United States v. Rutledge, 3:20-CR-30144-RAL
| Decision Date | 24 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | 3:20-CR-30144-RAL |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. JAMES RUTLEDGE, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota |
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,
v.
JAMES RUTLEDGE, Defendant.
No. 3:20-CR-30144-RAL
United States District Court, D. South Dakota, Central Division
September 24, 2021
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION FOR DISPOSITION OF MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE
MARK A. MORENO, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
In this methamphetamine distribution case, James Rutledge seeks to suppress all evidence obtained during, and as a result of, a search of his vehicle. Because the evidence flowed from a valid traffic enforcement stop and probable cause search of the vehicle, Rutledge's suppression motion should be denied.
BACKGROUND
In the summer of 2020, officers with the Northern Plains Safe Trails Drug Enforcement Task Force were investigating methamphetamine distribution around Winner, South Dakota. Based on information generated by an informant and obtained from pen register trap and trace (PRTT) warrants of local dealers' phones, officers believed Rutledge was bringing in methamphetamine from Colorado to the Winner area using rental vehicles. As the investigation broadened to include Rutledge, Division
of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Agent Alexa D'Acunto secured a PRTT warrant for phone numbers associated with him.
One of the numbers, initially located in South Dakota, was transferred to another phone in Colorado. Officers monitored the phone and noticed that it began to travel from Colorado to South Dakota during the night and on into the early morning hours of August 27-28, 2020. Tracking data showed the phone was headed north on U.S. Highway 183, a route that would come through Colome, South Dakota. D'Acunto and Task Force officers planned an interdiction stop of the vehicle carrying the phone. Without knowing who was driving the vehicle or what kind it was (aside from an expectation that it was rented), D'Acunto instructed officers to conduct a traffic stop of the vehicle transporting the phone once they developed probable cause to do so.
In Colome, Highway Patrol Trooper Dylan Dowling and BIA Agent Derek Parish watched and waited close to the intersection of U.S. Highways 183 and 18 in an unmarked unit without a dash camera. From their secluded position, they could see the two offset stop signs that an approaching northbound vehicle would encounter. But because of the layout of the intersection, it was less clear from their vantage point whether a vehicle that reached the intersection continued north or west.
The officers waited in the morning darkness. No vehicles came from the south until about 4:50 am, when a white van with Florida license plates approached. The van made a complete stop at the first stop sign, but not the second. Dowling informed other Task Force officers of the traffic violation and reported that the van headed west.
Highway Patrol Sergeant John Lord, who was nearby, responded. Lord headed south on U.S. 183, passing a white van two miles north of the U.S. 183/18 intersection. A short time later, other officers communicated that they were unable to locate a white van west of the intersection on U.S. 18. Lord turned around, located the van that he had just passed, and pulled it over. No other vehicles were in the area.
Lord approached the van, noticed a red mini torch in the center console, and advised the male driver that he had been stopped for failing to stop at a stop sign in Colome. Lord asked the driver for his license and vehicle information. The driver, Rutledge, handed over his South Dakota driver's license and the passenger produced a rental car agreement. Both allegedly displayed signs of nervousness. Rutledge got out of the vehicle and Lord performed a quick pat down before he and Rutledge had a seat in the patrol car. Lord began to write Rutledge a warning ticket for the stop sign violation.
As he did so, Lord asked Rutledge where the two were going. Rutledge replied, “it doesn't matter, just personal issues.” Rutledge then briefly spoke with Lord, who inquired about Rutledge's current address. Rutledge said that he was “kind of transitory right now” and that he did not know where he wanted to be, but ultimately provided a mailing address in Boulder, Colorado.
In the midst of updating Rutledge's address and writing the ticket, Trooper Jordan Anderson arrived with his police service dog, Demi. Lord notified Rutledge that while he was not accusing Rutledge of anything, Anderson and Demi would circle the
van because of certain suspicious signs Lord had seen from Rutledge. Rutledge refused to consent to a search of the van.
Ten minutes after the stop and eight minutes after Rutledge entered Lord's car, Anderson deployed Demi. She went around the van once and alerted to the presence of drugs in the rear driver's side corner. Mindful of the alert, Trooper Wes Fischer removed the passenger, Keirsten Wilson, from the van. Fisher talked with Wilson, who gave a false name and date of birth, while Lord finished writing the ticket. Lord exited his car, conferred with Anderson, then returned and detained Rutledge while officers searched the van. Handcuffed, Rutledge commented that he was “tracked up”[1] and that everything in the van belonged to him.
In their search of the van, officers discovered loose methamphetamine, a vape pen, two scales with methamphetamine residue on them, marijuana from a Colorado dispensary, needles, and a safe. An officer brought the safe key, seized before from Rutledge's wallet, back to the scene and opened the safe. Inside, officers found 200 grams of methamphetamine and a 9mm handgun.
Within a day of the search and his arrest, D'Acunto interviewed Rutledge at the Winner City Jail. After she first advised Rutledge of his Miranda rights and then questioned him about the methamphetamine in the van and the contents of the safe, Rutledge admitted that he smoked and sold methamphetamine and that the gun was
his. He also talked about his supply sources and distribution of methamphetamine in the Winner vicinity and elsewhere.
Later, a federal grand jury indicted Rutledge on one count of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. Rutledge now moves to suppress the evidence seized as a result of his traffic stop and statements he made during his postarrest questioning.[2] The government opposes the motion.[3]
DISCUSSION
Rutledge attacks the legality of the traffic stop and expansion of it, the scope of the vehicle search, and his interview.[4] The Court addresses each in turn.
A. The Stop
Rutledge at first claims that Lord lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to believe Rutledge committed a traffic offense and therefore had no lawful basis for the stop.[5] Because, he asserts, the initial stop was unconstitutional, all subsequent evidence that officers obtained is the fruit of a poisonous tree and subject to exclusion.
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure ... against unreasonable searches and seizures.”[6] The stop of a motor vehicle is a “seizure” of its occupants that must be conducted in accordance with this Amendment.[7] A traffic stop comports with the Amendment if it is supported by probable cause or reasonable suspicion.[8]
Reasonable suspicion arises when an officer “is aware of particularized, objective facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant suspicion a crime is being committed.”[9] Probable cause to conduct a stop exists when an officer observes any minor traffic violation. Any ulterior motive the officer may have for the stop is irrelevant.[10]
The collective knowledge doctrine provides that “probable cause may be based on the collective knowledge of all law enforcement officers involved in an investigation and need not be based solely upon the information within the knowledge of the officer on the scene if there is some degree of communication.”[11] Under this doctrine, an officer
on scene may stop a vehicle, when asked to do so, without knowing the factual basis for the stop.[12]
South Dakota law requires that:
[E]very driver of a vehicle approaching a stop intersection indicated by a stop sign shall come to a full stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or if none, then at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway before entering the intersection[.][13]
Dowling, with over a decade of experience in law enforcement, testified that he observed Rutledge's van come to a complete stop at the first sign, where there is not a clear view of traffic approaching from the west, [14] then roll through the second.[15] Seeing this, Dowling had probable cause to conduct a traffic stop. He relayed to Lord and
Anderson that a white van failed to stop at the stop sign and proceeded west.[16] While seemingly acknowledging that Dowling had probable cause for the stop, Rutledge maintains that Lord did not because the information Dowling provided, after the stop sign violation, was partially incorrect.
Dowling's mistake about the direction the van traveled after the traffic offense did not vitiate Lord's ability to pull the van over. Reasonable suspicion for a stop requires a “particularized and objective” basis for suspecting criminal activity, and turns on what “the officer reasonably knew at the time.”[17] Dowling informed Lord that a white van rolled the stop sign.[18] At roughly five in the morning, no other vehicles, much less other white vans, had passed through the intersection from the south in the preceding hours.[19] When made aware that the white van did not go west, Lord turned around and stopped the same colored van...
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