State v. Lloyd

• Court: Nevada Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: By the Court
• Citation: State v. Lloyd, 312 P.3d 467, 129 Nev. Adv. Op. 79 (Nev. 2013)
• Decision Date: 31 October 2013
• Docket Number: No. 56706.,56706.
• Parties: The STATE of Nevada, Appellant, v. Jethro Ray LLOYD, Respondent.

312 P.3d 467

129 Nev. Adv. Op. 79

The STATE of Nevada, Appellant,

v.Jethro Ray LLOYD, Respondent.

No. 56706.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Oct. 31, 2013.

Catherine Cortez Masto, Attorney General, Carson City; Mark D. Torvinen, District Attorney, and Robert J. Lowe, Deputy District Attorney, Elko County, for Appellant.

Frederick B. Lee, Jr., Public Defender, and Roger H. Stewart, Deputy Public Defender, Elko County, for Respondent.

BEFORE THE COURT EN BANC.¹

OPINION

By the Court, PICKERING, C.J.:

A highway patrol officer saw respondent Jethro Lloyd run a red light and followed him into a shopping center parking lot to issue him a ticket. While the ticket was being processed, a drug detection dog was summoned. The dog alerted for the presence of drugs in Lloyd's car. This led to a warrantless search that uncovered illegal drugs. Lloyd was arrested and charged with trafficking, possession for sale, and possession of schedule I and II controlled substances.

Lloyd moved to suppress, arguing that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 18 of the Nevada Constitution prohibited the warrantless search. The district court granted Lloyd's motion. It determined that the drug dog's alert provided probable cause to search Lloyd's car for contraband. But it concluded that, for a warrantless automobile search to pass muster under Nevada law, both probable cause and exigency, beyond that inherent in a car's ready mobility, must be shown. Since the State showed nothing in the way of exigent circumstances beyond the car's mobility, the district court invalidated the search and suppressed the drug evidence.

Consistent with federal constitutional law, we hold that exigency is not a separate requirement of the automobile exception to the constitutional warrant requirement. Thus, because the drug detection dog's alert gave the officers probable cause to search Lloyd's car, which was parked in a public place and readily mobile, we reverse.

I.

The essential facts were established through officer testimony and videotape from the patrol car's camera. Trooper Richard T. Pickers of the Nevada Highway Patrol stopped respondent Jethro Lloyd in a shopping center parking lot in Elko, Nevada. It was a Sunday morning, and the courts were closed. The trooper saw Lloyd make a right turn at a red light without coming to a complete stop. By the time Trooper Pickers activated his lights and caught up to him, Lloyd had parked and gotten out of his car to go into Starbucks.

Lloyd denied running a red light. Still, he cooperated with the trooper's request that he produce his driver's license, insurance, and registration. When Trooper Pickers called dispatch to report the traffic stop and confirm Lloyd's paperwork, he asked dispatch to send a drug detection dog and handler team. The K9 unit arrived a few minutes later, before Trooper Pickers finished processing the traffic violation. Nothing suggests that the dog sniff prolonged the traffic stop.²

The dog alerted to the presence of drugs in Lloyd's car. Based on the dog's alert and without getting a warrant, Trooper Pickers proceeded to search the vehicle. On opening Lloyd's car door, Trooper Pickers remarked that he smelled an illegal substance. He arrested Lloyd, handcuffed him, and secured him in the back of the patrol vehicle.

The vehicle search yielded psilocybin mushrooms and seven pounds of marijuana. Trooper Pickers transported Lloyd to the police station, and the State charged him with several drug-related offenses. It is unclear what became of Lloyd's vehicle after the search.

II.

A motion to suppress presents mixed questions of law and fact. State v. Beckman, 129 Nev. at ––––, 305 P.3d at 916. On appeal from an order granting a motion to suppress, “[t]his court reviews findings of fact for clear error, but the legal consequences of those facts involve questions of law that we review de novo.” Id. A district court's legal conclusion regarding the constitutionality of a challenged search receives de novo review. See United States v. Navas, 597 F.3d 492, 496 (2d Cir.2010).

A.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,” and that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” Article I, Section 18 of the Nevada Constitution similarly provides, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable seizures and searches shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue but on probable cause....” Under these cognate provisions of our federal and state constitutions, warrantless searches “are per se unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Hughes v. State, 116 Nev. 975, 979, 12 P.3d 948, 951 (2000). One such exception is the “automobile exception.” Id.

The automobile exception was first recognized in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). A Prohibition-era case, Carroll approved a warrantless automobile search where the police had probable cause to believe the vehicle contained alcohol being transported in violation of the National Prohibition Act. In an extensive opinion, the Supreme Court ruled:

On reason and authority the true rule is that if the search and seizure without a warrant are made upon probable cause, that is, upon a belief, reasonably arising out of circumstances known to the seizing officer, that an automobile or other vehicle contains that which by law is subject to seizure and destruction, the search and seizure are valid.

Id. at 149, 45 S.Ct. 280 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court justified this rule by the inherent mobility of automobiles, which often makes it impractical to obtain a search warrant before the contraband is put out of reach:

... the guaranty of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment has been construed, practically since the beginning of the Government, as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought.

Id. at 153, 45 S.Ct. 280. Later cases added a second justification for the automobile exception: A person has a lower expectation of privacy in a vehicle than in a home or office. See California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 391, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985).

Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), upheld a warrantless automobile search that occurred after the accused had been taken into custody and his car driven to the police station. Id. at 47, 90 S.Ct. 1975. Differentiating vehicles from houses because of their mobility, the Supreme Court explained that the circumstances that furnish probable cause to search a vehicle are often unforeseeable and the opportunity to conduct a search fleeting. Id. at 48, 50–51, 90 S.Ct. 1975. So, for law enforcement to search a vehicle effectively, they must either seize the vehicle while awaiting a warrant or search the vehicle without a warrant. Id. at 51, 90 S.Ct. 1975. The Court found no constitutional difference “between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate [for a warrant] and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant.” Id. at 52, 90 S.Ct. 1975. “Given probable cause” to believe the vehicle contains contraband, “either course is reasonable.” Id.

As Chambers suggests, Carroll did not establish exigency as a separate requirement of the automobile exception. To be sure, Carroll cites exigency as a reason for its holding, 267 U.S. at 153, 45 S.Ct. 280, but it is the exigency inherent in an automobile's ready mobility that, with probable cause, justifies a warrantless automobile search. See Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 940, 116 S.Ct. 2485, 135 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1996) (describing Carroll as “based on the automobile's ‘ready mobility,’ an exigency sufficient to excuse failure to obtain a search warrant once probable cause to conduct the search is clear”). So long as the vehicle for which probable cause to search exists is readily mobile, the requisite exigency is conclusively presumed. See Carney, 471 U.S. at 391, 105 S.Ct. 2066 (“The mobility of automobiles ... ‘creates circumstances of such exigency that, as a practical necessity, rigorous enforcement of the warrant requirement is impossible.’ ” (quoting South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 367, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976))); Navas, 597 F.3d at 498–500;United States v. Scott, 705 F.3d 410, 417 (9th Cir.2012).³

In 1999, in Maryland v. Dyson, the Supreme Court made this point unmistakably clear:

[T]he automobile exception does not have a separate exigency requirement: “If a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment ... permits police to search the vehicle without more.”

527 U.S. 465, 467, 119 S.Ct. 2013, 144 L.Ed.2d 442 (1999) (second alteration in original)(quoting Labron, 518 U.S. at 940, 116 S.Ct. 2485).

B.

Nevada has historically followed “the United States Supreme Court on most, if not all, of its interpretations and applications of the law governing searches and seizures.” Thomas B. McAffee, John P. Lukens & Thaddeus J. Yurek III, The Automobile Exception in Nevada: A Critique of the Harnisch Cases, 8 Nev. L.J. 622, 630–31 (2008); see Cortes v. State, 127 Nev. ––––, –––– n. 7, 260 P.3d 184, 191 n. 7 (2011). Initially, Nevada...