State v. Stiel
| Decision Date | 16 December 2019 |
| Docket Number | A19-0038 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Jennifer Tasha Stiel, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).
Reversed
Hennepin County District Court
Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Nicole Cornale, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rochelle Winn, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Rodenberg, Judge; and Jesson, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
After appellant Jennifer Tasha Stiel asked an officer to retrieve her purse from a car being impounded by police, the officer searched Stiel's purse and found methamphetamine. Stiel filed a motion to suppress the drugs, alleging that the officer's warrantless search of her purse was unconstitutional. Because we conclude that no exception to the warrant requirement applies, and as a result, that the district court erroneously denied her motion, we reverse.
While on patrol, an Edina police officer noticed a car drive by with a crack in the front windshield. The officer ran the car's license plate and discovered that the registered owner had an active misdemeanor warrant. After comparing the owner's description with the driver of the car, the officer concluded that the driver could be the car's owner. The officer pulled the car over and asked the driver for her license and proof of insurance. The driver told the officer that she did not have a driver's license and gave him her state-issued identification card, which identified her as appellant Jennifer Tasha Stiel. Stiel explained to the officer that the car belonged to her friend and gave the officer an expired insurance card that was in the car.
The officer ran a license check on Stiel and learned that she had an active misdemeanor warrant in another county related to driving after revocation. According to the officer, in Edina, a police officer can give someone with an outstanding misdemeanor warrant the option to pay cash bail to the officer at the scene rather than being taken into custody. Pursuant to this policy, the officer testified that he returned to the car, asked Stiel to step out of the vehicle, and presented her with these options to resolve her warrant. Stiel elected to pay the cash bail, called her mother to bring her the money, and told the officer that her mother was on her way.
During this time, the officer decided to tow the car because the registered owner was not present, and the car did not have valid insurance. Stiel asked the officer to get her purse, which was still in the car. The officer retrieved it, but before giving the purse to Stiel, the officer searched it "incident to arrest." According to the officer, Stiel "would have been, technically under arrest for the warrant and [he] was going to tow the vehicle," so he needed to search the purse to check for any weapons. At the bottom of Stiel's purse, the officer found a plastic bag containing a "white crystalline" substance that the officer believed was methamphetamine. Subsequently, the officer told Stiel she was under arrest for possession of a controlled substance, handcuffed her, and asked her to sit on the curb.
Another police officer arrived, and that officer watched Stiel while the first officer completed an inventory search of the car. While monitoring Stiel, the second officer observed a plastic baggie sticking out of Stiel's bra, and Stiel told the officer that the bag contained methamphetamine. The officers called for a female officer, and once she arrived, she removed the plastic baggie from Stiel's bra. The substances found in Stiel's purse and bra tested positive as methamphetamine, weighing 16.182 grams.
The state charged Stiel with one count of third-degree possession of a controlled substance. Before trial, Stiel filed a motion to suppress the methamphetamine on the basis that both the stop and the search of her purse were illegal. At a hearing on the motion, the state presented testimony from the officer who stopped Stiel and searched her purse. The officer testified about the stop and search, as described above. In his testimony, the officer clarified that at the time he searched Stiel's purse, she had been fully cooperative, and she had not exhibited any behaviors that led the officer to believe he was in danger. He alsoexplained that he told Stiel that paying the cash bail would satisfy the warrant and she would not be transported to jail. The officer testified that "typically they are under arrest until they are able to obtain bail money" but noted that after discovering the drugs, Stiel "was now in custodial arrest." Further, he stated that he did not handcuff Stiel until after he searched her purse.
The district court denied Stiel's motion to suppress. In doing so, the district court concluded that the officer had a basis to stop Stiel and that it was reasonable for the officer to search Stiel's purse based on officer safety concerns. Alternatively, the district court determined that impoundment of the vehicle was reasonable because the vehicle did not have valid insurance, and as a result, could not be driven lawfully. The district court therefore concluded that the purse would have been searched inevitably as part of the inventory search.
After the denial of her motion to suppress, Stiel waived her right to a jury trial and stipulated to the state's case pursuant to rule 26.01, subdivision 4 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure, preserving her right to appeal the suppression ruling. The district court found Stiel guilty of third-degree possession of a controlled substance and sentenced her to 49 months in prison. Stiel appeals.
Stiel challenges the denial of her motion to suppress the methamphetamine. Specifically, Stiel argues that no exception to the warrant requirement allowed the officer's warrantless search of her purse. When evaluating a district court's pretrial order on amotion to suppress, we review factual findings for clear error and legal determinations de novo. State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn. 2008).
Both the United States and Minnesota Constitutions prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. "In general, warrantless searches and seizures are unreasonable in the absence of a legally recognized exception to the warrant requirement." State v. Horst, 880 N.W.2d 24, 33 (Minn. 2016). Here, police did not have a warrant authorizing the search of Stiel's purse. Therefore, unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies, the search of Stiel's purse was unconstitutional. State v. Ture, 632 N.W.2d 621, 627 (Minn. 2001). And it is the state's burden to demonstrate that an exception to the warrant requirement applies in a particular case. Id.
Here, the state contends that three exceptions to the warrant requirement justified the officer's search of Stiel's purse: (1) the "stop-and-frisk" exception stemming from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968), (2) the search-incident-to-arrest exception, and (3) the doctrine of inevitable discovery. We review each exception in turn.
The state first argues that the Terry exception to the warrant requirement applies here. The Terry exception permits police to "stop and frisk a person when (1) they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that a suspect might be engaged in criminal activity and (2) the officer reasonably believes the suspect might be armed and dangerous." State v. Dickerson, 481 N.W.2d 840, 843 (1992) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S. Ct. at 1884), aff'd, 508 U.S. 366, 113 S. Ct. 2130 (1993). When determining whether reasonable,articulable suspicion exists, we consider the totality of the circumstances, including that police officers' specialized training may allow them to make inferences or deductions that might elude an untrained person. State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239, 251-52 (Minn. 2007).
Here, the district court concluded that the search of Stiel's purse was reasonable based on officer safety concerns. In reaching this conclusion, the district court stated that "[e]ven during a routine stop, it is not reasonable that an officer would provide a detained person with a purse without searching it first for weapons and contraband."
But the district court did not point to any specific facts that would provide the officer with reasonable, articulable suspicion that Stiel was armed or dangerous. Nothing in the officer's testimony indicates that he had a particularized basis to suspect that Stiel may have weapons warranting a search of her purse. In fact, the officer acknowledged that she was cooperative and provided him with the information that he requested. Further, when asked on cross-examination if he had any reason to consider Stiel a danger to his safety, the officer indicated that Stiel "had not exhibited any behaviors." Finally, the officer stopped Stiel for an equipment violation and then learned she had a warrant for driving after license revocation—both of which are nonviolent offenses. None of these facts give rise to the reasonable, articulable suspicion required for the Terry exception to apply.
Our analysis is bolstered by State v. Varnado, 582 N.W.2d 886 (Minn. 1998). In Varnado, officers stopped a driver for a cracked windshield and asked for her driver's license. 582 N.W.2d at 888. The driver said she did not have it, and officers frisked her and placed her in the back of a police car. Id. During the frisk, officers discovered drugs. Id. at 889. The Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that officers had no reason to believethat the driver was armed or dangerous, noting the "innocuous nature" of the stop, that the driver...
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