for appellant.

Patrick M. Lewis, deputy district defender, of Olathe, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

NUSS, J.:

This is an interlocutory appeal of a district court's order suppressing all evidence in a case concerning the defendant's third offense of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), a felony under K.S.A. 2000 Supp. 8-1567. The evidence had been obtained during a vehicle stop prompted by an anonymous tip. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision, and we granted the State's petition for review in accordance with K.S.A. 20-3018 (b).

The sole issue on appeal is whether the district court correctly ruled that the anonymous tip failed to provide an adequate basis to justify the stop and detention, requiring suppression of the evidence. More specifically, the question is whether a stop is legal when it is based upon an anonymous tip stating a vehicle's make, model, style, color, the state of origin of its license plate, highway location, and direction of travel — all of which was corroborated by the law enforcement officer before the stop — and also stating the conclusory allegation that the vehicle was being driven recklessly, which the officer did not attempt to corroborate before the stop. We hold the district court erred in holding the stop was illegal. We therefore reverse the district court and the Court of Appeals and remand for trial.

FACTS

In the early afternoon of Friday, August 18, 2000, Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Leiker was on patrol south of the Kansas City metropolitan area, near Spring Hill, Kansas. At approximately 2 p.m., he received a call from Sheriff's dispatch. Deputy Leiker described the events that followed during a preliminary hearing held July 13, 2001.

[Leiker]: "Sheriff's dispatch called for a Spring Hill unit to respond to the area of approximately 207th, 215th and U.S. 169 reference a reckless driver.

[State]: "When you heard that call go out, what did you do?

[Leiker]: "I proceeded in that direction because I had heard Spring Hill's response that they did not have an officer available.

[State]: "And did you place yourself in a certain location based on that call?

[Leiker]: "Yes, I did. I parked my vehicle on the shoulder of the roadway at approximately 207th and 169 Highway.

[State]: "207th and 169 Highway, is that in Johnson County, Kansas?

[Leiker]: "Yes, it is.

[State]: "And while you were at this — first of all, about what time was this that you responded and put yourself in that location?

[Leiker]: "Approximately 1:2 — correction 1:45, two o'clock.

[State]: "And as you were at that location, did you observe anything?

[Leiker]: "Yes, I did. The vehicle that was described by Sheriff's dispatch passed me.

[State]: "And what was the description of the vehicle that was given to you prior to seeing it?

[Leiker]: "Okay. Dispatch advised and said it was a black Dodge pickup truck with Oklahoma plates on it.

[State]: "Did they indicate the direction of travel of the vehicle?

[Leiker]: "They said it was northbound.

[State]: "And the vehicle that passed you can you describe it?

[Leiker]: "It was a black Dodge Dakota pickup truck with Oklahoma plates on it.

[State]: "After it passed by you, what did you do?

[Leiker]: "As soon as it passed I activated my emergency equipment and made a traffic stop.

[State]: "Now, Deputy, why was it that you decided to stop the vehicle without following it for a distance?

[Leiker]: "Because the call came out as a reported reckless driver and the area of County Line and 169 Highway has a history of having, you know, bad accidents on it, and because, like I said, it was a reckless driving complaint I didn't think I should allow the driver to commit any more infractions if it was already reported that he did so.

[State]: "Now, this highway, is it a two-lane or four-lane highway?

[Leiker]: "It's four lanes.

[State]: "The only thing dividing south and northbound traffic is basically the dotted or middle lines, correct?

[Leiker]: "Correct."

Leiker was parked approximately 1 mile north of the county line, and the speed limit there was 65 miles per hour. He had stopped 2 minutes after receiving the dispatch and performed the vehicle stop 6 minutes later. On cross-examination, Leiker testified that the dispatcher had additionally described the truck model as a Dakota. However, he admitted that the dispatcher had not described the driver or indicated how many persons were in the truck, that he had not noticed the truck involved in any traffic violations during the 25 to 30 seconds he followed Crawford before the stop, and that the traffic had not been heavy. Leiker testified that after the stop he noticed several signs indicating Crawford was intoxicated. Crawford exited his vehicle before being instructed to by Deputy Leiker and when told to return to the truck he swayed as he walked and was forced to hold onto the railing around the truck bed. When Leiker approached the truck, he noticed a faint odor of alcohol and that Crawford's eyes were bloodshot and his clothes were disheveled as if he had been sleeping. After Crawford failed three different field sobriety tests and the preliminary breath test, Leiker arrested him and conducted an Intoxilyzer 5000 examination. This test revealed Crawford possessed a blood alcohol content of .174%, more than twice the legal limit of .08% expressed in K.S.A. 2000 Supp. 8-1567.

At the close of the preliminary hearing, the district court bound Crawford over for trial on a single charge of felony driving under the influence of alcohol. K.S.A. 2000 Supp. 8-1567(f). Approximately 2 months later, the court conducted a hearing on Crawford's motion to suppress the evidence obtained after the stop and relied exclusively upon the transcript of the preliminary hearing. The district court essentially rejected the possibility of a safety stop under State v. Vistuba, 251 Kan. 821, 823, 840 P.2d 511 (1992), and evaluated the detention as an investigatory stop under the standards of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968), and its progeny. In suppressing the evidence, the court held Leiker lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion to conduct the detention without having further corroborated the details of the anonymous tip.

The State timely appealed. After analyzing Leiker's actions as not only a possible investigatory stop under Terry but also a public safety stop under Vistuba, a divided Court of Appeals rejected both bases for the stop and affirmed the district court's decision.

DISCUSSION

The State argues that the district court erred in suppressing the evidence because the anonymous tip justified Crawford's stop either under Terry for investigation purposes or under Vistuba for public safety. Our standard of review is stated in State v. Alvidrez, 271 Kan. 143, 145, 20 P.3d 1264 (2001):

"When reviewing a motion to suppress evidence, an appellate court reviews the factual underpinnings of a district court's decision `"by a substantial competent evidence standard and the ultimate legal conclusion drawn from those facts by a de novo standard. An appellate court does not reweigh the evidence. The ultimate determination of the suppression of evidence is a legal question requiring independent appellate review."' [Citations omitted.]"

We need not evaluate the safety stop possibility, as we hold the stop was legal as a Terry stop under the same rationale and comparable facts of State v. Slater, 267 Kan. 694, 986 P.2d 1038 (1999).

In Slater, a Hays police officer was on routine patrol in the city on February 15, 1997. After an anonymous caller's tip to dispatch, he was informed that a "possible drunk driver" was leaving Burger King in a black pickup bearing license tag HEK 477. Apparently by dispatch running the license plate, they were able to advise that the tag was registered to Walter Slater at 2212 Downing. Within minutes, the officer went to Burger King, did not see the vehicle, and proceeded to defendant's home address a short distance away. A block from the house, the officer observed the vehicle as described, followed it approximately one block without seeing any signs of poor driving, and stopped the vehicle to ascertain the information received from the dispatcher. As the driver got out, a beer can fell out of the pickup and the driver stumbled and staggered. 267 Kan. at 696.

Slater was arrested and charged with DUI. The trial court, however, suppressed the evidence arising out of the stop and dismissed the charge, holding that the anonymous tip was insufficient to provide an articulable and reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed. See Terry, 392 U.S. 1 (a law enforcement officer may stop any person in a public place based upon specific and articulable facts raising a reasonable suspicion that such person has committed or is about to commit a crime), and Terry's Kansas codification at K.S.A. 22-2402(1).

We reversed, applying the "totality of the circumstances" test from Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 L. Ed. 2d 301, 110 S. Ct. 2412 (1990), and State v. Field, 252 Kan. 657, Syl. ¶ 3, 847 P.2d 1280 (1993). Under that test, we held that the information given by the anonymous caller and the officer's corroboration of the description and license number of the vehicle before the investigatory stop was sufficiently reliable to provide the officer with a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Slater, 267 Kan. at 706.

We observed that brief investigatory stops of motor vehicles based upon...