State v. Pabillore
| Decision Date | 13 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 24537.,24537. |
| Citation | 991 P.2d 375,133 Idaho 650 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Benedi Friera PABILLORE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Alan E. Trimming, Ada County Public Defender; Paul R. Taber III, Deputy Public
Defender, Boise, for appellant. Paul R. Taber III argued.
Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Kimberly A. Coster, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Kimberly A. Coster argued.
Benedi Friera Pabillore sought the suppression of evidence seized from a rental car that he was driving. Pabillore asserted that the stop and subsequent search of the vehicle were illegal. The district court denied Pabillore's motion, holding that the stop was justified and that, although the search of the vehicle's trunk was unlawful, Pabillore did not have standing to challenge that search. A jury later found Pabillore guilty of trafficking in methamphetamine, and this appeal followed. We affirm.
An informant's tip, received by Boise Police Detective Michael Harrington in December, 1996, indicated that Pabillore utilized rental cars as part of a drug trafficking operation in which he transported drugs from California to Idaho. The informant also said that Pabillore planned to rob a particular pizza restaurant on the evening of December 28. Detective Harrington surveilled Pabillore for two nights, during which he observed Pabillore driving a rented 1996 Ford Contour. On December 28, the date on which the tipster said the robbery was to occur, Harrington saw Pabillore enter the pizza restaurant, but no robbery took place. About a day later, the informant told Harrington that he had seen Pabillore loading clothes into the Ford Contour. In attempting surveillance thereafter, Harrington was unable to find the Contour or Pabillore and saw little or no activity at Pabillore's apartment. A week or two later, the detective contacted the manager of the apartment building where Pabillore lived and was told that Pabillore had disappeared, apparently abandoning the apartment.
The Ford Contour that Pabillore had been driving was subsequently reported stolen because it had not been returned to the car rental company at the end of the rental period. Pabillore had been listed as an authorized secondary driver on the rental agreement for the missing car. Detective Harrington learned of the theft report on January 15, 1997.
On February 4, 1997, Harrington received a telephone call from the apartment manager who said that Pabillore was in the apartment manager's office at the time of the phone call. Harrington immediately drove to the apartment building. Upon his arrival he saw Pabillore, with two passengers, driving away in another rental car, a 1997 Ford Escort. Harrington decided to stop Pabillore to question him about the reported theft of the 1996 Ford Contour. Harrington requested additional patrol units to assist in the stop because Pabillore had a history of violence and weapons charges. Once the additional police vehicles arrived, Harrington initiated a "high-risk" stop of the Ford Escort. The police ordered the three occupants out of the car, conducted pat down searches, and then placed them in patrol cars. In patting down one of the passengers, Glenn Nazareno (who was also the sole renter and the only authorized driver of the Ford Escort), the police found a glass pipe of a type used for taking drugs. Nazareno was then placed under arrest for the possession of drug paraphernalia.
After arresting Nazareno, the police searched the car, beginning with the trunk. Inside the trunk, they discovered approximately 170 grams of methamphetamine as well as chemicals that could be used in manufacturing illegal drugs. The search then progressed to the passenger compartment. Inside the passenger door storage area, the police found a small pill bottle that contained additional methamphetamine. Pabillore was arrested at the conclusion of the vehicle search and was charged with trafficking in methamphetamine, Idaho Code § 37-2732B(a)(3), possession of a controlled substance, I.C. § 37-2732(c), and possession of drug paraphernalia, I.C. § 37-2734A. Nazareno also was charged with these and other crimes. Pabillore and Nazareno moved to suppress the evidence found in the automobile. At the motion hearing, the defendants argued that the vehicle stop had been initiated without reasonable suspicion of any criminal activity and that the officers could not lawfully search the vehicle incident to Nazareno's arrest. The district court upheld the stop, and held the search of the passenger compartment to be lawful as a search incident to Nazareno's arrest. The court granted Nazareno's motion to suppress the evidence found in the trunk, however, concluding that the officers were not entitled to search the trunk because a warrantless search of an automobile incident to an occupant's arrest must be limited to the passenger compartment.1See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981)
; State v. Homolka, 131 Idaho 172, 953 P.2d 612 (1998). The district court nonetheless denied Pabillore's suppression motion in its entirety because the court concluded that Pabillore, who was neither the renter of the vehicle nor an authorized secondary driver under the rental agreement, did not have standing to complain of the search.
A trial was conducted, and Pabillore was found guilty of the charged offenses. On appeal, he argues that the district court erred in denying his suppression motion. He contends there was no reasonable suspicion to justify the stop of the vehicle he was driving and that, as an occupant of the car who was detained during the search, he had standing to contest the search of the car's trunk.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The detention of an individual is a "seizure" and, to be lawful, must comport with Fourth Amendment standards. These standards allow a police officer to conduct a limited investigative detention of an individual if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 911 (1968); State v. DuValt, 131 Idaho 550, 552-53, 961 P.2d 641, 643-44 (1998); State v. Cook, 106 Idaho 209, 677 P.2d 522 (Ct.App.1984). The officer's suspicion must be grounded on specific articulable facts and rational inferences that can be drawn therefrom. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 905; State v. Gallegos, 120 Idaho 894, 896-97, 821 P.2d 949, 951-52 (1991). In this assessment, a "totality of the circumstances" test is applied. United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981); DuValt, supra; State v. Johns, 112 Idaho 873, 877, 736 P.2d 1327, 1331 (1987). "Based upon the whole picture the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity." Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417, 101 S.Ct. at 695, 66 L.Ed.2d at 628.
Pabillore argues that the police officers did not have the requisite reasonable suspicion to stop him because the stop was based solely on an uncorroborated tip from an informant who was incorrect in predicting a pizza restaurant robbery. Pabillore also claims that the stop was unjustified because, had the officers further investigated the alleged theft of the rented Ford Contour, they would have learned that the car had been recovered a few weeks earlier.
We disagree with Pabillore's assessment. The informant had told Detective Harrington that Pabillore utilized rental cars as a mode of transporting narcotics from California to Idaho. The detective's subsequent observation of Pabillore driving a rental car lent some credence to this report. Pabillore's subsequent disappearance coincided with the disappearance of the rental car, for which he was an authorized driver under the rental agreement. When on January 15, 1997, Harrington learned that the same rental car had been reported stolen, the foregoing facts gave reasonable cause to suspect that Pabillore was involved in the car theft. Although the pizza parlor robbery did not occur as predicted by the informant, that did not so discredit the informant that the police were required to ignore other information from the same source. Even without the informant's tip, the information that Pabillore was listed as an authorized driver on the vehicle rental agreement and had been seen driving the vehicle shortly before it was reported stolen would give sufficient grounds for an investigative stop.
Pabillore suggests that the stop should be invalidated because, if Harrington had checked on the status of the theft report before stopping Pabillore, he would have learned that the stolen car had been recovered in California and returned to the rental company. We fail to see how this information, if it had been known to Harrington, would have destroyed the justification for the stop. The missing car had not been returned to the rental company by Pabillore or by the person who rented it; it had been abandoned at a hotel parking lot in California. It was discovered by police in that state and was returned to the company that owned it. The recovery of the automobile did not mean that a theft had not occurred and did not terminate the need for an investigation of that reported crime.
We next consider Pabillore's argument that the district court erred in holding that Pabillore lacked standing to challenge the legality of the officers' search of the automobile trunk. The district court based its decision upon the well-established principle that suppression of evidence for an unconstitutional search may be obtained only by one whose rights were infringed,...
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State v. Brumfield, 26388.
...suspicious circumstances that justify expanding the investigation to other possible crimes. Thus, in State v. Pabillore, 133 Idaho 650, 654, 991 P.2d 375, 379 (Ct.App.1999), we held that a vehicle stop initiated for investigation of a car theft was legitimately expanded to encompass possibl......
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...32 F.3d 117, 119 (4th Cir.1994); United States v. Boruff, 909 F.2d 111, 117 (5th Cir.1990). See also State v. Pabillore, 133 Idaho 650, 653, 991 P.2d 375, 378 (Ct.App.1999) (recognizing the district court's determination that the defendant did not have standing because he was not the renter......