State v. Waters

• Decision Date: 12 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. 2000-K-0356.,2000-K-0356.
• Citation: 780 So.2d 1053
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Tony A. WATERS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

780 So.2d 1053

STATE of Louisiana v. Tony A. WATERS.

No. 2000-K-0356.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

March 12, 2001.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Walter P. Reed, District Attorney, Dorothy A. Pendergast, Metairie, Counsel for Applicant.

Philip M. Bradley, Baton Rouge, Arthur A. Lemann, III, New Orleans, Counsel for Respondent.

PER CURIAM:

This prosecution of respondent arises out of the seizure from his car of approximately 60 pounds of marijuana following an early morning traffic stop on Interstate 12 ("I-12") as it passes through St. Tammany Parish. The state charged respondent with possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute in violation of La.R.S. 40:966(A)(1). After the trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence, respondent entered a plea of guilty as charged, reserving his right to appeal from the court's adverse ruling on the suppression issue. See State v. Crosby, 338 So.2d 584 (La.1976). The trial court subsequently sentenced respondent to 13 years imprisonment at hard labor. On appeal, the First Circuit reversed the ruling of the trial court on the motion to suppress and vacated respondent's guilty plea and sentence. State v. Waters, 99-0407 (La.App. 1st Cir.11/5/99), 751 So.2d 290. We granted the state's application to review the correctness of that determination and now reverse.

At approximately 3:10 a.m. on May 10, 1996, Corporals Magee and Edwards were seated in Magee's police unit on the eastbound shoulder of I-12 in St. Tammany Parish. As they were about to pull out onto the roadway, respondent drove by in a hatchback Toyota car. Riding with respondent were his fiancee and his 17-month-old daughter. Corporal Magee pulled out behind respondent's vehicle. As the officers approached the Toyota from behind, they observed the vehicle drift or veer to the right and make contact with the fog line running along the shoulder.

Corporal Magee testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress that in the course of working traffic duty for approximately two years of his 10 years with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, he had often come into contact with fatigued drivers, more so at that time of night than at other hours of the day. The officer testified that he was concerned the driver of the Toyota was either too fatigued to operate the vehicle safely or was intoxicated. Corporal Magee activated the emergency lights on the police unit and stopped respondent's car.

In rapid sequence, Corporal Magee informed respondent he would receive a warning citation for improper lane use in violation of La.R.S. 32:79; conducted a routine driver's license and vehicle registration check; elicited partially conflicting accounts from respondent and his passenger of their itinerary as he observed their unusually nervous behavior; determined through a computer check that respondent had prior arrests for possession with intent to distribute narcotics and manslaughter; filled out a citation form for improper lane use; and secured an equivocal consent to search the car from respondent, who saw "no need" to sign a waiver form. The officer also secured an admission by respondent's passenger that there was a weapon in the car. The passenger first directed Corporal Magee to the floorboard underneath the driver's seat, then to the floorboard underneath the passenger seat, and finally to her purse behind the passenger seat where the officer found the weapon. At that point, Corporal Magee detected an overpowering odor of raw marijuana inside the car, an odor he recognized immediately based on his training and experience.

Corporal Magee returned to the police unit and asked Corporal Edwards to come to the Toyota. When Corporal Edwards did so, he too detected what he described as an overwhelming smell of marijuana in the car. Provided with the opportunity by the officers, respondent conferred with his passenger and then gave consent to search the car, although he continued to refuse to sign the form. Corporal Magee searched the car and found a green canvas duffel bag filled with approximately twenty-one bundles of marijuana. The officer then placed respondent under arrest.

Following the discovery and seizure of the duffel bag and its contents, respondent's car was towed to the police maintenance facility where a thorough search of the car resulted in the seizure of four more bundles of marijuana found in another bag inside the car, and a plastic cup containing loose marijuana found between the seats of the car. Corporal Edwards testified that the marijuana weighed approximately 60 pounds.

In its written reasons for denying the motion to suppress, the trial court found that Corporal Magee's testimony "established a traffic violation" which, given the early morning hours, "indicated a quite reasonable suspicion that either the defendant was intoxicated or that he was too weary to safely operate a motor vehicle." The court further determined that the traffic stop then gave rise to probable cause to search the vehicle for contraband when Magee went into the vehicle to find the gun respondent's fiance admitted was inside the Toyota and then detected the reeking odor of marijuana.

The court of appeal reversed the trial court's judgment on grounds that "[i]n the absence of any testimony ... that defendant's vehicle ever left the confines of his vehicle's lane of travel, or that his contact with the fog line was coupled with other suspicious action, it was unreasonable for [the officers] to initiate an investigatory stop based solely on the officers' observations of defendant's vehicle veering to the right and making a single contact with the fog line on the side of the road." Waters, 99-0407 at 7, 751 So.2d at 294. In dissent, Judge Weimer agreed with the trial court that "[w]hen someone's driving indicates impairment, it is not unreasonable to stop them briefly to ascertain if they are fatigued or intoxicated and thus insure the safety of the driver, and passengers, and the public." Waters, 99-0407 at 2, 751 So.2d at 295 (Weimer, J., dissenting).

We concur with the trial court and the dissent that Corporal Magee had an objectively reasonable basis for stopping respondent's vehicle. As a general matter, "the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred." Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 1772, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996) (citations omitted). The standard is a purely objective one that does not take into account the subjective beliefs or expectations of the detaining officer. Whren, 517 U.S. at 813, 116 S.Ct. at 1774 ("Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis."). Although they may serve, and may often appear intended to serve, as the prelude to the investigation of much more serious offenses, even relatively minor traffic violations provide an objective basis for lawfully detaining the vehicle and its occupants. See, e.g., State v. Richards, 97-1182, p. 2 (La.App. 5th Cir.4/15/98), 713 So.2d 514, 516 (failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign); State v. Dixon, 30,495, p. 1 (La.App.2d Cir.2/25/98), 708 So.2d 506, 507 (traveling less than a car length behind lead vehicle); State v. Duran, 96-0602, p. 1 (La.App. 5th Cir.3/25/97), 693 So.2d 2, 3 (failure to signal before changing lanes). In Louisiana, as in other jurisdictions, a car which partially leaves its lane of travel and crosses the fog line either at the center of a divided highway or on the right hand shoulder of the road therefore provides the police with probable cause to believe that a traffic violation for improper lane use has occurred. State v. Inzina, 31,439, p. 12-13 (La.App. 2nd Cir.12/9/98), 728 So.2d 458, 466 (vehicle crossed right-hand fog line and nearly struck storm drain); State v. Colarte, 96-0670, p. 4 (La.App. 1st Cir.12/20/96), 688 So.2d 587, 591 (without signaling vehicle veered from the left lane into the right lane and then crossed the fog line on the shoulder), writ denied, 97-1015 (La.10/3/97), 701 So.2d 197; see also United States v. Jones, 185 F.3d 459, 461 (5th Cir.1999) (vehicle momentarily crossed the left-hand fog lane of its lane while avoiding construction work); United States v. Smith, 80 F.3d 215, 219 (7th Cir.1996) (vehicle crossed over fog line on shoulder of the lane); United States v. Quinones-Sandoval, 943 F.2d 771, 773 (7th Cir.1991)(vehicle ran over left and right fog lines while passing); United States v. Fiala, 929 F.2d 285, 286 (7th Cir.1991)(vehicle drifted roughly one-half its width over the right-hand fog line of a divided highway); but see State v. Vaughn, 448 So.2d 915, 916 (La.App. 3d Cir.1984) (vehicle crossing six inches over center fog line for approximately 10 feet and then weaving in its own lane did not give rise to reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop).

In the present case, Corporal Magee testified that respondent's Toyota merely touched the right-hand fog lane on the shoulder but did not cross it. Respondent urges this Court to find that this "almost violation" marks the de minimus point at which Whren's objective approach no longer provides a workable rule for determining the reasonableness of vehicular stops. However, La.R.S. 32:79(1) provides that on a divided roadway "[a] vehicle shall be driven as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane ... (emphasis added)." Corporal Magee therefore observed a violation of the statute, albeit a minor one, when the Toyota veered in its lane for no apparent reason and made...