State v. Tyler
| Decision Date | 30 August 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 39014.,39014. |
| Citation | 153 Idaho 623,288 P.3d 840 |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Brent Jacob TYLER, Defendant–Respondent. |
Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Russell J. Spencer, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for appellant. Russell J. Spencer argued.
Sara B. Thomas, State Appellate Public Defender; Brian R. Dickson, Deputy Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for respondent. Brian R. Dickson argued.
Brent Jacob Tyler was charged with possession of a controlled substance. Prior to trial, the district court granted Tyler's motion to suppress evidence discovered in his pockets after an officer reached under his jackets during a pat-down frisk for weapons. The State appeals, and asserts that the district court applied an incorrect standard for pat-down frisks. We affirm.
On November 11, 2010, officers from the narcotics unit of the Twin Falls Police Department asked another officer to conduct a traffic stop of a vehicle that was observed making an illegal U-turn. Upon making the stop, the officer recognized the driver, knew that he was on probation, and decided to search the driver and his vehicle in accordance with the terms of the driver's probation. Tyler was a passenger in the vehicle. The officer asked Tyler to exit the vehicle and asked him if he had any weapons. Tyler reported that he had an X-acto brand knife and he moved one of his two jackets aside so the officer could see it protruding from the left breast pocket of his shirt.1 Tyler then attempted to retrieve the knife for the officer, prompting the officer to repeatedly ask Tyler not to reach for it. At this point, the following exchange occurred:
The officer asked Tyler to turn around and to interlace his fingers behind his back so the officer could control his hands. Standing behind Tyler, the officer reached around him and removed the knife from the left breast pocket of his shirt. The officer then reached inside and underneath Tyler's two jackets to pat down the right breast pocket of Tyler's flannel shirt. The officer testified that he did not need to unzip, unbutton, or remove Tyler's jackets in order to access the pockets because the jackets were "open." While patting down the pocket, the officer felt an object that he recognized as a syringe that was "drawn up as if it was loaded with something." After the officer located and removed the syringe from Tyler's pocket, Tyler objected to the frisk as follows:
The officer removed the syringe, determined that it appeared to contain methamphetamine, placed Tyler under arrest, and searched Tyler's other pockets yielding the discovery of several pills and a small plastic bag containing a white crystal substance.
Tyler was charged with possession of a controlled substance.
Tyler filed a motion to suppress evidence including the syringe, its contents, and all evidence discovered subsequent to his arrest. Tyler asserted that the officer exceeded the scope of a pat-down by reaching inside his jackets. The State argued that the frisk was reasonable based on both Tyler's consent and the need for officer safety. The district court determined that the frisk was based only on Tyler's consent and that the officer exceeded the scope of that consent. In determining the scope of Tyler's consent to a pat-down, the district court concluded that under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), "a pat-down is reasonably understood to involve the passing of an officer's hands over the outside of a person's clothing only, commonly to determine whether the person is carrying a weapon," and that in this case, "the search is illegal as being beyond the scope of the pat-down, as that term was understood." Therefore, the court granted Tyler's suppression motion. The State appeals.
A warrantless search is presumptively unreasonable unless it falls within certain special and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454–55, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2031–32, 29 L.Ed.2d 564, 575–76 (1971) ; State v. Ferreira, 133 Idaho 474, 479, 988 P.2d 700, 705 (Ct.App.1999). In Terry, the United States Supreme Court articulated a stop-and-frisk exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. An officer may frisk an individual if the officer can point to specific and articulable facts that would lead a reasonably prudent person to believe that the individual with whom the officer is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous and nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel this belief. Id. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d at 909; State v. Babb, 133 Idaho 890, 892, 994 P.2d 633, 635 (Ct.App.2000) ; State v. Fleenor, 133 Idaho 552, 555, 989 P.2d 784, 787 (Ct.App.1999). In our analysis of a frisk, we look to the facts known to the officer on the scene and the inferences of risk of danger reasonably drawn from the totality of those specific circumstances. Babb, 133 Idaho at 892, 994 P.2d at 635; Fleenor, 133 Idaho at 555, 989 P.2d at 787. See also State v. Muir, 116 Idaho 565, 567–68, 777 P.2d 1238, 1240–41 (Ct.App.1989).
A warrantless search may also be permissible when conducted pursuant to an individual's consent. State v. Johnson, 110 Idaho 516, 522, 716 P.2d 1288, 1294 (1986) ; State v. Abeyta, 131 Idaho 704, 707, 963 P.2d 387, 390 (Ct.App.1998). In such instances, the State has the burden of demonstrating consent by a preponderance of the evidence. State v. Kilby, 130 Idaho 747, 749, 947 P.2d 420, 422 (Ct.App.1997). Consent to search may be in the form of words, gestures, or conduct. State v. Knapp, 120 Idaho 343, 348, 815 P.2d 1083, 1088 (Ct.App.1991). It is well settled that when the basis for a search is consent, the State must conform its search to the limitations placed upon the right granted by the consent. State v. Turek, 150 Idaho 745, 749, 250 P.3d 796, 800 (Ct.App.2011) ; State v. Ballou, 145 Idaho 840, 849, 186 P.3d 696, 705 (Ct.App.2008) ; State v. Thorpe, 141 Idaho 151, 154, 106 P.3d 477, 480 (Ct.App.2004). The standard for measuring the scope of consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of objective reasonableness, or in other words what a reasonable person would have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect. Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 251, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 1803–04, 114 L.Ed.2d 297, 302–03 (1991) ; Ballou, 145 Idaho at 849, 186 P.3d at 705.
The standard of review of a suppression motion based on a Fourth Amendment violation is bifurcated. When a decision on a motion to suppress is challenged, we accept the trial court's findings of fact that are supported by substantial evidence, but we freely review the application of constitutional principles to the facts as found. State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 559, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct.App.1996). At a suppression hearing, the power to assess the credibility of witnesses, resolve factual conflicts, weigh evidence, and draw factual inferences is vested in the trial court. State v. Valdez–Molina, 127 Idaho 102, 106, 897 P.2d 993, 997 (1995) ; State v. Schevers, 132 Idaho 786, 789, 979 P.2d 659, 662 (Ct.App.1999).
The district court's ruling that the search was illegal "as being beyond the scope of a pat-down, as that term was understood" could be interpreted to mean either that the officer exceeded the scope of Tyler's consent or the scope of a pat-down pursuant to Terry. In this case, where Tyler consented to "a Terry search," the State argues that the only issue on appeal is whether the search performed exceeded the scope of a permissible search under Terry. The State challenges both the district court's legal conclusion that a Terry frisk is limited to the outer layer of clothing, and the court's factual finding that Tyler's shirt pocket was covered by his jackets along with the implication that it was thus not an outer layer of clothing.
We first address the standards governing the scope of a pat-down frisk under Terry. The Supreme Court has defined a frisk as "a carefully limited search of the outer clothing." Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1885, 20 L.Ed.2d at 911. See also Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 330, 129 S.Ct. 781, 786, 172 L.Ed.2d 694, 702 (2009) (); Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 375, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 2137, 124 L.Ed.2d 334, 346 (1993) (). This Court has repeatedly reiterated that under Terry, a protective frisk is generally limited to a pat-down of the outer clothing. State v. Crooks, 150 Idaho 117, 119, 244 P.3d 261, 263 (Ct.App.2010) (); State v. Bishop, 146 Idaho 804, 818, 203 P.3d 1203, 1217 (2009) (same); State v. Faith, 141 Idaho 728, 730, 117 P.3d 142, 144 (Ct.App.2005) (...
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