State v. Speights
| Decision Date | 16 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20190492,20190492 |
| Citation | 497 P.3d 340 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Holly SPEIGHTS, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Sean Reyes, Att'y Gen., Nathan H. Jack, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, Chase T. Hansen, Poponatui M. Sitake, Provo, for appellee
Douglas J. Thompson, Provo, for appellant
INTRODUCTION
¶1 Upon responding to a 911 call complaining of a person trying to enter a private residence and banging on doors and windows, two officers encountered a Ford Explorer that looked like it might be connected to the disturbance. To determine how long the vehicle had been there, one officer touched the hood to assess the temperature of the engine. For the same reason, the other officer reached into the wheel well on two occasions. At trial, both officers testified that the engine felt hot.
¶2 Appellant Holly Speights argues that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the officers’ touches of her vehicle constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. She asserts that the officers lacked probable cause to search her vehicle, and therefore their testimony about her engine's temperature should have been excluded at trial.
¶3 We ultimately do not resolve this question, however, because even assuming the officers’ conduct amounted to Fourth Amendment searches, we conclude that the automobile exception applies and, at a minimum, the final touch of the wheel well was supported by probable cause. And as Speights does not dispute the State's argument that the third touch was an independent source of the evidence, the testimony about the engine's temperature was admissible. We affirm.
¶4 In the early hours of one June morning, someone began ringing the doorbell and pounding on the front door of a townhome in American Fork. When neither of the residents—a husband and wife—answered the door, the person began banging on the window to the couple's bedroom and then returned to the front door. The person then proceeded to the back door and the husband asked who was there. The person's inaudible response "sounded like a woman." The wife called 911 and relayed this information, including that she heard the person "check the knobs" to the doors.
¶5 Officer Nelson and Sergeant Stowers arrived separately within "a few minutes" of being dispatched and began investigating. Stowers noticed a Ford Explorer "parked partially on the grass and partially on some cement" near the visitor parking and community mailboxes. The vehicle was very close to the townhome—the couple could see it through their window.2 The vehicle was unoccupied, although the driver's side door "was latched but not completely closed" and the interior lights were on. Stowers noticed a bottle of liquor that was partially full on the driver's side floorboard. He did not see keys in the ignition or elsewhere inside the vehicle. Stowers "put [his] hand up underneath the wheel well on the driver's side," "far back enough that [his] hand was right next to and touching the metal of the inside" of the wheel well. He noticed that the engine compartment "was hot."
¶6 Nelson also noticed the odd manner in which the vehicle was parked—"not in a parking stall, partially on the grass, partially over a sidewalk"—and that the car's interior lights were on. He then placed his hand on the hood and found it was "hot to the touch."
¶7 Nelson and Stowers separated and spent approximately fifteen minutes looking for the driver of the Explorer, with no luck. When they reconvened at the vehicle, except that its "interior lights were no longer on." Stowers again felt under the wheel well and noted "it was still warm." Nelson observed what appeared to be "smears" from "hand mark[s]" and "clothing" on the car, which indicated to him that "somebody was possibly stumbling" and had used the vehicle to stay steady.
¶8 The townhome residents noticed that the door to their garage was open, which was unusual. They gave the officers permission to search the garage, and Stowers and Nelson entered. Inside, they discovered a woman "lying on a child's inflatable ... bouncy house." They eventually identified the woman as Holly Speights.
¶9 The officers turned on the garage lights and saw a red camping chair set up next to Speights. On the chair were keys to a Ford lying within arm's reach. The officers did not see any alcohol in the garage. Speights was slurring her words, "having a difficult time putting sentences together," and was unable to stand up straight. She would not comply with commands to show her hands and refused to identify herself. She kept telling the officers to "get out of her home." As Nelson searched Speights, he smelled alcohol and urine. The officers determined it was unsafe to conduct field sobriety tests because Speights could not stand upright on her own.
¶10 The Ford Explorer was unregistered, but when contacted the prior owner said he had recently sold it. Speights confirmed it was hers and that she had bought it "a few months" prior. However, she denied driving or being inside her vehicle and told the officers she had "been home all day," "in [her] bed in [her] garage," and "in the garage smoking a cigarette." The officers did not interview anyone at Speights's house to determine whether she indeed had been home all day or whether anyone else had access to the vehicle.
¶11 The officers detained Speights and impounded her vehicle. Nelson took her to the police station for suspected driving under the influence. Because Speights did not provide a sufficient sample for the "intoxilyzer" test, Nelson sought and received a search warrant to obtain blood and urine samples.
Speights's blood sample later revealed a blood alcohol content of 0.17.
¶12 The State charged Speights with, among other things, driving under the influence. And the case eventually proceeded to a jury trial.
¶13 The night before trial, Speights filed a motion to suppress evidence that her Explorer's hood had been hot on the night in question. She argued that Nelson's touch of the hood was an unconstitutional search.3 Speights relied upon United States v. Jones , in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government had conducted an unconstitutional search when it attached a GPS device to the underbody of a suspect's vehicle without a warrant.4 See 565 U.S. 400, 404, 132 S.Ct. 945, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012). Referencing Jones , Speights argued that the touch to the hood of her vehicle was a trespass on her property for the purpose of obtaining information, making it a search under the Fourth Amendment. She asserted that the officers did not have probable cause for this warrantless search, so it was unconstitutional and the evidence of her vehicle's temperature should be suppressed.
¶14 The State opposed the motion. It first argued that the motion was untimely, see supra ¶ 13 n.3, but asked the trial court to rule on the merits nonetheless. As to the merits, the State relied on Katz v. United States and its progeny, which established a standard that a search under the Fourth Amendment occurs when the government intrudes on a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy." 389 U.S. 347, 360, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). Among other things, the State argued that Speights had no reasonable expectation of privacy because the vehicle was suspiciously parked in a shared community area.
¶15 The trial court denied the motion as untimely under rule 12(c) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure. However, the court proceeded to the merits and concluded Jones was inapplicable to this set of facts based on "the nature of the touching, the nature of the information that was being gathered and the purposes for it."
¶16 The jury heard the evidence as presented above. After Stowers and Nelson testified, Speights renewed her motion to suppress. She asserted that the officers’ contacts with her car were "much more intrusive ... and different" than she understood when she initially filed her motion to suppress.5 She urged the court to apply Jones and find the officers’ contacts with her vehicle to be unconstitutional searches. The State again argued that because of the vehicle's location and how it was parked, Speights had no expectation of privacy.
¶17 The trial court took the matter under advisement and denied the motion the following day, explaining that even if there had been a search, "it was reasonable" and thus not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Speights did not put on a defense and the parties rested. The jury convicted Speights of driving under the influence.
¶18 Speights then moved for a new trial, arguing "her right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure" was violated and the evidence of her vehicle's temperature "had a substantial adverse effect on her rights."6 She again argued that under Jones , the officers’ contacts with her vehicle were warrantless searches that violated the Fourth Amendment.
¶19 After oral argument, the trial court denied the motion. But this time, the court found that when the officers touched Speights's vehicle, they had committed a trespass under the common law. The court also said there had been no "probable cause before [the officers] touched the vehicle" but determined such a finding was unnecessary "because the action they took ... was not unreasonable in terms of a Fourth Amendment [s]earch." In other words, because the court determined the trespass was "reasonable," it did not offend the Fourth Amendment.
¶20 Speights timely appealed, contending the trial court erred when it denied her motions to suppress the evidence obtained when the officers touched her vehicle and when it denied her related motion for a new trial. The court of...
To continue reading
Request your trial