United States v. Woodard

• Decision Date: 26 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-5004,20-5004
• Citation: 5 F.4th 1148
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Evan Jamon WOODARD, Defendant - Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

5 F.4th 1148

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.Evan Jamon WOODARD, Defendant - Appellant.

No. 20-5004

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED July 26, 2021

Shira Kieval, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Districts of Colorado and Wyoming, Denver, Colorado (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, with her on the briefs), on behalf of the Defendant-Appellant.

Victor A.S. Régal, Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Northern District of Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma (R. Trent Shores, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), on behalf of the Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before BACHARACH, BRISCOE, and EID, Circuit Judges.

BACHARACH, Circuit Judge.

The police stop cars for many reasons, often to issue a traffic citation or investigate a possible crime. But the police might need to stop a car for other reasons, like serving a protective order or executing a warrant.

Whatever the reason for the stop, the police sometimes need to arrest the driver. When the driver is arrested, the police must decide what to do with the car. Leaving the car where it is might sometimes lead to its vandalism or theft. South Dakota v. Opperman , 428 U.S. 364, 369, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976). So impoundment may sometimes be necessary for public safety. Id. at 368, 96 S.Ct. 3092. But when a car is impounded, the police must account for the contents. United States v. Tueller , 349 F.3d 1239, 1243 (10th Cir. 2003). So we typically allow the police to determine what's inside the car before it's impounded. Opperman , 428 U.S. at 372–74, 96 S.Ct. 3092.

But the authority to impound a car is susceptible to abuse. Florida v. Wells , 495 U.S. 1, 5, 110 S.Ct. 1632, 109 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990) (Brennan, J., concurring). For example, the police might impound a car as a pretext to search for evidence of a crime. When the police use pretext to impound the car, the Fourth Amendment typically prohibits introduction of the evidence obtained from the search. United States v. Sanders , 796 F.3d 1241, 1251 (10th Cir. 2015).

Today's case involves a pretextual search, where the police impounded a car simply as an excuse to look inside for evidence of a crime.

1. The police look for Mr. Woodard to serve a protective order and execute a warrant for a misdemeanor.

The appeal stems from the denial of a motion to suppress evidence found in the car, and the search itself stemmed from a call complaining to the police about Mr. Evan Jamon Woodard. The caller said that Mr. Woodard was fighting a huge drug case, may have smoked PCP, had three previous gun cases, and violated a protective order. After talking to the caller, the police discovered that Mr. Woodard had an outstanding warrant for misdemeanor public intoxication. With this information, the police looked for Mr. Woodard, planning to serve him with the protective order and execute the warrant.

2. The police stop Mr. Woodard's car in front of a Tulsa store, decide to impound the car, and find evidence of drug-and-gun crimes.

Police officers found Mr. Woodard in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at about 8:00 a.m. and initiated a traffic stop. Mr. Woodard pulled into a parking lot at a QuikTrip convenience store and stopped there. The police told Mr. Woodard to get out of the car, arrested him based on the warrant, and took his cellphone. Mr. Woodard then asked if he could call someone to pick up the car. One of the police officers responded "I don't think so," and the police decided to impound the car. Defendant's Mot. to Suppress Exh. 3 (body camera).

Two officers then opened the front doors and began to search the car. One officer looked in the panel on the driver's side door and on the floor under the driver's seat, saying that Mr. Woodard was "fighting a huge drug case." Defendant's Mot. to Suppress, Exh. 4 (body camera). The other officer replied that Mr. Woodard liked PCP. As the officer replied, he opened the center console.

One officer commented that he was looking for verification of car insurance, expressing doubt that Mr. Woodard had insured the car. After seeing no verification in the center console, he eventually found proof of an old insurance policy in the glove compartment. By then, however, another officer had found marijuana, cocaine, a digital scale, and a gun.

With that evidence, the police obtained a warrant allowing access to text messages on Mr. Woodard's cellphone. Those text messages provided evidence of drug dealing.

3. The evidence of drug dealing leads to criminal charges, including possession with an intent to distribute the drugs found during an earlier traffic stop.

As the police officers investigated, they discovered an earlier traffic stop of Mr. Woodard in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In that stop, the police had found cocaine, marijuana, heroin, a firearm, and ammunition.

With the benefit of the messages found on the cellphone, the government charged Mr. Woodard with crimes growing out of both traffic stops. Based on the Tulsa stop, Mr. Woodard was charged with (1) possessing cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute these drugs, (2) possessing a firearm and ammunition after a felony conviction, and (3) possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug crime. Based on the Bartlesville stop, Mr. Woodard was charged with possessing cocaine, marijuana, and heroin with intent to distribute.

In district court, Mr. Woodard moved to suppress evidence found during the Tulsa stop, including the drugs, the gun, his cellphone, and a digital scale. In moving for suppression, he argued that

• the Tulsa Police Department's policy had not authorized impoundment of his car and

• the police officers had ordered impoundment as a pretext to investigate suspected crimes.

The district court denied Mr. Woodard's motion to suppress. He was then tried and convicted on all charges.

4. The police invoke Tulsa's impoundment policy as a pretext to search the car.

The police had authority to stop the car in order to serve Mr. Woodard with the protective order and execute the warrant for public intoxication. Once Mr. Woodard pulled in front of the QuikTrip store, however, the police had to decide what to do with the car. They could leave the car there, impound it, or let Mr. Woodard call someone to pick it up. Among these options, the police chose impoundment.

The Fourth Amendment imposes "heightened requirements on police who seize vehicles from private property." United States v. Sanders , 796 F.3d 1241, 1249 (10th Cir. 2015).¹ These heightened requirements allow impoundments from private property, like the impoundment of Mr. Woodard's car, only when (1) the car is blocking traffic, (2) the car is posing an imminent threat to public safety, or (3) the impoundment is justified by a standardized policy and a reasonable, non-pretextual rationale of community caretaking. Id. at 1248.

Applying the third basis for impoundment, the district court concluded that the officers had relied on a standardized policy and a reasonable, non-pretextual rationale of community caretaking.

A. The police department's standardized policy does not authorize impoundment of the car.

Though police officers can perform community-caretaking functions, they have no "open-ended license" to impound cars from "anywhere." Caniglia v. Strom , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 1596, 1600, 209 L.Ed.2d 604 (2021).² To constrain the officers’ discretion, the Tulsa Police Department adopted a standardized impoundment policy.

The government concedes that this policy

• generally restricts impoundment to removal of vehicles from a public way and

• creates a limited exception, allowing impoundment from private property when the traffic stop follows an offense committed on a public way.

R. vol. 2, at 55–56; Government's Resp. Br. at 16. For the sake of argument, we may assume that the government has correctly interpreted the policy.

Mr. Woodard argues that the policy did not authorize impoundment of his car because he had not committed an offense on a public way. We agree.³

The police stopped Mr. Woodard to serve a protective order and execute an arrest warrant for public intoxication. The protective order and warrant were pieces of paper, not offenses. The only offense was public intoxication, and the intoxication did not take place on a public way.

The government contends that Mr. Woodard was stopped for a continuing offense: failing to pay costs for his charge of public intoxication. But failing to pay court costs is not a continuing offense. See United States v. Sullivan , 255 F.3d 1256, 1263 (10th Cir. 2001) (failure to file a tax return is not a continuing offense); United States v. Morrison , 938 F.2d 168, 170 (10th Cir. 1991) (the offenses of failing to pay taxes occurred on the dates of the filing deadlines). And even if the offense had been continuing, the failure to pay costs would have occurred where the payment was to be made or received, not on a public way. See United States v. Crawford , 115 F.3d 1397, 1406 (8th Cir. 1997).⁴

The government also contends that the Tulsa policy applied because the police had initiated the stop on a public way. But the policy authorizes impoundment "when the offense the vehicle was initially stopped for occurred on a public way," not when the stop itself occurred on a public way. Supp. R., Exh. 6 at p. 1 of 5 (emphasis added). The term "offense" typically refers to "a violation of the law; a crime, often a minor one." United States v. Collins , 859 F.3d 1207, 1212 (10th Cir. 2017) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014)). The stop of Mr. Woodard was not an offense. Because no offense took place on a public way, the policy did not allow impoundment.

The dissent concludes that the impoundment policy allowed the police to impound a car from anywhere to prevent a traffic hazard or vandalism. Dissent at 1161–63. Under the dissent's view, the policy authorizes impoundment even if no offense had occurred on a public way and no stop has been initiated there. This...