State v. Smith

Citation2022 UT 13
Decision Date01 March 2022
Docket Number20190550
PartiesState of Utah, Respondent, v. Brett Smith, Petitioner
CourtUtah Supreme Court

2022 UT 13

State of Utah, Respondent,
v.

Brett Smith, Petitioner

No. 20190550

Supreme Court of Utah

March 1, 2022


Heard September 9, 2020

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals Third District, Salt Lake The Honorable Vernice S. Trease No. 171902685

Sean D. Reyes, Att'y Gen., Jeffrey S. Gray, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, for respondent

Stephen R. Frazier, Douglas J. Thompson, Provo, for petitioner

Justice Himonas authored the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Durrant, and Justice Pearce joined.

Associate Chief Justice Lee filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Petersen joined.

OPINION

Himonas, Justice

INTRODUCTION

¶1 This case contemplates the applicability of the community caretaking doctrine to the seizure of a man found sleeping in his car in a McDonald's parking lot by the police. At his suppression hearing, that man-Brett Smith-sought to exclude evidence found as a result of his warrantless seizure, claiming that the officers had violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Because we find that the State did not meet its

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burden in rebutting this presumptively unreasonable seizure, we reverse the determination of the court of appeals.

BACKGROUND

¶2 In the early hours of December 29, 2016, defendant Brett Smith was sleeping in his vehicle in the parking lot of a 24-hour McDonald's restaurant in West Valley City. A total of three cars were in the parking lot at the time, two of which belonged to the employees on shift. The McDonald's shift manager on duty approached Smith's vehicle around 2:30 a.m. to ask Smith to leave. After the manager made repeated attempts to gain Smith's attention, Smith finally responded, telling the manager that he would proceed through the restaurant drive-through. Smith then drove his car in a circle and re-parked. The shift manager then suggested to another manager that they contact the police. Police dispatch labeled the call a welfare check.

¶3 Officer Schipper was the first officer on the scene. Upon his arrival, Schipper parked directly behind Smith's vehicle, preventing Smith's egress. Schipper noted that Smith's "vehicle was on and running, and the [passenger] window was down." Before approaching to make contact with Smith, Schipper waited for backup. He later testified that he did so because "it was suspected as a possible DUI" and he believed that "when people are intoxicated, sometimes their behavior is unpredictable." "A few minutes" later, two more officers arrived in full uniform-including guns and badges-and parked alongside Smith's vehicle. The officers had parked in a manner intended to prevent Smith's vehicle from exiting and to allow the officers to shine "[a] spotlight directly" into the vehicle. The officers finally approached Smith's vehicle, with two officers on the driver's side and another officer flanking the passenger side. While one officer knocked on the driver's window, another was able to wake Smith by calling through the open passenger window. Smith then rolled down his driver's window, and the officers noticed "an odor of an alcoholic beverage," "a bottle of alcohol in a brown bag on the passenger seat," and Smith's "glazed" eyes and difficulty speaking and turning off the ignition. The officers then asked Smith to exit his vehicle and ordered him to perform a field sobriety test, the results of which indicated to the officers that Smith was intoxicated. Smith was then placed under arrest and subsequently administered a breathalyzer test. Smith's blood alcohol content, as indicated by the breathalyzer test, was .135, well over the legal limit. He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol with prior convictions, operating a vehicle as an

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alcohol-restricted driver, and driving on a suspended or revoked license. The latter two charges were later dismissed with prejudice as a result of Smith's Sery plea.

¶4 Smith moved to suppress evidence or statements obtained as a result of his seizure, claiming that he had been searched and seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In his motion to dismiss, Smith argued that his seizure and subsequent searches were unlawful because both intrusions were "conducted without a valid ... warrant, and without any applicable exception to the warrant requirement." The district court found that Smith had been "seized under the Fourth Amendment when the officers parked their patrol cars immediately to the side of and behind Mr. Smith's car, preventing him from leaving." This finding was uncontested by the State. The State responded that there was an applicable exception- the community caretaking doctrine -and argued that the officers' intrusions were justified by the governmental interest in ascertaining whether Smith needed aid or presented a legitimate threat to the community at large.

¶5 The district court found that Smith's seizure was "justified" by the community caretaking doctrine, an analysis the district court drew from State v. Anderson, in which the degree of intrusion is balanced against the "seriousness of the perceived emergency and the likelihood that the motorist needs aid." 2015 UT 90, ¶ 28, 362 P.3d 1232. The district court determined that the "degree of restriction on [Smith's] freedom of movement was minimal because" Smith was asleep when the officers blocked his car, and that the "perceived emergency" of a man "sleeping in his car, in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, with the car running" necessitated the "minimal" intrusion.

¶6 Smith entered a Sery plea, preserving his appeal of the denial of his motion to suppress. See State v. Sery, 758 P.2d 935 (Utah Ct. App. 1988). On appeal, a divided panel of the court of appeals affirmed. State v. Smith, 2019 UT App 75, 442 P.3d 251. The majority opinion found that Anderson was controlling and that the community caretaking exception applied. Id. ¶¶ 19-20. The dissent also found Anderson applicable but argued that the facts of the present case revealed that the seizure was not reasonable in light of the State's community caretaking interests. Id. ¶ 38 (Pohlman, J., dissenting).

¶7 Smith filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted. Smith's briefing echoes many of the points raised in the court of appeals' dissent and asks us to reverse on the ground that his seizure was unreasonable under Anderson. And the State, of course, asks us

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to affirm. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78A-3-lO2(3)(a).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶8 We review the decision of the court of appeals for correctness. State v. Apodaca, 2019 UT 54, ¶ 25, 448 P.3d 1255.

ANALYSIS

¶9 If those in the legal profession are to remember anything from an introductory criminal procedure course, it's that warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable. See, e.g., State v. Christensen, 676 P.2d 408, 411 (Utah 1984) ("Warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless" an exception applies that "require[s] action before a warrant can be obtained."). Here, Smith established that he had been seized for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and that the seizure had been effected without a warrant. The question we must answer in this case, then, is whether the State sufficiently rebutted that presumption. Though the State was able to point to the community caretaking doctrine as an exception to the warrant requirement, we find that the State failed to show the exception applied. The actions of the responding officers exceeded the State's interest in ensuring the public welfare of Smith and the community.

¶10 We begin with a brief explanation of the burden-shifting paradigm in a Fourth Amendment challenge. We then apply that paradigm to the case before us, finding that Smith sufficiently challenged his seizure as unreasonable and, thus, shifted the burden to the State to show the seizure was lawful. We then proceed to the merits-in short, Judge Pohlman's dissent in the court of appeals got it exactly right. As such, we quote from her dissent extensively. We find that, under the facts alleged, the community caretaking exception does not apply. We reverse the court of appeals and order the evidence obtained as a result of Smith's unlawful seizure suppressed.

I. THE BURDEN PARADIGM IN A FOURTH AMENDMENT CHALLENGE

¶11 Under the Fourth Amendment, defendants enjoy the rebuttable presumption that a search or seizure is unreasonable if effected without a warrant. See, e.g., Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967); State v. Christensen, 676 P.2d 408, 411 (Utah 1984). In Katz, the United States Supreme Court explained first that "the Constitution requires 'that the deliberate, impartial judgment of a judicial officer ... be interposed between the citizen and the police.'"

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389 U.S. at 357 (alteration in original) (quoting Wong Sun v. United-States, 371 U.S. 471, 481-82 (1963)). In other words, a judicial officer must grant a warrant prior to a search or seizure. The United States Supreme Court then emphasized "that searches [and seizures] conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz, 389 U.S. at 357 (citations omitted). This "per se" presumption means that the defendant is not obligated, in the first instance, to prove that a warrantless search or seizure was unlawful; rather, the defendant need only show that the search or seizure was conducted without a warrant. Upon this showing, the burden shifts to the State to prove that the search or seizure was lawful-that is, that it met an exception to the warrant requirement. Id.; see also State v. Worwood, 2007 UT 47, ¶ 39 n.50, 164 P.3d 397 ("[I]f a defendant produces evidence that he was arrested or subjected to a search without a warrant, the burden...

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