State v. Rowell

• Decision Date: 26 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. 30,380.,30,380.
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. Richard ROWELL, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

188 P.3d 95

2008 NMSC 041

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. Richard ROWELL, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 30,380.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

June 26, 2008.

Gary K. King, Attorney General, James W. Grayson, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Petitioner.

Downing & Henderson, P.C., C. David Henderson, Santa Fe, NM, for Respondent.

OPINION

DANIELS, Justice.

{1} In this case, we are called upon to determine whether either the search incident to arrest exception or the exigent circumstances exception to the New Mexico warrant requirement authorized a police officer to conduct an entry into an automobile on the grounds of a high school to seize a loaded shotgun and other weapons without first obtaining a search warrant. We hold that while the action could not be justified as a search incident to arrest, it was reasonable for the officer to take immediate action once he learned of the presence of the shotgun. In doing so, we reaffirm the constitutional principles set forth in State v. Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1, that absent a valid exception to the warrant requirement, such as the combination of probable cause and exigent circumstances in this case, a warrant is required for a search of an automobile under Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution.

I. BACKGROUND

{2} The suppression hearing before the district court was based on the stipulated facts contained in the written report of the arresting officer, Taos Police Department Officer E. Thomas. On May 11, 2005, during the lunch recess, Officer Thomas stopped Defendant Richard Rowell for speeding in the visitor's parking lot of Taos High School. When Defendant leaned over to retrieve his papers from the glove box, the officer observed in plain view a clear plastic bag of marijuana protruding from Defendant's left front shirt pocket. The officer reached into the car and seized the marijuana, removed Defendant from the car to place him under arrest, and handcuffed him. During a contemporaneous search incident to arrest, the officer found a marijuana pipe and a lighter in Defendant's pockets. The officer asked Defendant if he had any guns, knives or other dangerous weapons. Defendant first denied having any weapons, but as he was being led to the patrol car in handcuffs he told the officer that there was a shotgun in the back seat of his car.

{3} Officer Thomas secured Defendant in his patrol car and then searched Defendant's car to inventory its contents in anticipation of having it towed and impounded. He seized from the passenger compartment a loaded shotgun, a loaded revolver, a two-foot long wooden club, a straight-blade knife, nineteen shotgun shells, two box-cutter blades, and a package of Zig-Zag rolling papers. A multitool knife was seized from the trunk.

{4} Officer Thomas called for a back-up unit to assist with transporting Defendant to jail and for a tow truck to remove Defendant's vehicle from the high school grounds. After the officer learned that no tow truck was available, he contacted Defendant's mother and arranged for her to take custody of her son's car.

{5} Defendant was indicted on four felony counts of possession of a deadly weapon on school premises, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-7-2.1 (1994). See State v. Rowell, 2007-NMCA-075, ¶ 7, 141 N.M. 783, 161 P.3d 280. The additional misdemeanor charges for which he was also arrested, speeding in a school zone, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving on a suspended license, were not included in the felony indictment. Id. ¶ 7. Defendant moved to suppress all the drug and weapons evidence, arguing that it was unlawful for the officer to have seized any of it without a warrant. Id. ¶ 7. The State conceded that the record did not establish the legal requirements for a pre-impoundment inventory search, but argued that both the exigent circumstances and the search incident to arrest exceptions justified all of the warrantless seizures. The district court suppressed the marijuana on the ground that it was unlawful for the officer to reach inside the car without a warrant and retrieve the bag of marijuana protruding in plain view from Defendant's pocket. Id. ¶ 1. The court suppressed the weapons and all other evidence as fruits of the initial warrantless seizure of the marijuana. Id. ¶ 8.

{6} The State appealed the suppression order to the Court of Appeals. Id. ¶ 1. In a holding not challenged before this Court by Defendant, the Court of Appeals concluded that the seizure of marijuana observed in plain view in the possession of a person who was in control of a vehicle and could drive away before a warrant could be obtained was lawful under the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. Id. ¶¶ 10-11. The seizure of the drug paraphernalia on Defendant's person was upheld as the result of a lawful search incident to his arrest for marijuana possession. Id. The subsequent seizures of the weapons from the car were held to be constitutionally impermissible, although for different reasons than the fruit of the poisonous tree analysis used by the district court. Id. ¶ 12. The Court of Appeals concluded that the suppression hearing record failed to sustain the State's burden of showing that the warrantless weapons seizures were justified by either the exigent circumstances exception or the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement. Id. ¶ 16.

{7} We granted the State's petition for writ of certiorari to review the constitutional reasonableness of the weapons seizures from the automobile. Defendant did not cross-petition for certiorari with regard to the initial seizure of the marijuana from his pocket, his resulting arrest for marijuana possession, nor the seizure of the paraphernalia during the search of his person incident to that arrest, and we start from the premise that those procedures were all lawful.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

{8} Appellate review of a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress involves "a mixed question of fact and law." State v. Vandenberg, 2003-NMSC-030, ¶ 17, 134 N.M. 566, 81 P.3d 19. We review the contested facts in a manner most favorable to the prevailing party and defer to the factual findings of the district court if substantial evidence exists to support those findings. State v. Urioste, 2002-NMSC-023, ¶ 6, 132 N.M. 592, 52 P.3d 964. In this case, the parties stipulated to the report of the arresting officer as the factual basis for the suppression ruling, so we need address only the purely legal question of the objective constitutional reasonableness of the officer's actions, in light of the totality of the circumstances. See Vandenberg, 2003-NMSC-030, ¶ 19, 134 N.M. 566, 81 P.3d 19. "Although our inquiry is necessarily fact-based it compels a careful balancing of constitutional values, which extends beyond fact-finding," and is conducted by this Court through a de novo review. State v. Ryon, 2005-NMSC-005, ¶ 11, 137 N.M. 174, 108 P.3d 1032.

III. DISCUSSION

{9} The State advances two related but doctrinally distinct arguments to justify the warrantless weapons seizures from Defendant's automobile: (1) that the seizures occurred during a search incident to Defendant's custodial arrest for marijuana possession, and (2) that the seizures were justified by the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

A. A Warrantless Search is Presumptively Unreasonable.

{10} Any warrantless search analysis must start with the bedrock principle of both federal and state constitutional jurisprudence that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable," subject only to well-delineated exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). "Warrantless seizures are presumed to be unreasonable and the State bears the burden of proving reasonableness." State v. Weidner, 2007-NMCA-063, ¶ 6, 141 N.M. 582, 158 P.3d 1025.

{11} Despite the constitutional preference for interposing a neutral judicial officer between the police and the citizen before a search may be conducted, our courts have historically recognized that it is not always reasonable to require a warrant and have developed a number of well-established exceptions to the warrant requirement, including the search incident to arrest and exigent circumstances exceptions relied on by the State in this case. See State v. Duffy, 1998-NMSC-014, ¶ 61, 126 N.M. 132, 967 P.2d 807.

{12} Because both the United States and the New Mexico Constitutions provide overlapping protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, we apply our interstitial approach set forth in Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006 ¶¶ 19-23, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1. Gomez requires that we first consider whether the United States Constitution makes the challenged police procedures unlawful under the United States Constitution. Id. ¶ 19. If so, the fruits usually must be suppressed as evidence. If not, we next consider whether the New Mexico Constitution makes the search unlawful. Id.

B. The Seizures Were Not Justified by the Search Incident to Arrest Exception.

{13} One of the most firmly established exceptions to the warrant requirement is "the right on the part of the government, always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested." Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914). Warrantless searches incident to arrest have been considered reasonable because of the practical need to prevent the arrestee from destroying evidence or obtaining access to weapons or instruments of escape, without any requirement of specific probable cause to believe weapons or evidence are present in a particular situation. State v. Paul T., 1999-NMSC-037, ¶ 11, 128 N.M. 360, 993 P.2d 74.

{14} Until relatively recently, the federal search incident to arrest...