State v. Eastis

• Decision Date: 05 December 2022
• Docket Number: 49107
• Parties: STATE OF IDAHO, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. JOHN DAVID EASTIS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

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STATE OF IDAHO, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. JOHN DAVID EASTIS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 49107

Court of Appeals of Idaho

December 5, 2022

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

Appeal from the District Court of the Third Judicial District, State of Idaho, Washington County. Hon. Susan E. Wiebe, District Judge.

Judgment of conviction for possession of a controlled substance vacated and case remanded.

Eric D. Fredericksen, State Appellate Public Defender; Jenny C Swinford, Deputy Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for appellant.

Hon Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Andrew V. Wake, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.

LORELLO, CHIEF JUDGE

John David Eastis appeals from his judgment of conviction for possession of a controlled substance. We hold that, based on a change in the law following the district court's decision, the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of conviction and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

An officer initiated a traffic stop of a car driven by Eastis and began writing a citation for driving without privileges. After a second officer arrived and “took over” writing the citation, the first officer used his drug dog to conduct a free-air sniff of the car's exterior. The district court found that the dog “gave a ‘half-sit' alert and stood up on the driver's door” and that the dog's nose "briefly entered the vehicle, but only slightly." The first officer searched the car and found a backpack containing methamphetamine and heroin.

The State charged Eastis with aiding and abetting trafficking in heroin, possession of methamphetamine, and driving without privileges. Eastis moved to suppress evidence obtained from the traffic stop and argued the search was unlawful because the first officer "facilitated the drug dog sticking its nose inside the car window."^[1] The district court denied the motion, finding that the drug dog's actions "were instinctual and not encouraged or facilitated" by the first officer and, thus, "the dog's actions did not constitute a search." Eastis entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance, I.C. § 37-2732(c)(1), reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. As part of the plea agreement, the State dismissed the remaining charges. Eastis appeals.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The standard of review of a suppression motion is bifurcated. When a decision on a motion to suppress is challenged, we accept the trial court's findings of fact that are supported by substantial evidence, but we freely review the application of constitutional principles to the facts as found. State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 559, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct. App. 1996). At a suppression hearing, the power to assess the credibility of witnesses, resolve factual conflicts, weigh evidence, and draw factual inferences is vested in the trial court. State v. Valdez-Molina, 127 Idaho 102, 106, 897 P.2d 993, 997 (1995); State v. Schevers, 132 Idaho 786, 789, 979 P.2d 659, 662 (Ct. App. 1999).

III. ANALYSIS

Eastis notes the district court relied on case law which changed after the district court's decision and asserts that, based on the new case law, the entry of the dog's nose into the car constituted a search. Eastis further asserts the officers lacked probable cause for this search. The State responds that Eastis failed to preserve his arguments premised on the new case law and that, if there is error, he invited the error by relying on now-overruled case law in his motion to suppress. The State further responds that, if the dog's actions constituted a search, this Court should remand the case for the district court to determine whether there was probable cause for the search. Because the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress, we vacate Eastis's judgment of conviction and remand for further proceedings.

In its order denying Eastis's motion to suppress, the district court relied on an opinion from this Court holding that a drug dog's entry into a vehicle is not a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment when the entry was instinctual and not facilitated by the officer. See State v. Randall, Docket No. 46893 (Ct. App. Aug. 13, 2020), rev'd, 169 Idaho 358, 496 P.3d 844 (2021). After the district court's order and while this appeal was pending, the Idaho Supreme Court decided Randall on further review and "reject[ed] the instinctive entry rule." Randall, 169 Idaho at 367, 496 P.3d at 853. In its place, the Idaho Supreme Court held that a dog's entry into a vehicle is a search if the entry was "a trespass by the government" and the trespass was "for the purpose of obtaining information." Id. at 368, 496 P.3d at 854. On the same day it decided Randall, the Idaho Supreme Court issued an opinion that rejected a "de minimis exception" and held that, "when a law enforcement drug dog intrudes, to any degree, into the interior space of a [vehicle] during a drug sniff, without express or implied consent to do so, a search has occurred under the Fourth Amendment." State v. Howard, 169 Idaho 379, 382-83, 496 P.3d 865, 868-69 (2021), cert. denied, __U.S.__,__ S.Ct.__ (Oct. 3, 2022).

Eastis argues that, based on the Idaho Supreme Court's opinions in Randall and Howard, the district court erred in concluding that the entry of the dog's nose into the car was not a search. The State does not dispute that application of these opinions establishes error in the district court's order but asserts that "Eastis has abandoned the argument he made below and is making an unpreserved argument on appeal." The State notes that, in Eastis's briefing to the district court, he argued that the first officer facilitated the dog's entry into the car. According to the State, Eastis's argument on appeal (that the dog's entry was a search regardless of whether it was facilitated by the first officer) is unpreserved because it was not raised below. Generally, issues not raised below may not be considered for the first time on appeal. State v. Fodge, 121 Idaho 192, 195, 824 P.2d 123, 126 (1992). However, the specific legal arguments in support of a position may evolve, including when the argument on appeal focuses only on the appropriate legal standard to be used. State v. Garnett, 165 Idaho 845, 847, 453 P.3d 838, 840 (2019). Refined issues on appeal are acceptable if a party's position on an issue before a trial court remains the same on appeal. State v. Wilson, 169 Idaho 342, 346, 495 P.3d 1030, 1034 (2021). Eastis's argument to the district court relied on this Court's Randall opinion that adopted a legal standard later superseded by the Idaho Supreme Court's opinions in Randall and Howard. The issue raised by Eastis and his position on the issue (that the dog's conduct constituted a search) has remained the same. The evolution in his argument on appeal merely reflects the intervening change in the legal landscape. Cf. Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 328 (1987) (applying newly declared constitutional rule to criminal case pending on direct review); State v. Frederick, 149 Idaho 509, 515, 236 P.3d 1269, 1275 (2010) (applying newly declared constitutional rule to criminal case pending on direct review). Consequently, Eastis's argument on appeal is preserved.

The State next asserts that Eastis invited the error by premising his arguments to the district court on the legal standard articulated in this Court's Randall opinion. The doctrine of invited error applies to estop a party from asserting an error when that party's conduct induces the commission of the error. State v. Atkinson, 124 Idaho 816, 819, 864 P.2d 654, 657 (Ct. App. 1993). The purpose of the doctrine is to prevent a party who caused or played an important role in prompting the trial court to take action from later challenging that decision on appeal. State v. Barr, 166 Idaho 783, 786, 463 P.3d 1286, 1289 (2020). Here, the action taken by the district court was to deny Eastis's motion to suppress. Although his argument to the district court relied on a legal standard that was later superseded, he did not invite the district court to deny his motion based on application of that legal standard. Because Eastis did not invite the district court's action, he did not invite the error. Cf. State v. Gardner, 169 Idaho 90, 101, 491 P.3d 1193, 1204 (2021) (holding that invited error doctrine precluded appellant from arguing that curative instruction compounded State's error because appellant requested the instruction).

Turning to the merits of Eastis's argument, we hold that the entry of the dog's nose into the car during the second sweep was a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Howard, 169 Idaho at 382, 496 P.3d at 868 (holding that a search occurred when a drug dog's "nose entered the car and the entry was momentary" while conducting an otherwise exterior sniff of the car). The district court erred in holding otherwise. Because this was a search, the officers needed probable cause to search the vehicle based on the facts known to the officers prior to the entry of the dog's nose into the car. See Randall, 169 Idaho at 369, 496 P.3d at 855 (holding that, once a drug dog's entry is determined to be a search, the "proper inquiry is whether [law enforcement] had probable cause to believe illegal drugs were in [the suspect's] car before" the drug dog entered the vehicle). Pursuant to the automobile exception, a warrantless search of a vehicle is authorized when there is probable cause to believe the vehicle contains contraband or evidence of criminal activity. United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 824 (1982); State v. Smith, 152 Idaho 115, 120, 266 P.3d 1220, 1225 (Ct. App. 20...