State v. Martinez

• Decision Date: 13 March 2008
• Docket Number: No. 20061010-CA.,20061010-CA.
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Joe Arthur MARTINEZ Jr., Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

182 P.3d 385

2008 UT App 90

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Joe Arthur MARTINEZ Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

No. 20061010-CA.

Court of Appeals of Utah.

March 13, 2008.

Randall W. Richards, Ogden, for Appellant.

Mark L. Shurtleff, atty. gen., and Marian Decker, asst. atty. gen., Salt Lake City, for Appellee.

Before GREENWOOD, P.J., THORNE, Associate P.J., and McHUGH, J.

OPINION

McHUGH, Judge:

¶ 1 Joe Arthur Martinez Jr. appeals his conviction and the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Martinez argues that the trial court erred when it denied his suppression motion because police officers effectuated a traffic stop of a vehicle in which Martinez was a passenger without reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal behavior and, therefore, violated his constitutional rights under the federal and Utah constitutions. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 Because of the fact-dependent nature of search and seizure inquiries, we review the relevant facts in detail.¹ On February 2, 2006, the cashier of an Ogden Texaco service station called the Weber County Sheriff's Office to report that suspicious individuals were pacing outside of the store. At the suppression hearing, Deputy Michael Streker testified that the cashier described three individuals—one female wearing a gray hoodie and two males, one of whom was wearing a beanie. According to Deputy Streker, the cashier stated that "the female would walk up to the . . . front doors, and when a customer would walk in, the female would then walk away to the east side of the building where the two males were located." As Deputy Streker arrived at the Texaco to investigate, within two minutes of the cashier's call, dispatch notified him that two of the individuals had just left the Texaco as passengers in a tan, gold, or beige car. Dispatch gave him the license plate number, and almost immediately thereafter, he located and stopped the vehicle.² The backseat passengers matched the description given by the cashier, and Deputy Streker testified that they were "looking back at [him] and then facing forward and putting their hands down toward the seat and the floorboard area."³ He also testified that he believed this was more than just a typical suspicious persons report. According to the deputy, there were three convenience store robberies in the area within a two-week period prior to this incident. The "vehicles involved [in two of those robberies] were either gold, tan or beige, [and] mid-size to compact," and the individuals involved were "a female and one to two males."⁴ Also, a third Ogden robbery involving a "tan, gold or beige mid-size compact vehicle" occurred not far from the other two robberies and twenty minutes after one of the other robberies, but outside of the Weber County Sheriff's jurisdiction. Additionally, rifles were used in all three robberies. After stopping the car, Deputy Kimberly Rodell arrived to assist. A check on the four occupants revealed that a no-bail warrant had been issued against Martinez. A search of Martinez and his backpack incident to arrest uncovered marijuana and other controlled substances.

ISSUE AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶ 3 Martinez argues that his constitutional rights were violated when Deputy Streker stopped the vehicle in which he was a passenger.⁵ We review a trial court's denial of a defendant's motion to suppress for correctness, "giving no deference to the [trial] court's application of the law to the facts." State v. Yazzie, 2005 UT App 261, ¶ 5, 116 P.3d 969; see also State v. Brake, 2004 UT 95, ¶ 15, 103 P.3d 699 ("We abandon the standard which extended `some deference' to the application of law to the underlying factual findings in search and seizure cases in favor of non-deferential review.").⁶ We do, however, extend deference to a trial court's factual findings. See Yazzie, 2005 UT App 261, ¶ 5, 116 P.3d 969 ("When reviewing a trial court's decision concerning a defendant's motion to suppress, we review its factual findings for clear error. . . .").

ANALYSIS

¶ 4 The Fourth Amendment protects a person's right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures." See U.S. Const. amend. IV. We recognize three levels of reasonable police stops:

(1) An officer may approach a citizen at any time and pose questions so long as the citizen is not detained against his will; (2) an officer may seize a person if the officer has an articulable suspicion that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime . . .; (3) an officer may arrest a suspect if the officer has probable cause to believe an offense had been committed or is being committed.

State v. Markland, 2005 UT 26, ¶ 10 n. 1, 112 P.3d 507 (quoting State v. Johnson, 805 P.2d 761, 763 (Utah 1991)). Both the State and Martinez agree that the stop at issue on appeal was a level-two encounter. Before a police officer can effectuate such a seizure, he or she "must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); accord Markland, 2005 UT 26, ¶ 10, 112 P.3d 507 ("[I]t is settled law that `a police officer may detain and question an individual when the officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.' . . . [T]he officer's suspicion must be supported by `specific and articulable facts and rational inferences.'" (citation omitted) (quoting State v. Chapman, 921 P.2d 446, 450 (Utah 1996); United States v. Werking, 915 F.2d 1404, 1407 (10th Cir.1990))); see also Utah Code Ann. § 77-7-15 (2003) ("A peace officer may stop any person in a public place when he has a reasonable suspicion to believe he has committed or is in the act of committing or is attempting to commit a public offense and may demand his name, address and an explanation of his actions." (emphasis added)). Such reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity must be "based on objective facts." State v. Trujillo, 739 P.2d 85, 88 (Utah Ct.App.1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, "an officer is not obligated to rule out innocent conduct prior to initiating an investigatory detention." Markland, 2005 UT 26, ¶ 17, 112 P.3d 507.

¶ 5 The United States Supreme Court has further clarified the term "reasonable, articulable suspicion":

The idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion contains two elements, each of which must be present before a stop is permissible. First, the assessment must be based upon all of the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports, if such are available, and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers. From these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions—inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.

. . . .

The second element contained in the idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion is the concept that the process just described must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing. . . .

United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) (emphasis added). In other words, "some minimal level of objective justification for making the stop" is required—a level that "is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence." United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted).

¶ 6 Thus, the only issue in this case is whether the officer who stopped the vehicle had reasonable, articulable suspicion that Martinez and his companions had committed any of the recent convenience store robberies in the area, were planning or attempting to rob the Texaco station, or both. Martinez first argues that the articulation of Deputy Streker's reasonable suspicion must be limited to only those facts he personally observed or independently verified. We disagree.

¶ 7 "[P]olice officers can rely on a dispatched report in making an investigatory stop," as long as "the dispatched report contain[s] articulable facts to support a finding of reasonable suspicion." State v. Pena, 869 P.2d 932, 940 (Utah 1994); see also State v. Bruce, 779 P.2d 646, 650-51 (Utah 1989) (determining police broadcast contained "other sufficient information . . . and `articulable facts' . . . to support at least a `reasonable suspicion'"). When the dispatched report is based on a call from an eyewitness, the officer is entitled to rely on that report so long as it contains sufficient articulable facts and the witness is reliable. See Pena, 869 P.2d at 940 (concluding dispatched report supported a determination of reasonable, articulable suspicion where the report was based on a 7-Eleven clerk's call to the police department); cf. United States v. Leos-Quijada, 107 F.3d 786, 792 (10th Cir.1997) ("A confidential tip may justify an investigatory stop if under the totality of the circumstances the tip furnishes both sufficient indicia of reliability and sufficient information to provide reasonable suspicion that criminal conduct is, has, or is about to occur." (citing Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 328-30, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990); United States v. Elkins, 70 F.3d 81, 83 (10th Cir. 1995))); State v. Case, 884 P.2d 1274, 1278-79 (Utah Ct.App.1994) (holding that reasonable, articulable suspicion did not exist because "[t]he source and content of the information which prompted the broadcast are simply unknown").

¶ 8 Deputy Streker relied on a dispatched report based on a call from the cashier at the Texaco. The cashier was "a reliable source," given her status as an unbiased, "identified citizen-informant."⁷ Salt Lake City v. Bench, 2008 UT App 30, ¶ 15, 177...