Opinion
357688
01-06-2022
People of Michigan v. Jason Edward Fletcher
UNPUBLISHED
Jackson Circuit Court LC No. 20-00475-FH
Before: Markey, P.J., and Shapiro and Ronayne Krause, JJ.
ORDER
The January 6, 2022 opinion is hereby AMENDED to correct a clerical error: The lower court number in the caption is corrected to read as 20-004275-FH.
In all other respects, the January 6, 2022 opinion remains unchanged.
Per Curiam.
The prosecution appeals by leave granted the trial court's order granting defendant's motion to suppress evidence in regard to methamphetamine seized during a search of defendant's motor vehicle by Michigan State Police Trooper Carter May following a traffic stop. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
People v Fletcher, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered August 13, 2021 (Docket No. 357688).
The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing in conjunction with defendant's motion to suppress. Trooper May was the sole witness. He testified that at approximately 3:30 a.m., on July 19, 2020, he conducted a traffic stop on South Street for an inoperable front-turn signal, which is a civil infraction. The stopped vehicle was a pickup truck driven by defendant, who was the lone occupant of the vehicle. According to Trooper May, he approached the truck and asked defendant for his driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance.
Trooper May testified that as he talked with defendant, he observed "miscellaneous clothes or whatnot" scattered about the interior of the truck. He also noted that defendant "was more nervous than the average person" and was sweating. Defendant explained that he had been in an argument with his girlfriend and was "in the process of relocating." Defendant informed Trooper May that all of the property in the truck belonged to defendant. The trooper opined that the scattered clothes could have been covering a weapon or contraband. For this reason, and because of defendant's nervous behavior, Trooper May "wanted him out of the vehicle" before he continued his investigation. The trooper added that because he did not have a partner and was alone in making the traffic stop, it was safer to have defendant standing outside of his truck while Trooper May ran the vehicle information, as opposed to allowing defendant to remain inside the vehicle. Trooper May indicated that leaving defendant in the truck could have provided defendant with the opportunity to "very easily grab a weapon and shoot" the trooper had a firearm been hidden under the clothing scattered about the vehicle's interior.
For the above-mentioned reasons, Trooper May asked defendant to step out of his vehicle. At the time that he made the request, the trooper had yet to "run" a driver's license or to check on insurance and registration. Trooper May further testified that defendant had initially been unable to provide any identification before eventually producing his driver's license. Defendant stepped out of his truck as requested. Trooper May then inquired whether there were any drugs in the vehicle, and defendant responded that there was no contraband in the truck, nor any weapons. Upon request by the trooper, defendant consented to a search of his truck. Defendant also consented to a pat-down search of his person, which Trooper May performed. The trooper testified that not more than one or two minutes passed from the time that he ordered defendant out of his truck and the time that defendant gave the consent to search his person and the vehicle. Trooper May further testified that during a search of the vehicle, he discovered a clear plastic baggie containing a crystal substance, which later tested positive for crystal methamphetamine. The methamphetamine was found inside a chewing tobacco tin located inside a boot.
Trooper May eventually conducted a check concerning the status of defendant's driver's license, registration, and insurance. He discovered that the license plate on defendant's truck was not registered to that truck. According to Trooper May, such circumstances could typically result in confiscation and destruction of the plate, towing of the vehicle, and a subsequent inventory search.
Defendant was charged as a fourth-offense habitual offender, MCL 769.12, with possession of methamphetamine, MCL 333.7403(2)(b)(i). Following his bindover on the charge, defendant moved to suppress the evidence of methamphetamine possession on the basis that Trooper May unconstitutionally prolonged the traffic stop without reasonable suspicion by asking defendant to step out of his truck and requesting consent to perform the pat-down and vehicle searches. Defendant contended that Trooper May lacked any justification to order defendant from his vehicle and to perform the searches. The prosecutor responded that the trooper's actions were proper under Pennsylvania v Mimms, 434 U.S. 106; 98 S.Ct. 330; 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977). The prosecutor elaborated as follows:
In this case it's 3:30 in the morning and there's clothes and other objects in his truck that easily could have concealed a weapon or something to that effect that would affect officer safety. We're talking about you know a 30 second to a minute long, "extension of the traffic stop." He could have done this you know - this same thing while he was waiting for the check on his license and all of that. He maybe did it a little out of order . . ., but I don't think he even extends the traffic stop.
The prosecutor also noted that the inevitable-discovery rule applied because Trooper May eventually discovered that the license plate on defendant's truck was "illegal."
Following the close of proofs and argument, the trial court, ruling from the bench, granted defendant's motion to suppress, reasoning as follows:
As already noted we had a stop at 3:30 in the morning. The rear signal was operating a[t] a high rate of speed. As Mr. Fletcher takes the turn it becomes clear that - to the trooper that the front turn signal is not operating at all. He was in the process of initiating a stop. He stops Mr. Fletcher, he seems as he testified more nervous than normal. He had clothes and stuff spread around within the car. He explained that he had just gotten in an argument with this girlfriend, was starting to - and took some of his stuff with him. It is 3:30 in the morning, but at that point the officer's just dealing with the front passenger light being inoperable. Most he's going to do is write a ticket at that point. And, as he said it only takes just a couple minutes to run the driver's license and insurance. Now, he says he ordered him out for officer safety, um, officers when they're stopping people just because he seemed a little more nervous there was a very plausible explanation for that at the time. Most officers do not have people get out of their car and do . . . pat downs. At that point when he started investigating further he was extending the time beyond what was necessary to write a ticket or a warning ticket for the front passenger light being inoperable.
I think that's exactly - this is the very type of scenario Rodriguez [v United States, 575 U.S. 348; 135 S.Ct. 1609; 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), ] goes through and in some detail outlines. I'm going to suppress the evidence.
The trial court subsequently effectuated its bench ruling by an order granting suppression of the methamphetamine evidence, and the prosecutor appeals by leave granted.
A trial court's findings at a suppression hearing are reviewed for clear error. People v Williams, 472 Mich. 308, 313; 696 N.W.2d 636 (2005). Clear error occurs when the reviewing court is definitely and firmly convinced that the trial court made a mistake. People v Johnson, 502 Mich. 541, 565; 918 N.W.2d 676 (2018). "But the application of constitutional standards regarding searches and seizures to essentially uncontested facts is entitled to less deference; for this reason, we review de novo the trial court's ultimate ruling on the motion to suppress." Williams, 472 Mich. at 313.
In Mimms, 434 U.S. at 107, a police officer stopped a vehicle with an expired license plate with the intent to issue a traffic summons. Although the officer had no reason to suspect the driver of "foul play" and there was nothing unusual or suspicious about his behavior, id. at 109, the officer ordered him to exit the vehicle and produce his owner's card and operator's license, id. at 107. The driver alighted from the vehicle, and the officer noticed "a large bulge" under the driver's sports jacket. Id. The officer frisked him and discovered a loaded revolver in his waistband. Id. In addressing the question whether evidence of the gun should have been suppressed, the Court first focused on whether it is constitutionally permissible for a police officer, following a lawful traffic stop, to order a driver out of a vehicle when the officer has no reason to suspect the driver of being involved in criminal activity. Id. at 109-111. The Court noted the safety concerns that are inherent when officers approach individuals seated in automobiles and concluded that those concerns outweighed the de minimis intrusion into the driver's personal liberty caused by asking the driver to exit his or her vehicle. Id. at 111. The Court elaborated:
We think it too plain for argument that the State's proffered justification- the safety of the officer-is both legitimate and weighty. Certainly it would be unreasonable to require that police officers take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties. And we have specifically recognized the inordinate risk confronting an officer as he approaches a person seated in an automobile. According to one study, approximately 30% of police shootings occurred when a police officer approached a suspect seated in an automobile. We are aware that not all these assaults occur when issuing traffic summons, but we have before expressly declined to accept the argument that traffic violations necessarily involve less danger to officers than other types of confrontations. Indeed, it appears that a significant percentage of murders of police officers occurs when the officers are making traffic stops.
The hazard of accidental injury from passing traffic to an officer standing on the driver's side of the vehicle may also be appreciable in some situations. Rather than conversing while standing exposed to moving traffic, the officer prudently may prefer to ask the driver of the vehicle to step out of the car and off onto the shoulder of the road where the inquiry may be pursued with greater safety to both.
Against this important interest we are asked to weigh the intrusion into the driver's personal liberty occasioned not by the initial stop of the vehicle, which was admittedly justified, but by the order to get out of the car. We think this additional intrusion can only be described as de minimis. The driver is being asked to expose to view very little more of his person than is already exposed. The police have already lawfully decided that the driver shall be briefly detained; the only question is whether he shall spend that period sitting in the driver's seat of his car or standing alongside it. Not only is the insistence of the police on the latter choice not a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, but it hardly rises to the level of a petty indignity. What is at most a mere inconvenience cannot prevail when balanced against legitimate concerns for the officer's safety. [Id. at 110-111 (quotation marks and citations omitted).]
Below, defendant asserted that Mimms was overruled by Rodriguez, 575 U.S. 348. He now retreats from that stance. This Court discussed Rodriguez in People v Kavanagh, 320 Mich.App. 293, 300-301; 907 N.W.2d 845 (2017), observing:
Until the 2015 decision of the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez . . ., there was debate about whether requiring a driver to wait for a dog sniff after a traffic stop had concluded should be considered a seizure separate from the traffic stop itself or whether the basis for the traffic stop could encompass a brief additional delay for a dog sniff. In Rodriguez, the United States Supreme Court definitively resolved the debate, holding that a dog sniff is not fairly characterized as part of the officer's traffic mission. The Court explained that although police
officers may conduct certain unrelated checks during an otherwise lawful traffic stop, they may not do so in a way that prolongs the stop, absent the reasonable suspicion ordinarily demanded to justify detaining an individual. The Court held [that a] police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures. Once the constitutionally sound basis for the traffic stop has been addressed, any further extension of the detention in order to conduct on-scene investigation into other crimes or for any other reason is a Fourth Amendment violation unless new facts come to light during the traffic stop that give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. [Quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted.]
A review of Rodriguez discloses no express statement or implied suggestion that the decision overruled Mimms. Rather, the majority of the United States Supreme Court merely declined to extend Mimms to allow law enforcement officers to detain vehicle occupants outside their vehicles beyond the time needed to complete the investigation associated with the traffic stop. The Rodriguez Court did not rule that law enforcement could no longer remove the occupants of a vehicle during a stop connected to a traffic violation.
In Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356-357, the Supreme Court explained:
Unlike a general interest in criminal enforcement, . . . the government's officer safety interest stems from the mission of the stop itself. Traffic stops are especially fraught with danger to police officers, so an officer may need to take certain negligibly burdensome precautions in order to complete his mission safely. . . . On-scene investigation into other crimes, however, detours from that mission. So too do safety precautions taken in order to facilitate such detours. . . . Thus, even assuming that the imposition here was no more intrusive than the exit order in Mimms, the dog sniff could not be justified on the same basis. Highway and officer safety are interests different in kind from the Government's endeavor to detect crime in general or drug trafficking in particular.The Government argues that an officer may incrementally prolong a stop to conduct a dog sniff so long as the officer is reasonably diligent in pursuing the traffic-related purpose of the stop, and the overall duration of the stop remains reasonable in relation to the duration of other traffic stops involving similar circumstances. The Government's argument, in effect, is that by completing all traffic-related tasks expeditiously, an officer can earn bonus time to pursue an unrelated criminal investigation. The reasonableness of a seizure, however, depends on what the police in fact do. In this regard, the Government acknowledges that an officer always has to be reasonably diligent. How could diligence be gauged other than by noting what the officer actually did and how he did it? If an officer can complete traffic-based inquiries expeditiously, then that is the amount of time reasonably required to complete the stop's mission. . . . [A] traffic stop prolonged beyond that point is unlawful. The critical question, then, is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, . . . . but whether conducting the sniff prolongs-i.e., adds time to-the stop. [Quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted.]
In this case, there was and is no challenge regarding the validity of the initial traffic stop. Trooper May thus lawfully ordered defendant out of his truck. Mimms, 434 U.S. at 110-111; see also People v Chapo, 283 Mich.App. 360, 368; 770 N.W.2d 68 (2009) ("A police officer may order occupants to get out of a vehicle, pending the completion of a traffic stop, without violating the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures."). Trooper May was also permitted to ask questions concerning the presence of weapons in defendant's truck. See People v Campbell, 329 Mich.App. 185, 199; 942 N.W.2d 51 (2019) ("We hold . . . that a police officer is free to question a lawfully detained person about the presence of weapons in his or her vehicle because such an inquiry relates to the officer's ability to conduct the traffic stop in a safe manner.").
There is no dispute that Trooper May sought and that defendant gave consent to search the truck and that the search of the vehicle resulted in the discovery of the methamphetamine. The question is whether the trooper's request for consent and his search upon obtaining consent unconstitutionally prolonged the stop. We note that defendant argued below that his consent to the search was involuntary, but no evidence of coercion or intimidation was introduced, and on appeal, defendant only argues that his consent was invalid because the traffic stop was already improperly extended by the time the trooper asked. We hold that there was no constitutional violation. The Fourth Amendment (1) does not prohibit a police officer from asking a defendant questions unrelated to a traffic stop if it does not effectively prolong the stop, (2) does not prohibit an officer from making a request for consent to search the defendant's vehicle during the traffic-related inquiry and investigation, and (3) does not prohibit an officer from searching the defendant's vehicle upon obtaining valid consent, as the consent to search necessarily constitutes consent to an extension of the traffic stop while the search is conducted. See United States v Tuton, 893 F.3d 562, 568 (CA 8, 2018) (acknowledging Rodriguez and indicating that the consent to a search necessarily establishes consent to an extension of the traffic stop while the search is conducted); United States v Hill, 852 F.3d 377, 381 (CA 4, 2017); United States v Rivera, 570 F.3d 1009, 1013-1014 (CA 8, 2009) ("When a motorist gives consent to search his vehicle, he necessarily consents to an extension of the traffic stop while the search is conducted, and Trooper Coleman reasonably could rely on Rivera's oral consent as a basis to extend the encounter."); United States v Canipe, 569 F.3d 597, 601-602 (CA 6, 2009); United States v Alcaraz-Arellano, 441 F.3d 1252, 1259 (CA 10, 2006); State v Cowdrey, 290 Or.App. 415, 426; 416 P.3d 314 (2018) (consent can provide adequate justification for the extension of a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment and as a result, the trial court did not err in concluding that the consent search of the defendant's car was a lawful extension of the traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment). Here, Trooper May was in the process of obtaining information from defendant relative to the traffic stop when he sought consent to search defendant's person and truck only a minute or two after defendant exited his truck. There is no indication in the record that the consent was coerced or otherwise invalid, and the search was conducted pursuant to the consent defendant gave. Therefore, we conclude that there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the trial court erred in granting defendant's motion to suppress.
We note that a petition for writ of certiorari in Tuton was denied by the United States Supreme Court. Tuton v United States, 139 S.Ct. 1192 (2019).
We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.