State v. Riley

Decision Date10 June 2022
Docket NumberDocket No. 49087
Citation514 P.3d 982
Parties STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Sunny Dawn RILEY, Defendant-Respondent.
CourtIdaho Supreme Court

Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for Appellant. Kale Gans argued.

Eric Don Fredericksen, Idaho State Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for Respondent. Andrea Reynolds argued.

MOELLER, Justice.

This case presents another Fourth Amendment issue related to deviations from the initial purpose of a traffic stop and whether the deviations unconstitutionally prolonged the stop. The State appeals the district court's order granting Sunny Riley's motion to suppress evidence obtained when a drug dog alerted on her vehicle while she was being cited for a traffic offense. Riley's motion was granted by the district court after it concluded that the police officer's deviations from the traffic stop measurably and unlawfully extended the duration of Riley's seizure under the Fourth Amendment. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

At 8:55 PM on January 12, 2019, a Boise Police officer initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle with expired registration tags. The driver was Sunny Dawn Riley. During the stop, other officers and a K-9 unit arrived as backup on the scene because Officer Kingland believed there may have been drug involvement or contraband hidden within Riley's vehicle. During the traffic stop, Officer Kingland spent some time asking Riley whether she had contraband in the vehicle, which she denied, and then spent additional time discussing the situation with backup officers as they arrived on the scene. These conversations deviated from the initial purpose of the traffic stop, and their timing is the key issue on appeal. The district court found that these deviations measurably extended the stop beyond Fourth Amendment reasonableness.

The key evidence in this case comes from the body camera footage of the four officers on the scene during the traffic stop: Officers Kingland, Miles, Ellison, and Lane. While the timing of the conversations and events is disputed by the parties, the district court determined that the "videos speak for themselves."

On initiating the traffic stop at 8:55 PM (3:55:15 on the video's timestamp),1 Officer Kingland exited his patrol car and approached the driver's side of Riley's vehicle to ask for her driver's license. Lacking one, she instead provided a dental insurance card as a form of identification. Riley also told Kingland that her license was expired, she was still paying fines on a prior traffic infraction, and that she had no car insurance. Officer Kingland then pulled out a notepad and pen to record more information. He asked Riley her name, date of birth, whether she was on probation, and other questions relating to Riley's identity, in addition to questions about her expired driver's license and registration tags. Immediately after putting his pen and notepad away, at 03:58:35 on the time stamp, Kingland then asked Riley if there were any controlled substances in the vehicle:

Officer Kingland: All right, nothing illegal in the car I need to worry about?
Riley: No.
Officer Kingland: No marijuana, drug pipes, anything crazy like that?
Riley: No.

Following Riley's answers, the time stamp read 03:58:43. The district court later found that this line of questioning took 8 seconds and was not done simultaneously with another task related to the traffic stop. The time stamp readings bear this out. Kingland then talked with Riley about the need for driver's insurance and that he was going back to his vehicle to write up "a couple citations." Kingland then returned to his vehicle and began writing up Riley's citations for "no proof of insurance" and for having an invalid license. From that point, Kingland's body camera footage has no audio.

While Kingland was in his patrol vehicle writing the citation, Officers Miles and Ellison arrived on the scene at 9:01 PM, with the timestamp reading 04:01:20. Officer Miles approached Kingland's vehicle on the passenger side. While the sound is off on each body camera, Kingland's face can briefly be seen turning towards the approaching Officer Miles at the timestamp 04:01:27. The camera view is then obstructed until 04:01:39 when Officer Miles leaves the side of Officer Kingsland's vehicle and begins to approach Riley's car. The sound turns on at 04:01:40 when Officer Miles is walking towards Riley's vehicle.

There is no conversation taking place when the sound turns on. Likewise, on Officer Kingland's video, there is a brief period where his camera is obstructed, likely as he is leaning forward, from 04:01:27 to 04:01:40. The subject of the conversation was later determined to be two-fold: (1) Kingland gave Miles a summary of the situation for the incoming backup officers’ safety, and (2) Kingland gave instructions to Miles that he should talk with Riley and try to get consent to search her vehicle. The district court found that this conversation was immeasurable.

As Officer Kingland continued to work on the citations, Officer Miles approached Riley's car and explained to Riley that Officer Kingland was concerned about potential contraband in the vehicle. Officer Miles began to ask Riley questions about her current citations and the circumstances of the traffic stop. He also asked Riley whether the officers could search her vehicle. She did not consent to a search and expressed anxiety at these new requests. At 04:05:20, Officer Miles told Riley that a drug dog was on the way and would circle her vehicle once during the traffic stop to check for scents of contraband. He asked her to step out of the vehicle while this occurred. Officer Miles added that Riley was not in trouble and that the officers would not search her car.

At 9:09 PM, Officer Lane arrived on the scene with his drug dog. Officer Lane had been called to the scene by Officer Miles. On his arrival, Officer Lane promptly led the dog to Riley's car and circled the vehicle once. At approximately 04:09:52 on the video (still 9:09 PM), the drug dog alerted on the passenger side of the vehicle.

Officer Kingland's video ends at 04:10:40 (which is 9:10 PM), when he appears to finish writing up Riley's citations. Eight seconds later, at 04:10:48, Officer Lane tells Officer Kingland, still in his vehicle, that the drug dog alerted on Riley's car. At the same time as this conversation occurs between Officers Lane and Kingland, Officer Ellison approached Officer Kingland's vehicle and stood with his arm on the door through the open window of the passenger side. Officer Ellison then goes to tell Officer Miles, who was with Riley, that "there was a hit" on the vehicle.

As Officer Miles begins to explain to Riley that the drug dog alerted on her vehicle, Officer Lane approaches them to tell Riley that his dog alerted to the odor of narcotics at the passenger door. Another officer simultaneously begins to search Riley's vehicle in the background. The officers ultimately found a plastic baggie of methamphetamine and two "snort straws with suspected methamphetamine residue." They then arrested Riley on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Following her arrest and arraignment, Riley moved to suppress the seized evidence. She argued that her constitutional rights had been violated when Officer Kingland extended the scope and duration of the traffic stop. The district court held a hearing on Riley's motion to suppress on June 17, 2019. Both Officers Kingland and Lane testified at this hearing. The State and Riley also stipulated to the admission of the four police body-camera videos as evidence.

Officer Kingland testified that he never delayed the traffic stop. He explained: "I didn't think that there was a dog on, so I wasn't taking any special time to try and delay ... as the dog had not even been called to the stop." He said he stopped writing the citations momentarily to talk with Officer Miles "for officer safety purposes" to update the backup officers on the situation upon their arrival. He noted the conversation was "brief." Officer Lane also testified that his dog alerted on Riley's vehicle at 9:09 PM.

In reviewing the evidence, the district court determined that there were two conversations at issue between the parties that resulted in deviations from the traffic stop. The first was the 8-second conversation between Officer Kingland and Riley when he asked her about potential contraband in her vehicle. The second conversation was between Officers Kingland and Miles after Officers Miles and Ellison arrived on the scene. Because the dog alerted at 04:09:52 and Officer Kingland finished writing Riley's citations at 4:10:40, the district court concluded that the traffic stop's mission was either completed or abandoned "48 seconds after the dog alerts." Thus, the 8-second conversation between Officer Kingland and Riley "did not extend the duration of her detention." However, the district court also concluded that the conversation between Officer Kingland and the incoming backup officers was immeasurable—that the court "can only guess" as to its length much less conclude whether it took less than "40 seconds." Thus, the district court stated that combined, these two conversations constituted deviations from the traffic stop that impermissibly lengthened the seizure and violated Riley's Fourth Amendment rights:

The court finds the officer who stopped Ms. Riley deviated from the mission of the traffic stop when he asked her questions about illegal items in her vehicle and when he explained to other officers his desire that the other officers find some way to search her car for drugs and why he wanted them to do that. From the evidence presented, the court cannot determine if those conversations "measurably extended" the duration of Ms. Riley's seizure . Because they might have, the court finds the State has failed to
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3 cases
  • State v. Galindo
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Idaho
    • 22 Septiembre 2022
    ...established in these cases generally have addressed a drug-dog sniff or officer safety. See, e.g. , State v. Riley , ––– Idaho ––––, ––––, 514 P.3d 982, 988 (2022) (addressing issue of whether officer deviated from traffic stop's initial purpose during drug-dog sniff and relying on Rodrigue......
  • State v. Galindo
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Idaho
    • 22 Septiembre 2022
    ...analysis established in these cases generally have addressed a drug-dog sniff or officer safety. See, e.g., State v. Riley__, Idaho__,__, 514 P.3d 982, 988 (2022) (addressing issue of whether officer deviated from traffic stop's initial purpose during drug-dog sniff and relying on Rodriguez......
  • State v. Clark
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Idaho
    • 17 Abril 2023
    ...of an officer's inquiries during a traffic stop is measured in reference to the stop's mission. State v. Riley, 170 Idaho 572, 578, 514 P.3d 982, 988 (2022). That mission includes, without limitation, addressing the traffic violation; determining whether to issue a traffic citation; and mak......

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