State v. Widmer

• Decision Date: 15 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. A-1-CA-34272,A-1-CA-34272
• Citation: 482 P.3d 1254
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ronald WIDMER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

482 P.3d 1254

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Ronald WIDMER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. A-1-CA-34272

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

Filing Date: September 15, 2020

Certiorari Denied, November 3, 2020, No. S-1-SC-38500

Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, John Kloss, Assistant Attorney General, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellee

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender, C. David Henderson, Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant

HANISEE, Chief Judge.

{1} This case is before us on remand from our New Mexico Supreme Court to address the arguments raised by Defendant Ronald Widmer that were not addressed in our original opinion filed on March 5, 2018, and in particular, Defendant's argument concerning the lawfulness of his arrest. State v. Widmer (Widmer I ), 2018-NMCA-035, ¶ 1, 419 P.3d 714, rev'd , State v. Widmer (Widmer II ), 2020-NMSC-007, ¶¶ 8, 42-44, 461 P.3d 881. The jury convicted Defendant of one count of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-31-23(A) (2011, amended 2019). Given our Supreme Court's decision that Defendant's pre-Mirandized statements were admissible because the Quarles public safety exception applied to permit the officer's question to him, we address Defendant's remaining arguments on appeal: whether (1) the district court erred in not suppressing evidence and statements resulting from an unlawful arrest; (2) the district court erred in admitting lapel camera evidence under Rule 11-106 NMRA ; and (3) the district court erred in not granting a continuance. See Widmer II , 2020-NMSC-007, ¶ 1, 461 P.3d 881 ; New York v. Quarles , 467 U.S. 649, 655-56, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} Defendant's drug possession charge arose from an incident in which Albuquerque Police Department (APD) officers investigated whether a scooter in Defendant's possession was stolen. Widmer I , 2018-NMCA-035, ¶ 2, 419 P.3d 714. Officers ran Defendant's personal identification information and the scooter's vehicle identification number (VIN) through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to check for outstanding warrants and any stolen vehicle reports and discovered that there were two outstanding felony warrants for Defendant's arrest. Widmer II , 2020-NMSC-007, ¶¶ 2, 15, 461 P.3d 881. "Officers placed Defendant in handcuffs while they awaited confirmation that the warrants were valid." Id. ¶ 2. "As part of the arrest procedures ... officers put on protective gloves, and Officer Apodaca asked Defendant, ‘Is there anything on your person that I should know about?’ " Id. ¶ 16. "Defendant responded, ‘I have meth[,]’ [and o]fficers collected a white powder from inside a pill container hanging from Defendant's belt loop." Id. ¶ 3 ; Widmer I , 2018-NMCA-035, ¶ 7, 419 P.3d 714. After the physical evidence was placed in a plastic evidence bag, Defendant muttered, "I'm gonna have another charge now." Widmer II , 2020-NMSC-007, ¶ 3, 461 P.3d 881. "Shortly thereafter, APD dispatch confirmed that the arrest warrant[s] for Defendant [were] outstanding," Widmer I , 2018-NMCA-035, ¶ 7, 419 P.3d 714, and "[t]he white powder recovered from Defendant's belt loop tested positive for methamphetamine." Widmer II , 2020-NMSC-007, ¶ 3, 461 P.3d 881. As a result, Defendant was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance. At trial, Defendant moved to suppress the evidence and statements resulting from the search incident to the arrest, but the district court denied the motion, and Defendant was ultimately convicted for felony possession of methamphetamine. Defendant appeals.

DISCUSSION

I. The District Court Did Not Err in Denying Defendant's Motion to Suppress Evidence and Statements Because Defendant's Arrest Was Lawful, and a Contemporaneous Search Incident to Arrest Was Permitted

{3} Defendant's challenge to the district court's denial of the motion to suppress focuses on the legality of the arrest itself. Defendant argues that his arrest was unlawful because local police department policy prohibits making an arrest based on dispatch's preliminary report regarding the existence of an outstanding warrant until such warrant is confirmed. Because Defendant was arrested before the reported warrants were confirmed minutes later, he contends that the arrest was unlawful, and thus, the district court should have suppressed the evidence (the red pill container from his belt loop) as well as Defendant's statements resulting from the search incident to the allegedly "unlawful" arrest. We disagree.

{4} "Appellate review of a district court's decision regarding a motion to suppress evidence involves mixed questions of fact and law." State v. Urioste , 2002-NMSC-023, ¶ 6, 132 N.M. 592, 52 P.3d 964. "The [district] court's denial of a motion to suppress will not be disturbed on appeal if it is supported by substantial evidence, unless it appears that the determination was incorrectly premised." State v. Jacobs , 2000-NMSC-026, ¶ 34, 129 N.M. 448, 10 P.3d 127 ; accord State v. Trangucci , 1990-NMCA-009, ¶ 13, 110 N.M. 385, 796 P.2d 606. We review the application of law to the facts de novo but view the facts in the light most favorable to the State, as the prevailing party. State v. Jones , 2002-NMCA-019, ¶ 9, 131 N.M. 586, 40 P.3d 1030.

{5} In support of his argument that his arrest was illegal, Defendant cites primarily to Officer Frank Baca's testimony on local police department policy, which suggests that officers may not make an arrest based on a preliminary warrant report until the warrant is secondarily confirmed. However, our appellate courts have never held that arrest upon a NCIC-reported felony arrest warrant may only follow some secondary confirmation that the warrant is accurate or remains active. See Widmer I , 2018-NMCA-035, ¶ 43, 419 P.3d 714 (Hanisee, J., dissenting) ("While ensuring the accuracy of known arrest warrants is laudable, it is not a constitutional mandate."). We decline to embrace such a standard today. That is because a police officer's non-adherence to a given police department policy does not in and of itself suffice to establish a constitutional violation. See Virginia v. Moore , 553 U.S. 164, 176, 128 S.Ct. 1598, 170 L.Ed.2d 559 (2008) ("[W]hile [s]tates are free to regulate ... arrests however they desire, state restrictions [on arrests] do not alter the Fourth Amendment's protections."); Tanberg v. Sholtis , 401 F.3d 1151, 1163-64 (10th Cir. 2005) ("That an arrest violated police department procedures does not make it more or less likely that the arrest implicates the Fourth Amendment[.]"); United States v. Wilson , 699 F.3d 235, 243 (2d Cir. 2012) ("[T]he Fourth Amendment does not generally incorporate local statutory or regulatory restrictions on seizures and ... the violation of such restrictions will not generally affect the constitutionality of a seizure supported by probable cause."). Conversely, an officer's adherence to a constitutionally flawed police department policy does not suffice to excuse a constitutional violation. See United States v. Brown , 934 F.3d 1278, 1296 (11th Cir. 2019) (reasoning that while a jury may consider police department policy as relevant evidence, it may not substitute the policy for the constitutional standard); cf. City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle , 471 U.S. 808, 812, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985) (explaining that a city may be held liable when the official policy of the city causes an officer to deprive a person of his or her constitutional rights in the execution of such policy). As well, a law enforcement officer's understanding of the law—something a police department policy is not, in any event—is not dispositive in determining the constitutionality of a search or seizure. See State v. Martinez , 1997-NMCA-048, ¶ 15, 123 N.M. 405, 940 P.2d 1200 ("The state of mind of the law enforcement officer is not dispositive in determining the constitutionality of a search or seizure. Ordinarily, the propriety of an officer's action is based on the information known to the officer, not on the officer's motive or understanding of the law.").

{6} We conclude that Defendant was legally arrested when a NCIC database search revealed the existence of two outstanding felony arrest warrants for Defendant, regardless of police department policy regarding secondary confirmation of the accuracy of the arrest warrant or warrants. That the policy-required secondary confirmation of Defendant's warrants was ongoing when Defendant was handcuffed and searched during officers’ on-scene investigation does not invalidate the legality of the arrest and constitutionality of the contemporaneous search thereto. Also, Defendant here does not challenge the lawfulness of the initial stop, the NCIC database search, nor the validity of his arrest warrants.

{7} Our holding in this regard is consistent also with the premise upon which past supportive New Mexico case law rests, which upheld the validity of arrests made pursuant to outstanding warrants, even without physical possession of the underlying warrant, when the validity of the warrant is unchallenged. See State v. Grijalva , 1973-NMCA-061, ¶¶ 5, 10-13, 85 N.M. 127, 509 P.2d 894 (holding that arrest and seizure were lawful where dispatch indicated the defendant had an outstanding warrant and that in the absence of a challenge to the validity of an arrest warrant, physical possession of the warrant is not required for a lawful arrest). We similarly hold that Defendant's arrest, pursuant to valid and unchallenged arrest warrants, irrespective of any secondary confirmation per local police department policy, was lawful.

{8} In his reply brief, Defendant cites to State v. Yazzie for the proposition that preliminarily indication by dispatch of a possible warrant could not give rise to probable cause for an arrest. 2016-NMSC-026, ¶¶ 2, 40, 376 P.3d 858. However, Yazzie is inapposite to the case at bar. There, our Supreme Court...