State v. Wharton

• Citation: 510 P.3d 682
• Decision Date: 23 May 2022
• Docket Number: Docket No. 48631
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Christina Eve WHARTON, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Idaho

510 P.3d 682

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Christina Eve WHARTON, Defendant-Respondent.

Docket No. 48631

Supreme Court of Idaho, Boise, February 2022 Term.

Opinion filed: May 23, 2022

Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for Appellant. Ken Jorgensen argued.

Eric D. Fredericksen, State Appellant Public Defender, Boise, for Respondent. Andrea Reynolds argued.

BRODY, Justice.

This appeal arises out of a traffic stop where a single officer, without having reasonable suspicion that a crime involving the passenger was afoot, checked the passenger for outstanding warrants. The officer used her patrol vehicle's computer and received a "hit" for a warrant and arrested the passenger. After the arrest, the officer discovered methamphetamine in the passenger's purse, the rear of the patrol vehicle where the passenger was seated, and on the passenger's person. The district court ordered the methamphetamine evidence suppressed after concluding the officer unlawfully extended the traffic stop by checking the passenger for outstanding warrants absent reasonable suspicion or a safety justification particular to that stop. We reverse and remand as the Fourth Amendment permits law enforcement to check passengers for outstanding warrants as a matter of course during traffic stops because of officer safety concerns.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On the night of Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Officer Kelsey Torres of the Post Falls Police Department stopped a vehicle on an entrance ramp to I-90 for failing to signal and making an improper turn in violation of Idaho Code sections 49-808 and 49-644. While approaching the vehicle, Officer Torres noticed there were three occupants in the car: the driver, Christina Wharton (a front seat passenger), and a juvenile (a rear seat passenger). Officer Torres testified at the suppression hearing that there was minimal lighting surrounding the vehicle, but she did not observe any "furtive" movements by any occupants. Upon arriving at the driver's window, Officer Torres recognized Wharton as an individual she had previously arrested on an arrest warrant. Officer Torres testified that she knew Wharton's name from memory without needing Wharton's identification.

Officer Torres asked for, and collected, the license, registration, and proof of insurance from the driver. Officer Torres then turned to Wharton for her identification. The driver testified that Officer Torres, based on her tone, did not "ask" but "demand[ed]" Wharton produce identification. Nonetheless, Wharton handed her identification (presumptively her driver's license) to Officer Torres. Officer Torres then returned to her patrol vehicle. During the interaction, Officer Torres did not notice any weapons in the vehicle, nor did she see any other evidence of criminal activity.

Using her patrol vehicle's computer, Officer Torres ran a warrant check against the driver and Wharton. Officer Torres could not recall the order in which she ran the checks. Nevertheless, Officer Torres received a "hit" indicating there was an arrest warrant for Wharton out of Spokane County, Washington. Officer Torres estimated two minutes elapsed between the time she left the stopped vehicle and the time she received the "hit" on Wharton. Officer Torres then requested dispatch to confirm the warrant's validity. Officer Torres testified that based on past experiences, she needed to confirm the warrant was still valid and whether it was extraditable. It took dispatch approximately five minutes to confirm the warrant was valid and extraditable. Officer Torres then called for a backup officer, returned to the stopped vehicle, arrested Wharton, and placed her in the back of the patrol vehicle.

The juvenile in the stopped vehicle, Wharton's daughter, was not comfortable staying with the driver so Wharton requested that Officer Torres retrieve Wharton's cell phone from Wharton's purse to contact a ride for her daughter. In retrieving Wharton's cell phone, Officer Torres found a bag with a white substance that, based upon her training and experience, Officer Torres suspected to be methamphetamine. When Officer Torres returned to her patrol vehicle, she saw what she believed to be methamphetamine "all over" the back seat of her patrol car and Wharton. Sometime later, Wharton admitted to having methamphetamine on her person inside the patrol vehicle.

The day after the stop, the State filed a criminal complaint charging Wharton with possession of a controlled substance. Wharton eventually pleaded "not-guilty" and filed a motion to suppress the methamphetamine evidence. Wharton argued that Officer Torres unlawfully extended the stop when she "detoured" to investigate Wharton, the passenger, without a justifiable safety concern under the circumstances of the stop. In response, the State argued that Officer Torres could permissibly check Wharton for outstanding warrants as a per se safety precaution during the traffic stop. In the alternative, the State argued that if it needed to show there was a particular safety justification, any burden was met based on the totality of the circumstances. The district court determined that the stop was unlawfully extended unless the State could show that Officer Torres had a safety justification, particular to the circumstances of the stop, to check Wharton for any outstanding warrants. The district court ultimately concluded the State did not carry its burden and ordered the methamphetamine evidence suppressed. The State timely appealed.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"The Court reviews the denial of a motion to suppress using a bifurcated standard." State v. Linze , 161 Idaho 605, 607, 389 P.3d 150, 152 (2016). We accept the trial court's findings of fact unless they are "clearly erroneous." State v. Purdum , 147 Idaho 206, 207, 207 P.3d 182, 183 (2009). "However, [we] freely review the trial court's application of constitutional principles in light of the facts found." Id .

III. ANALYSIS

This appeal requires us to resolve a question of law under the Fourth Amendment as it relates to passengers during a lawful traffic stop. This is not a case where two officers simultaneously conducted warrant checks against a driver and a passenger. See, e.g. , State v. Roe , 140 Idaho 176, 182, 90 P.3d 926, 932 (Ct. App. 2004). Instead, this is a case where a single officer conducted warrant checks against both the driver and passenger in an unknown order.

The State contends the Fourth Amendment permits an officer to, as a matter of course, run a warrant check on passengers as a "negligibly burdensome" precaution for officer safety during a traffic stop. The State argues this check does not unlawfully extend or "add time to" a traffic-stop in violation of Rodriguez v. United States , 575 U.S. 348, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), because it is part of the "mission" itself. In response, Wharton argues that the Fourth Amendment forbids such a bright line rule. In Wharton's view, checking passengers for outstanding warrants is not part of the traffic "mission" and unlawfully extends the traffic stop unless there is added reasonable suspicion, or the State justifies the intrusion as necessary to officer safety under the circumstances of that stop. For the reasons discussed below, we agree with the State.

The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. CONST. amend. IV. This guarantee is incorporated to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mapp v. Ohio , 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, and forbids not all searches and seizures, but "unreasonable" searches and seizures. State v. Hobson , 95 Idaho 920, 924, 523 P.2d 523, 527 (1974) (citations omitted). "Evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is subject to the exclusionary rule, which requires unlawfully seized evidence to be excluded from trial." State v. Cohagan , 162 Idaho 717, 720, 404 P.3d 659, 662 (2017). "The exclusionary rule encompasses both the primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure and ... evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality, the so-called fruit of the poisonous tree." Utah v. Strieff , 579 U.S. 232, 237, 136 S.Ct. 2056, 195 L.Ed.2d 400 (2016) (quotations omitted).

In Rodriguez , the United States Supreme Court clarified that the Fourth Amendment limits law enforcement to only those actions that are carefully tailored to a traffic stop's "mission." 575 U.S. at 354, 135 S.Ct. 1609. The "mission" of a traffic stop has two pillars: "[1] to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop, ... and [2] [to] attend to related safety concerns[.]" Id . ; see also State v. Martinez , 424 P.3d 83, 97 (Utah 2017) (noting the same). A traffic stop may last no longer than necessary to effectuate its mission, and the "[a]uthority for the seizure ... ends when tasks tied to the traffic mission are—or reasonably should have been—completed." Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 354, 135 S.Ct. 1609. "Accordingly, ‘[o]n-scene investigation into other crimes ... [and] safety precautions taken in order to facilitate such detours’ are outside the scope of a traffic stop's mission and must be justified by independent reasonable suspicion if they extend the duration of the stop." State v. Hale , 168 Idaho 863, 868, 489 P.3d 450, 455 (2021) (alternations original) (quoting Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 356–57, 135 S.Ct. 1609 ).

Under these pillars are two types of permissible law enforcement actions: (1) "ordinary inquires incident to the traffic stop"; and (2) "negligibly burdensome precautions" an officer may need to take "in order to complete his mission safely." Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 355, 356, 135 S.Ct. 1609 (alteration omitted). Ordinary inquiries include, but are not limited to, "checking the driver's...