State v. Pierce

• Citation: 136 N.J. 184,642 A.2d 947
• Parties: , 63 USLW 2019 STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Eileen PIERCE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Decision Date: 15 June 1994
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

Page 184

136 N.J. 184

642 A.2d 947, 63 USLW 2019

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Eileen PIERCE, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Sept. 28, 1993.

Decided June 15, 1994.

[642 A.2d 948]

M. Virginia Barta, Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for appellant (Zulima V. Farber, Public Defender, attorney)

Linda A. Rinaldi, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent (Fred DeVesa, Acting Atty. Gen. of New Jersey, attorney).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

STEIN, J.

This appeal concerns the scope of a police officer's authority to conduct a search of articles contained in the passenger compartment of an automobile following the arrest of the driver for operating the vehicle while his license is suspended. See N.J.S.A. 39:3-40. The State supports the validity of the search by relying on New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), which held that "when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." Id. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d at 775 (footnote omitted). Defendant contends that both the custodial arrest of the driver and the incidental search of the vehicle constituted violations of rights protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution.

Following denial of her motion to suppress evidence, defendant, Eileen Pierce, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine pursuant to a plea agreement, and the court sentenced her to three years probation. A divided panel of the Appellate Division affirmed the judgment of conviction. State v. Pierce, 257 N.J.Super. 483, 608 A.2d 952 (1992). Defendant appeals to this Court as of right. R. 2:2-1(a).

I

The facts are essentially undisputed. On August 19, 1989, Officer Rette of the Manalapan Township Police Department

stopped a 1986 Ford van owned and operated by co-defendant Nicholas Grass for speeding, the officer having clocked the vehicle's speed at fifty-one miles per hour in a forty-mile-per-hour zone. The other occupants of the vehicle were defendant, Pierce, and co-defendant Eugene Bernardo. The officer requested and received Grass's Pennsylvania driver's license and vehicle registration. Officer Rette communicated by radio with his headquarters, and learned that Grass's driver's license had been suspended. The officer then ordered Grass to step out of the van and informed Grass that he was arresting him for driving an automobile while his license was suspended. Officer Rette conduced a pat-down search of Grass, handcuffed him, and placed him in the rear of his patrol car, which he had parked directly behind the van

Officer Rette returned to the van and ordered Pierce and Bernardo to get out of the vehicle and to produce identification. Pierce stated that she had no identification; Bernardo produced a New Jersey driver's license. The officer conducted a pat-down search of both passengers to determine if they were armed, and found no weapons. By this time, a state trooper and a police officer from another municipality had arrived on the scene to provide back-up.

Officer Rette then entered the van to search its interior while the back-up officers secured Pierce and Bernardo behind the van. He first observed a "large hunting-type knife" on the front console. The officer also saw behind the driver's seat a metal camera case with two latches, one fastened and the other unfastened. He opened the case and found a revolver with "four loaded rounds of .357 magnum ammunition and also two spent rounds." The officer also found in the van "two breed member motorcycle gang jackets and a companion jacket that would be the female of a breed member." Officer Rette testified that the jacket he identified as "the female's jacket * * * had a patch on the back stating 'Nick's property.' " The officer stated that he found in a pocket of that jacket a cellophane packet containing a trace amount of white powder that laboratory tests later showed to be cocaine. The

officer testified that he had searched the van within two or three minutes after he had handcuffed Grass and secured him in the patrol car

Bernardo and Pierce were arrested and, together with Grass, were indicted for unlawful[642 A.2d 949] possession of a weapon without a permit, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5b; receiving stolen property (the revolver), contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:20-7a; and possession of cocaine, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10a(1). After the trial court denied Pierce's motion to suppress the evidence secured during the search of the van, Pierce entered a plea of guilty to the cocaine charge and received a three-year probationary term. The court dismissed the charges against Bernardo. Grass pled guilty to possession of a handgun without a permit, and the court sentenced him to four years imprisonment. The Appellate Division affirmed the judgment of conviction following denial of Grass's motion to suppress the fruits of the search of the van. State v. Grass, 250 N.J.Super. 74, 593 A.2d 379 (1991).

On Pierce's appeal from the judgment of conviction entered after the denial of her suppression motion, the Appellate Division majority, relying on the decision in Grass, supra, applied the bright line rule of New York v. Belton to sustain the search of the van as incidental to the arrest of Grass for driving with a suspended license. 257 N.J.Super. at 485, 608 A.2d 952. The majority cautioned, however, that the bright-line Belton rule combined with the statutory authorization to law-enforcement officers to arrest without a warrant any person violating any provision of Chapter 3 or 4 of Title 39 of the New Jersey statutes, "create[s] a potential for abuse." Ibid. The majority noted that unrestricted application of the statutory authority to arrest for motor-vehicle violations "would permit a law enforcement officer to convert any prosaic motor vehicle violation into an occasion for the full search of the automobile * * *." Id. at 485-86, 608 A.2d 952. However, based on the seriousness of Grass's motor-vehicle offense, the Appellate Division majority concluded that the officer's arrest of Grass had constituted an appropriate exercise of the statutory

authority to arrest for motor-vehicle violations, thereby validating the contemporaneous search of the van. Id. at 486, 608 A.2d 952

Dissenting, Judge Pressler expressed doubt that New Jersey courts should read Belton to authorize a vehicle search merely on the basis of a lawful arrest of the driver for a routine traffic violation, noting that this Court had never expressed its agreement with so broad a reading of Belton. Id. at 487-88, 608 A.2d 952. In addition, Judge Pressler concluded that the arrest of the driver only for driving while on the revoked list, absent any other suspicious circumstances or a reasonable belief that the driver would not respond to a summons, was an unlawful arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, rendering the related warrantless search of the vehicle unreasonable and invalid. Id. at 488-93, 608 A.2d 952.

II

A

Validity of Arrests for Motor-Vehicle Offenses

New Jersey is one of a number of states that have enacted statutes unqualifiedly authorizing police officers to arrest motorists who commit traffic offenses. See Barbara C. Salken, The General Warrant of the Twentieth Century? A Fourth Amendment Solution to Unchecked Discretion to Arrest for Traffic Offenses, 62 Temple L.Rev. 221, 250 n. 188, 251 n. 189 (1989) (listing twenty-eight state statutes that unconditionally authorize arrests for traffic offenses and twenty-two state statutes that impose limitations on police authority to arrest for such offenses). N.J.S.A. 39:5-25 provides:

Any constable, sheriff's officer, police officer, peace officer, or the director may, without a warrant, arrest any person violating in his presence any provision of chapter 3 of this Title, or any person, other than a motorman or person having control of a street car or auto bus, running upon a route approved by the Board of Public Utilities, violating in his presence any provision of chapter 4 of this Title. The exemption from arrest of a motorman or person having control of a street car or auto bus, as conferred herein, shall not operate to prevent his arrest, however,

for a violation of R.S. 39:4-50. The arresting officer shall bring any person so arrested before any judge of the municipal court of the municipality wherein the offense was [642 A.2d 950] committed, or before the director at any place designated as his office. If the arrest is for a violation of R.S. 39:4-50, the arresting officer may, if no judge, clerk or deputy clerk is available, detain the person arrested, either in any police station, lockup or other place maintained by any municipality for the detention of offenders or in the common jail of the county, for such reasonable time as will permit the arresting officer to obtain a warrant for the offender's further detention, which temporary detention shall not exceed 24 hours from the time of the arrest. If the arrest is for a violation of any other provision of this subtitle, the person arrested shall be detained in the police station or municipal court until the arresting officer makes a complaint and a warrant issues

Any constable, sheriff's officer, police officer, peace officer, or the director may, instead of arresting an offender as herein provided, serve upon him a summons.

[Footnotes omitted.]

Although N.J.S.A. 39:5-25 authorizes both issuance of a summons and arrest for the violations to which it applies, the statute does not contain provisions that suggest whether arrest or a summons is appropriate. Read literally, the statute authorizes police officers to arrest any person who violates, in the officer's presence, any provision of Chapter 3 or 4 of Title 39, an authorization...