State v. Reiss
| Decision Date | 17 December 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 102,071.,102,071. |
| Citation | 244 P.3d 693 |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Rex REISS, Appellant. |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids unreasonable searches and seizures. In limited circumstances, when law-enforcement officers act to protect their own safety or public safety, a person may be briefly detained without violating the Fourth Amendment. On the facts of this case, the brief detention of a driver who had pulled over and stopped when an officer was trying to pull over another vehicle did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Matthew J. Edge, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.
Cheryl M. Pierce, assistant county attorney, and Steve Six, attorney general, for appellee.
Before LEBEN, P.J., PIERRON, J., and BUKATY, S.J.
Rex Reiss had the misfortune to be driving one of two vehicles directly behind a blue pickup that had no lights on at about 1 o'clock in the morning. When an officer pulled behind the three vehicles to stop the one with no lights on, Reiss stopped directly behind the blue pickup. When the officer pulled his car right behind Reiss (there was no room between Reiss' truck and the blue pickup), Reiss immediately got out of the truck and began walking toward the police car, vehemently questioning what he'd done wrong.
The officer, Ricky Ritter, told Reiss to get back in his truck. Reiss kept walking toward the officer, who continued to order him back to the truck. Eventually, Reiss complied.
Reiss contends that when the officer told him to get back into his truck, the officer violated Reiss' constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures. And if that wasn't enough for a constitutional violation, Reiss contends that the officer surely violated his rights when—after Reiss had returned to his truck—the officer came up, asked why Reiss had gotten out of his truck, and then asked for Reiss' license and registration. During that interchange, the officer began to suspect that Reiss had been driving drunk based on Reiss' slurred and mumbling speech and his bloodshot and watery eyes. Reiss failed field-sobriety tests, refused to take a breath test that would have determined his blood-alcohol level, and was eventually convicted of DUI.
The district court held that Reiss had not been seized, even when the officer ordered Reiss back to his truck, because the officer was merely taking normal steps that a reasonable and cautious officer would take for safety when a single officer was on hand and more than one vehicle had stopped. After getting Reiss back in his truck, the district court concluded that the officer had reasonably investigated the unusual circumstance of someone jumping out of the truck and coming toward the officer. Based on these conclusions, the district court denied the defendant's motion to suppress the evidence against him based on the defendant's claim that the officer had violated the defendant's constitutional rights.
When a defendant files a motion to suppress evidence based on a claim of unlawful conduct by law-enforcement officers, the State has the burden of proof to show that the officers acted lawfully. State v. Ibarra, 282 Kan. 530, 533, 147 P.3d 842 (2006). On appeal, we must accept the district court's factual findings when substantial evidence supports them. We then independently decide the legal question at hand without anyrequired deference to the district court. State v. Morlock, 289 Kan. 980, Syl. ¶ 1, 218 P.3d 801 (2009).
Because the Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, the central question in all Fourth Amendment cases is what is reasonable. State v. Barriger, 44 Kan.App.2d 648, 239 P.3d 1290, 1293 (2010). Further, because the ultimate test is reasonableness, usually no single factor is determinative; the court must instead consider all of the facts in the case before it. See State v. Thompson, 284 Kan. 763, Syl. ¶ 20, 166 P.3d 1015 (2007); Barriger, 239 P.3d at 1294.
The application of the somewhat subjective test of reasonableness is made easier in most cases because the United States Supreme Court and the Kansas Supreme Court have developed different standards to be applied in the various situations that normally arise. In a voluntary encounter between a citizen and a police officer, the officer is free to ask questions even in the absence of any suspicion the citizen is up to no good. See State v. McGinnis, 290 Kan. 547, 552-53, 233 P.3d 246 (2010). But to stop a person traveling on the roadway, even briefly for the purpose of investigation (an "investigatory detention"), the officer must have reasonable suspicion that something's amiss, meaning an objective and specific basis for believing that the person being detained is involved in criminal activity. See State v. Pollman, 286 Kan. 881, Syl. ¶¶ 3-5, 190 P.3d 234 (2008). And to arrest someone, the officer must meet an even higher standard: probable cause, which exists when a person of reasonable caution could conclude from the known facts that an offense has been or is being committed. State v. Fewell, 286 Kan. 370, Syl. ¶ 4, 184 P.3d 903 (2008); Barriger, 239 P.3d at 1291.
So the first question we must consider is whether Reiss was seized at all. If not, then it was a voluntary encounter, so the officer was free to ask him questions or for identification papers even in the absence of any indication that Reiss had done anything wrong. But this question is not as simple as it might seem. The officer didn't intend to pull Reiss' truck over; the officer wanted only to stop the truck in front of Reiss, which had no lights on in the middle of the night. Does it matter that the officer stopped Reiss only inadvertently? And even if it does matter, did the officer seize Reiss for Fourth Amendment purposes when he ordered Reiss back to his truck, approached to ask a question, and requested Reiss' license to identify him?
The parties have not cited to any appellate decisions discussing whether a person inadvertently stopped by police has been seized, and we have not found a Kansas case that does so. That issue, however, has been discussed extensively in a recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Al Nasser, 555 F.3d 722, 725-32 (9th Cir.2009). The Ninth Circuit concluded that a driver was not seized—and therefore no Fourth Amendment violation had occurred—when the driver stopped his vehicle because of police activity but the officers did not intend for that driver to stop. 555 F.3d at 731-32.
The parties essentially skipped over this first question in their appellate briefs. Reiss simply contends that whether or not he was seized when he first pulled over, the encounter became a seizure when Officer Ritter ordered Reiss to return to his truck. We agree with Reiss on this point. A seizure occurs when there is a show of authority by the officer that would communicate to a reasonable person that he or she is not free to leave and that person submits to the show of authority. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 254-55, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007); State v. Morris, 276 Kan. 11, Syl. ¶ 5, 72 P.3d 570 (2003). Officer Ritter's forceful commands led Reiss to return to his truck. Because Reiss was clearly seized at that point and no incriminating evidence was obtained before then, we need not determine whether he had been seized when he initially pulled over, even though the officer hadn't intended to stop him.
Reiss contends that since we concluded that Reiss was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes, the evidence resulting from that seizure must be suppressed. In Reiss' view, he was detained at a time when the officer admits he had no reasonable suspicionthat Reiss had broken any laws. Reiss argues that a detention without reasonable suspicion necessarily violates the Fourth Amendment.
But there are situations—based on concerns of officer safety and the safety of the public—in which a person may be detained without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The United States Supreme Court has held in two similar situations that concerns for public or officer safety allow for some intrusion on the liberty of those who simply find themselves near an otherwise-authorized law-enforcement action; such an intrusion does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
First, an officer stops a car properly when he or she has a reasonable suspicion that the driver committed a traffic violation; the passengers are usually not suspected of any wrongdoing. But the United States Supreme Court has held that passengers may routinely be asked to step out of a stopped car based on considerations of officer safety. Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997). That's so even though the passengers, like the driver, have been seized. Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 257-59, 127 S.Ct. 2400. And in most cases, of course, there is no reason to suspect any wrongdoing by the passengers. But no suspicion that a passenger poses a safety risk is needed to ask that passenger to step out of the car under Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414-15, 117 S.Ct. 882. Lower courts have concluded that an officer also may require a passenger who has gotten out of a vehicle to get back in it based on the officer's need to control the scene of a traffic stop to keep it safe for officers and the public. See, e.g., United States v. Sanders, 510 F.3d 788, 789-91 (8th Cir.2007); United States v. Williams, 419 F.3d 1029, 1031-34 (9th Cir.2005); United States v. Helton, 232 Fed.Appx. 747, 751 (10th Cir.2007) (unpublished opinion).
Second, when officers execute a search warrant at a private residence, they may detain persons found there for a reasonable time based solely on concerns of officer safety....
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