State v. Richardson

Decision Date22 May 2009
Docket NumberNo. 49A02-0807-CR-583.,49A02-0807-CR-583.
Citation906 N.E.2d 263
CourtIndiana Appellate Court
PartiesSTATE of Indiana, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. Robert RICHARDSON, Appellee-Defendant.

Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General of Indiana, Cynthia L. Ploughe, Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.

David R. Hennessy, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellee.

OPINION

MATHIAS, Judge.

Robert Richardson ("Richardson") filed a motion to suppress evidence seized after he was initially stopped for a seatbelt violation. The Marion Superior Court granted Richardson's motion. The State of Indiana appeals and argues that the trial court erred in granting Richardson's motion. We reverse.

Facts and Procedural History

On July 10, 2007, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer Tanya Eastwood ("Officer Eastwood") was working on a "stat driven" overtime shift. This meant that the purpose of the shift was to write tickets and make arrests. If Officer Eastwood did not write enough tickets or make enough arrests, she would not get to work the overtime shift. Officer Eastwood drove past a pickup truck stopped at a stop sign and noticed that the driver, Richardson, was not wearing a seat belt.1 Officer Eastwood recognized Richardson from a prior traffic stop, during which she had encountered no problems with Richardson. And when Officer Eastwood stopped Richardson in the incident at issue before us, Richardson was immediately cooperative with Officer Eastwood and admitted that he did not have his seat belt on.

Officer Eastwood asked the passenger in Richardson's truck for his identification. The passenger did not have an identification card with him, so Officer Eastwood took his information verbally. While she was doing this, she noticed "a very large, unusual bulge" in Richardson's pocket. Officer Eastwood asked Richardson what was in his pocket, and he told her that it was his handgun. Officer Eastwood told Richardson not to put his hand in his pocket and asked for his handgun permit. She also asked him to exit the vehicle so that she could take his gun during the traffic stop. Richardson gave his handgun permit to Officer Eastwood. The permit had been in Richardson's wallet and was wrinkled. The issue date of the permit was "06/12/2006," but the last digit of the year of the expiration date was illegible. Ex. Vol., State's Ex. 1, 2.

Officer Eastwood radioed headquarters, who found no problems with Richardson's driver's license or vehicle registration. Nevertheless, Officer Eastwood's personal routine was to perform a criminal background check on anyone with a handgun, even if they presented a permit. Therefore, she asked headquarters to check Richardson's criminal history and also called for the assistance of a narcotics canine. Although Officer Eastwood admitted that there was nothing specific about Richardson's handgun permit that made her suspect that it was counterfeit, she generally felt that all handgun permits could be easily forged. Despite these reservations, expressed later in discovery, Officer Eastwood did not check with headquarters as to the validity of Richardson's handgun permit.

Headquarters informed Officer Eastwood that Richardson had a "prior conviction for possession of cocaine and public intox." Tr. p. 22. Richardson overheard this and told Officer Eastwood that his prior conviction was a misdemeanor, not a felony. Officer Eastwood therefore asked headquarters if Richardson's prior conviction was a felony or a misdemeanor. Headquarters replied, "that does not say." Id. Officer Eastwood asked again, and headquarters responded, "Looks like that possession of cocaine is going to be a felony conviction." Id. Officer Eastwood then asked another source at headquarters, "can you check [Richardson's] possession of cocaine conviction and make sure it's a felony and not alternate misdemeanor sentencing." Ex. Vol., Defendant's Ex. A, p. 2. Officer Eastwood was then told:

it shows up that it is a felony D possession of cocaine and the strange thing is I looked under sentencing and I know he got probation, it doesn't tell me what probation he got. [B]ut it shows him only serving 20 days so I don't know how accurate that is.

Id. Officer Eastwood did not use her laptop computer in her patrol car to check Richardson's criminal history. Richardson's criminal history indicated that his prior possession conviction had a "GL" notation, which apparently stands for "guilty lesser." Defendant's Ex. C.

Officer Eastwood then placed Richardson under arrest for "having a firearm with a prior felony conviction within the last fifteen years." Tr. p. 33. Another police officer who had arrived to assist Officer Eastwood then started to pat down Richardson and felt a large object in Richardson's underwear. Richardson then began to struggle with the officers and attempted to flee. The officers forced Richardson down onto an embankment where he continued to resist and attempted to place his hands in his pants. During the struggle, Richardson kicked Officer Eastwood in the chest, and she attempted to use a taser on him. Although this proved ineffective, the officers were eventually able to subdue Richardson. The object in Richardson's underwear was later determined to be cocaine.

On July 11, 2007, the State charged Richardson with Class A felony dealing in cocaine, Class C felony possession of cocaine, Class C felony possession of cocaine and a firearm, Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement, and Class A misdemeanor battery on a law enforcement officer. Richardson filed a motion to suppress the evidence, and the trial court held a hearing on this motion on January 25, 2008. Both parties subsequently submitted briefs on the suppression issue, and on April 25, 2008, the trial court granted Richardson's motion to suppress. The State then filed a motion to correct error on May 27, 2008, which the trial court denied the following day. The State now appeals.2

Standard of Review

On appeal from the trial court's grant of a motion to suppress, the State appeals from a negative judgment and must show that the trial court's ruling on the suppression motion was contrary to law. State v. Estep, 753 N.E.2d 22, 24-25 (Ind.Ct.App.2001). We will reverse a negative judgment only when the evidence is without conflict and all reasonable inferences lead to a conclusion opposite that reached by the trial court. Id. at 25. We consider only the evidence favorable to the trial court's decision and will neither reweigh the evidence nor judges the credibility of witnesses. Id.

Discussion and Decision

On appeal, the State argues that the trial court erred in granting Richardson's motion to suppress because it claims that Richardson was properly searched incident to his lawful arrest for both carrying a handgun and resisting law enforcement. In addressing this argument, we note that Richardson does not deny that the initial stop was valid. Officer Eastwood observed Richardson driving in his truck without a seatbelt and properly stopped him for this violation. An officer may initiate a traffic stop based upon reasonable suspicion that the occupants in a vehicle are not wearing seatbelts as required by law. Baldwin v. Reagan, 715 N.E.2d 332, 337 (Ind.1999) (interpreting Ind.Code § 9-19-10-3).3

Traffic stops based upon a seatbelt violation are limited by the very statute that authorizes them. Pursuant the Seatbelt Enforcement Act, "a vehicle may be stopped to determine compliance with [the seat belt] chapter." I.C. § 9-19-10-3.1. The next sentence of this section limits police authority in such situations: "However, a vehicle, the contents of a vehicle, the driver of a vehicle, or a passenger in a vehicle, may not be inspected, searched, or detained solely because of a violation of this chapter." Id.

In Baldwin, our supreme court upheld the Seatbelt Enforcement Act against a constitutional attack, narrowly construing the Act to require that "when a stop to determine seat belt law compliance is made, the police are strictly prohibited from determining anything else, even if other law would permit." 715 N.E.2d at 339. We have since cautioned that a traffic stop based upon the failure of either the driver or passenger to wear a seatbelt does not, standing alone, provide reasonable suspicion for the police to unilaterally expand their investigation and "fish" for evidence of other possible crimes. See State v. Morris, 732 N.E.2d 224, 228 (Ind. Ct.App.2000).

However, we have also clarified that the Seatbelt Enforcement Act should not be read to prohibit police from performing a limited pat-down search for weapons for officer safety when such is the result of actions or behavior on the part of the defendant after the initial stop which would lead the officer to fear for his safety. Trigg v. State, 725 N.E.2d 446, 448 (Ind. Ct.App.2000). In such cases, a limited pat-down search for weapons is not a search solely because of a violation of the seatbelt law. Id. The key to this rule, however, is that the circumstances justifying the limited pat-down weapons search must be over and above the seatbelt violation itself. Id. at 448-49; see also Morris, 732 N.E.2d at 228.

Thus, where circumstances above and beyond the seatbelt violation arise after the initial stop, further police actions may be justified. See Pearson v. State, 870 N.E.2d 1061, 1066 (Ind.Ct.App.2007) (officer's knowledge that defendant had previously been reported as violent or possibly armed was sufficient to justify the minimal intrusion imposed by a limited pat-down search for weapons), trans. denied; Morris, 732 N.E.2d at 228 (where defendant failed to produce his driver's license and officer confirmed that defendant's license was suspended, officer acted reasonably in requesting defendant to exit his vehicle, at which time he detected odor of alcohol, which gave rise to reasonable suspicion that defendant was driving while intoxicated); Trigg, 725 N.E.2d at 449 (fact that defendant...

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  • State Of Ind. v. Richardson
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
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    ...erred in granting Richardson's motion to suppress the evidence seized in connection with the seat belt violation. State v. Richardson, 906 N.E.2d 263 (Ind.Ct.App.2009). Richardson sought, and we granted, transfer. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).DiscussionI Richardson contends that the search inc......
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