State v. Flowers, No. A05-213 (MN 5/9/2006)
| Decision Date | 09 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. A05-213.,A05-213. |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Dontrell Dyna Flowers, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Minnesota (US) |
Appeal from the District Court, Hennepin County, File No. 04038148.
Mike Hatch, Attorney General, and Amy Klobuchar, Hennepin County Attorney, David C. Brown, Assistant County Attorney, (for respondent).
John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Cathryn Middlebrook, Assistant Public Defender, (for appellant).
Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Wright, Judge; and Dietzen, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
On appeal from conviction for felon in possession of a firearm, appellant argues that the district court erred by (a) refusing to suppress a gun found during a vehicle search, (b) denying appellant's mistrial motion in response to the proscribed testimony of a police officer, (c) permitting the state to impeach appellant with a prior conviction, and (d) in its clarification of a jury instruction. We affirm.
Officers decided to stop appellant Dontrell Dyna Flowers after noticing that his vehicle's rear license plate was not illuminated. The officers activated their emergency lights and siren, but appellant continued driving. The officers observed appellant make "hurried and fast movements," including "a real distinct lunging motion" toward the passenger-side door and subsequent motions in the area of the driver's door, which one officer believed to be consistent with either reaching for a gun or hiding a gun or contraband.
After appellant stopped the vehicle, the officers arrested him, and secured him in the squad car. Upon approaching appellant's vehicle, one of the officers noticed that the open driver's door had a loose interior panel; when he pulled the panel back he saw the butt of what turned out to be a loaded handgun. Because of a prior felony conviction, appellant was charged with being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(b) (2002).
During pretrial proceedings, the district court denied appellant's motion to suppress the handgun, finding that the equipment violation justified the stop, and the search was appropriate based on Terry. The district court also denied appellant's motion to preclude impeachment by prior conviction, and appellant did not testify. The district court granted appellant's motion that precluded any mention at trial that the handgun was stolen, but one of the officers described the gun as "stolen" during his testimony. Appellant moved for a mistrial based on that statement. The district court denied the motion, determining that the statement had been inadvertent, and gave the jury a curative instruction. During deliberations, the jury sought a clarifying instruction from the district court about possession, and the district court answered that The jury found appellant guilty, and the district court sentenced him to 60 months in prison. This appeal follows.
"When reviewing pretrial orders on motions to suppress evidence, we may independently review the facts and determine, as a matter of law, whether the district court erred in suppressing—or not suppressing—the evidence." State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn. 1999). Any expansion of the scope or duration of an investigative stop is proper only when the officers have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of other criminal activity. State v. Wiegand, 645 N.W.2d 125, 135 (Minn. 2002).
Appellant argues that the district court erred by not suppressing the handgun because the officers' search exceeded the scope authorized by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968). In Terry, the Supreme Court concluded that
[T]here must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime.
Id.at 27, 88 S. Ct. at 1883. A Terry analysis is twofold, "[w]hether the officer's action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." Id. at 20, 88 S. Ct. at 1879. Officers may evaluate the circumstances warranting a search in light of their experience. Id. at 27, 88 S. Ct. at 1883.
Appellant concedes that the initial stop was justified, but contends that the officers' search for the handgun was impermissible under Terry because it proceeded through four distinct stages, and each incremental intrusion during a traffic stop must be separately justified by reasonableness or probable cause. See State v. Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d 353, 365 (Minn. 2004); State v. Richmond, 602 N.W.2d 647, 652 (Minn. App. 1999) (), review denied (Minn. Jan. 18, 2000). Appellant maintains that the officers first conducted a pat-down search, then searched the car with a flashlight, next conducted a K-9 search, and finally noticed the loose door panel and found the handgun inside the door. Appellant contends that at some point the Terry standard was exceeded. Accepting appellant's characterization of these aspects of the search as "incremental intrusions," we are convinced that they were reasonable given the officers' difficulty in stopping appellant and their observation of his furtive movements as he continued driving.
While the district court justified the pat down search on Terry grounds, it did not find that the officers had probable cause to expand the scope of the stop from the original equipment violation. A warrantless search of an automobile may be conducted when the police have probable cause. Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 51, 90 S. Ct. 1975, 1981 (1970). Probable cause exists when an officer—under the totality of the circumstances—"conditioned by his observations and information, and guided by the whole of his police experience, reasonably could have believed that a crime had been committed by the person to be arrested." State v. Lohnes, 344 N.W.2d 605, 612 (Minn. 1984).
Here, probable cause is substantiated both by appellant's furtive movements following the officers' indication that he stop and his failure to stop until he had driven suspiciously for an entire block. Coupled with the officers' claim that they were patrolling a high-crime area and that appellant's movements were consistent, in their experience, with someone trying to reach for or hide a weapon or contraband, there appears to be an independent basis for the stop. See State v. Johnson, 444 N.W.2d 824, 827 (Minn. 1989) (); State v. Munoz, 385 N.W.2d 373, 376 (Minn. App. 1986) (). Therefore, the district court did not err by declining to suppress the gun.
A district court's ruling on the impeachment of a witness by prior conviction is reviewed, as are other evidentiary rulings, under a clear-abuse-of-discretion standard. State v. Ihnot, 575 N.W.2d 581, 584 (Minn. 1998).
Minn. R. Evid. 609(a)(1) provides for the admission of a prior conviction for impeachment purposes if the probative value of the evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect. In determining whether to restrict the use of more recent prior crimes, the district court considers:
(4) the importance of [the] defendant's testimony, and
(5) the centrality of the credibility issue.
State v. Jones, 271 N.W.2d 534, 537-38 (Minn. 1978).
The state sought to use appellant's 1997 conviction of aiding and abetting second-degree murder for impeachment purposes in the event appellant testified. The parties discussed the Jones factors, and the district court granted the motion to impeach by prior conviction without addressing the Jones factors on the record. See State v. Vanhouse, 634 N.W.2d 715, 719 (Minn. App. 2001) (), review denied (Minn. Dec. 11, 2001). Appellant did not testify at trial.
Appellant argues that the conviction does not speak to his capacity for truthfulness and thus does not have impeachment value. But Minnesota courts have repeatedly held that prior-crimes evidence has value in making credibility assessments, reasoning that "impeachment by prior crime aids the jury by allowing it to see the `whole person' and thus to judge better the truth of [witness] testimony." State v. Gassler, 505 N.W.2d 62, 67 (Minn. 1993) (quotations omitted).
Appellant also argues that his seven-year-old conviction of an offense committed as a juvenile is stale and has diminished impeachment value. But because the release date is indisputably within 10 years as required by rule 609, this factor tends to suggest that impeachment is appropriate; however, his clean record since that offense suggests diminished impeachment value. Without further detail, an aiding-and-abetting felony is not similar to the handgun-possession charge, which is a crime primarily because the person has been convicted of a...
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