State v. Griffith
| Decision Date | 24 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 120,794,120,794 |
| Citation | 456 P.3d 232 (Table) |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellant, v. Jennifer D. GRIFFITH, Appellee. |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Jennifer Griffith was a passenger in a car driven by Steven Griffith. Officer Hannah Brown of the Hutchinson Police Department stopped the car for an illegal license plate decal. Officer Brown discovered that Steven was driving with a suspended license and that the car lacked insurance or proper registration. During the stop, Officer Brown requested Jennifer's driver's license and ran a warrant check. Officer Brown thus discovered that Jennifer had an outstanding warrant and arrested her. After arresting Jennifer, Officer Brown searched Jennifer's purse and found contraband. The State charged Jennifer with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana. Jennifer moved to suppress the evidence from her purse, arguing that the warrant check was an unlawful search. The trial court suppressed the evidence. The State timely appealed. For the reasons stated later, we affirm.
On March 7, 2018, while patrolling the streets of Hutchinson, Kansas, Officer Brown noticed a car with an illegal decal on its license plate. She turned on her car's emergency lights and stopped the car. Steven Griffith was driving the car and Jennifer Griffith was sitting in the passenger seat. Officer Brown walked to the driver's side of the car; she spoke with Steven and took Steven's driver's license back to her car.
Officer Brown discovered that Steven had a suspended license. Officer Brown returned to the Griffiths' car and told Steven he had a suspended driver's license for a previous car accident where he had no car insurance. She told Steven she would check if he had any failures to appear on his record. If he had any previously failed to appear citations, Officer Brown would arrest him. On the other hand, if he had no previously failed to appear citations, he would be released with only a citation. All of this happened within the first 4 minutes and 30 seconds of Officer Brown's bodycam footage of the stop.
Before checking with dispatch about any past failures to appear by Steven, Officer Brown asked Jennifer for her driver's license at about 4 minutes and 30 seconds into the stop. According to Officer Brown, she did so "[t]o see if we would be able to release the vehicle to [Jennifer]," but Officer Brown did not tell Jennifer why she wanted her driver's license. Jennifer never asked Officer Brown to release the car to her. According to Officer Brown, at this point she was not investigating any crimes, only the three traffic violations. Officer Brown also indicated that when she asked Jennifer for her driver's license, she did not have any reasonable suspicion that Jennifer was involved in criminal activity. After Officer Brown asked for Jennifer's driver's license, but before Jennifer produced her license, Steven told Officer Brown that he did not have any insurance on the car.
Jennifer then gave Officer Brown her driver's license. Officer Brown gave dispatch Jennifer's driver's license number. Officer Brown told the couple that another police officer was also coming to the scene "just because of your license being suspended, ok?" Steven asked how long his driver's license had been suspended, and Officer Brown responded: "Let me get her returned, see if her [driver's] license isn't suspended, um, and then I'll be able ... I'll have dispatch advise when it was suspended." Officer Brown continued talking with Steven. She asked him if he knew what was going on with his tags and he continued to insist he did not know why his driver's license was suspended.
About 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the stop, and 1 minute and 40 seconds after Jennifer produced her driver's license, Officer Brown told Jennifer she had an outstanding warrant. Officer Brown had Jennifer get out of the car, patted her down, put her in handcuffs, and put her in the back of her police car. Officer Brown did not contact dispatch to ask about any failures to appear by Steven until she had run the warrant search on Jennifer, discovered the warrant, and arrested Jennifer, which took about four minutes. Officer Brown then returned to check on the Griffiths' car decal while waiting to hear about Steven's potential failures to appear. About four minutes later, another police officer arrived. Then, 10 seconds after the other police officer arrived, Officer Brown told Steven she would "have to take [him] in." The second police officer arrested Steven for driving while his driver's license was suspended, having no proof of liability insurance, and displaying an illegal car tag.
Next, when Officer Brown walked back to the police car, she told Jennifer that the police would tow the Griffiths' car, and she asked Jennifer if she wanted Officer Brown to retrieve her purse out of the Griffiths' car. And Jennifer said, "Yeah."
Officer Brown retrieved Jennifer's purse out of the car to take it to the jail with Jennifer. When Officer Brown searched the purse, she found a glass pipe with residue, two syringes, and at least one small bag containing a "crystalline substance," and a container holding a green leafy substance. One of the items later tested positive for methamphetamine.
The State charged Jennifer with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana. Jennifer moved to suppress the evidence found in her purse. The trial court held a hearing on the motion to suppress.
Jennifer argued that Officer Brown had illegally seized her. She further argued that Officer Brown's decision to ask Jennifer for her driver's license and run her name for warrants unreasonably exceeded the scope of the traffic stop without reasonable suspicion that Jennifer was committing a crime. She also argued that she did not consent to a search of her purse and that Officer Brown did not tell her that the purse would be searched if Jennifer agreed to remove it from the car and take it with her to jail. Further, she argued that she never asked Officer Brown to release the car to her and that Officer Brown "had no reason to ask for a driver's license to begin with."
Jennifer also argued that the attenuation doctrine should not apply to allow admission of the evidence because her preexisting warrant did not sufficiently attenuate Officer Brown's unlawful seizure. Moreover, Officer Brown's unlawful seizure was a result of "flagrant" police misconduct which violated her rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it is the Hutchinson Police Department's policy to request identification "and other related information" from pedestrians in the "absence of reasonable suspicion, probable cause." Jennifer admitted a copy of the Hutchinson Police Department policy on vehicle and pedestrian stops as evidence. Officer Brown stated this about the policy:
The State argued that Officer Brown did not unlawfully extend the stop by asking for Jennifer's driver's license because when she asked for her license, Officer Brown was still waiting to hear from dispatch as to whether Steven had any failures to appear citations and, therefore, whether Steven would be arrested. The State also argued that when Officer Brown took Jennifer's driver's license, she was still investigating whether the car was insured and whether Jennifer could legally drive the car away if Steven was arrested. Finally, the State argued that even if the trial court found the initial seizure was unlawful, the "discovery of the preexisting arrest warrant would attenuate any unconstitutional conduct." The State introduced as evidence Officer Brown's bodycam footage of the stop.
In granting Jennifer's motion to suppress, the trial court ruled:
The State timely appealed the trial court's suppression ruling.
"The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, and Section 15 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures, and a warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless it falls within a recognized exception." State v. Ramirez , 278 Kan. 402, 404-05, 100 P.3d 94 (2004).
"When evidence is illegally obtained, its suppression may be warranted under the exclusionary rule, which is a judicially created rule that...
To continue reading
Request your trial