State v. Harris

• Decision Date: 04 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. 33A05-9712-CR-508,33A05-9712-CR-508
• Citation: 702 N.E.2d 722
• Parties: STATE of Indiana, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. Troy D. HARRIS, Appellee-Defendant.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 722

702 N.E.2d 722

STATE of Indiana, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. Troy D. HARRIS, Appellee-Defendant.

No. 33A05-9712-CR-508.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

Nov. 4, 1998.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General, Kimberly MacDonald, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for appellant-plaintiff.

OPINION

FRIEDLANDER, Judge.

After his arrest on February 17, 1997, Troy D. Harris was charged with Operating a Motor Vehicle After Forfeiture of License for Life, ¹ a class C felony, and Operating Without Proof of Financial Responsibility, ² a class C misdemeanor. The jury trial on these charges commenced on August 25, 1997. During the State's presentation of its evidence-in-chief, defense counsel made an oral motion to suppress. The trial was recessed, and the court held a hearing on the motion to suppress. The trial court sustained the motion to suppress, and the State then moved to dismiss both counts against Harris. The State now brings this appeal, raising the following issue:

After stopping Defendant for a traffic violation, Officer [Brad] Flynn discovered that Defendant's license had previously been forfeited for life. The trial court suppressed any evidence the State received at the moment Officer Flynn asked Defendant for his driver's license. Did the trial court err when it suppressed this evidence?

Appellant's Brief at 1. Harris did not file an appellate brief.

We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. ³

The facts most favorable to the judgment are as follows. Brian Hess, who was riding with Officer Flynn in a patrol car on February 17, 1997, testified at Harris's trial that he saw a truck pulling a trailer which contained another vehicle. As the truck drove through an intersection in front of Flynn's vehicle, Hess saw a rear ramp of the trailer fall. The ramp was dragging on the ground while the truck continued onward.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Flynn testified that he was on patrol and traveling on Broad Street in a westbound direction when he saw the truck Harris was driving going southbound on 18th. Flynn observed the truck, which was pulling a trailer, enter the intersection of Broad and 18th and hit a dip in the road. A chain on the right ramp of the trailer came undone and caused the ramp to hit the road, and the ramp began to spark while it was being dragged along.

Officer Flynn then pulled over Harris's truck and asked Harris for his driver's license and vehicle registration. ⁴ When Harris told Flynn that he did not have either item with him, Flynn asked Harris for his name, date of birth, and social security number and explained that he had stopped him because the ramp on the trailer had fallen. Harris eventually gave Flynn his correct name and social security number after having repeatedly given Flynn false information. Flynn then discovered that Harris's driver's license had been suspended for life.

At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion to suppress, the court excluded all evidence received after Flynn asked Harris for his driver's license. In ruling on Harris's motion to suppress, the trial court case relied upon United States v. McSwain, 29 F.3d 558 (10th Cir.1994), and State v. Chatton, 11 Ohio St.3d 59, 463 N.E.2d 1237, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 856, 105 S.Ct. 182, 83 L.Ed.2d 116 (1984). In McSwain, a police officer in Utah stopped McSwain because the vehicle he was driving had neither a front nor a rear license plate, and it appeared that the expiration date on the temporary registration sticker posted on the rear window of the vehicle was covered by reflective tape. However, when walking up to McSwain's vehicle, the officer noticed that the temporary registration sticker was from Colorado and the reflective tape was a new device used by the State of Colorado to prevent alteration of the sticker's expiration date. The officer also noticed that the sticker was valid and not expired. The officer nonetheless approached McSwain, made a comment about the sticker, and then asked McSwain questions about the vehicle and to produce his driver's license and vehicle registration. When McSwain informed the officer that he did not have a driver's license, the officer began to ask McSwain and the passenger in his vehicle where they had been, and McSwain told the officer that they had been gambling in Las Vegas. The officer noticed a receipt dated the previous day from an oil change establishment in Pasadena, California. The officer then returned to his patrol car to request a computer check. As a result of the computer check, the officer learned that McSwain had a suspended driver's license and a prior record for drug and gun violations and assaults. The officer returned to McSwain's vehicle and inquired what McSwain had been doing in Denver and whether he lived there. The officer also asked McSwain whether he had any alcohol, firearms, or drugs in the vehicle. After McSwain answered in the negative, the officer asked for permission to search the vehicle. During the search, the officer found a set of scales, a gun, and a plastic bag containing a substance that appeared to be cocaine in a duffel bag in the trunk of the vehicle. When the officer asked McSwain whether the substance was cocaine and McSwain indicated that it was, the officer arrested both McSwain and his passenger. After entering a conditional guilty plea to drug and firearms offenses, McSwain appealed, challenging the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during the warrantless search of his vehicle.

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in McSwain determined that, once the police officer observed that the temporary sticker was valid and had not expired, the purpose of the stop was satisfied and the officer's further detention of the vehicle to question McSwain about his vehicle and his travel itinerary and to request his driver's license and registration "exceed the scope of the stop's underlying justification." McSwain, 29 F.3d at 561. The court concluded that the officer had unlawfully detained McSwain and reversed the district court's denial of McSwain's motion to suppress the evidence found in his vehicle.

Chatton involved facts similar to those in McSwain. The defendant in Chatton was pulled over by a police officer after the officer noticed that Chatton's vehicle had neither a front nor a rear license plate. When the officer approached the vehicle, he noticed a temporary license placard in the rear window of the vehicle. Nonetheless, the officer requested that Chatton, who was driving the vehicle, produce his driver's license. After Chatton produced the license, the officer learned that Chatton's license was suspended. Chatton was arrested for driving with a suspended license. After arresting Chatton, the officer discovered a revolver underneath the driver's seat. Chatton was thereafter indicted for carrying a concealed weapon. After he pleaded no contest to the carrying a concealed weapon charge, Chatton appealed the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress. The Ohio Supreme Court determined that the police officer did not have justification to detain Chatton after the officer viewed the temporary license tag which was visible through the rear window of the vehicle. The court concluded that any evidence seized as a result of the search of Chatton's vehicle was inadmissible under the Fourth Amendment.

At the hearing on Harris's motion to suppress, the trial court commented on McSwain and Chatton and their application to this case, stating in pertinent part:

The stopping of a vehicle and the detention of its occupants constitutes a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. To determine the reasonableness of such a seizure, we employ a dual inquiry: 1) whether the officer's action was justified at its inception; and, 2) whether the action was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place. The Court in McSwain found that the duration of the detention involved in that case violated the Fourth Amendment. Applying that two part test to this case: No. 1) whether the officer's action was justified at its inception? I'd say yes. In other words, if nothing other than for public safety. To stop a vehicle that has a loading ramp dragging on the road is justified. Then the next question, whether the action was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place? I think the answer there in this case is no, and the officer has indicated that his purpose was to rectify that situation, stop the Defendant, notify him of it, get it fixed and let him be on his way. To ask him then for his license and identification at that point, has no particular relationship to that, that first purpose. He's also indicated that he didn't really have an intent to write a ticket for any violation. The case of Chatton, Chatton, likewise, is somewhat similar. It too, was a temporary license placard case. It almost reads identical to the facts in the preceding case where a police officer stops a motor vehicle which displays neither a front or rear license plate, but upon approaching the stopped vehicle observes the temporary tag which is visible through a rear windshield. The driver may not be detained further to determine the validity of his driver's license absent some specific and articulable facts indicating that detention was reasonable and any evidence seized upon subsequent search of the passenger compartment was then inadmissible under the Fourth Amendment. I would have to, therefore, find that the Fourth Amendment, under the circumstances of this case, has been violated, which invokes the exclusionary rule.

* * * * *

[A]ll the evidence ... revealed by the Defendant at an Initial Hearing upon the Court's questioning, the BMV records that were acquired as a result of information finally gleaned from the Defendant, are excluded in this proceeding.

Record at...