Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10571 Trial Court No. 3SW-07-21 CR Court of Appeals No. A-10575 Trial Court No. 3SW-07-22 CR No. 5823
04-04-2012
JANINNE E. SANDROCK, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee. DYLAN J. PRICE, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Brooke Berens, Assistant Public Advocate, and Rachel Levitt (opening brief) and Richard Allen (reply brief), Public Advocates, Anchorage, for Appellant Sandrock. Margi Mock, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for Appellant Price. Ann B. Black, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding precedent for any proposition of law.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT
Appeals from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Seward, Anna Moran and Charles T. Huguelet, Judges.
Appearances: Brooke Berens, Assistant Public Advocate, and Rachel Levitt (opening brief) and Richard Allen (reply brief), Public Advocates, Anchorage, for Appellant Sandrock. Margi Mock, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for Appellant Price. Ann B. Black, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
COATS, Chief Judge.
Dylan J. Price and Janinne E. Sandrock were convicted of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the second degree. On appeal, they argue that Superior Court Judge Anna Moran erred in denying their motion to suppress. In their motion to suppress, Price and Sandrock argued that Trooper Rex Leath, who had stopped them for having a malfunctioning taillight, unduly extended the traffic stop. They argue that the trooper's discovery of Sudafed and other precursors for the manufacture of methamphetamine was illegal because the discovery was the result of this illegal extension of the traffic stop. Judge Moran denied the defendants' motion to suppress, finding that Trooper Leath had reasonable suspicion that the defendants were in possession of illegal drugs and therefore legally could extend the traffic stop to continue his investigation. We affirm Judge Moran's decision.
AS 11.71.020(a)(3), (4).
Price and Sandrock also contend that Superior Court Judge Charles T. Huguelet applied an incorrect standard in denying their motion for a new trial. We conclude that Judge Huguelet may have used an incorrect standard in denying the motion for new trial. We accordingly remand for the superior court to reconsider the new trial motion.
Factual and procedural background
On January 19th, 2007, at about 4:30 p.m., Price and Sandrock were driving their Toyota 4-Runner, with their two dogs, from Anchorage to Seward. Alaska State Trooper Rex Leath stopped them for having a malfunctioning taillight.
Leath testified that when he approached the 4-Runner, Price opened his door and started to come out of his vehicle. Leath asked Price to remain in the vehicle. Leath testified that it was rare for people to attempt to exit their vehicles at a traffic stop. He testified that this made him suspect that there was something in the car that Price did not want him to see.
Leath also testified that Price only rolled his window down a few inches to talk to the trooper. When Leath asked Price to roll the window down farther, Price responded that he did not know whether he could roll the window down because the "window messes up." Price said that was why he had offered to step outside the car. Yet, Price was able to roll down the window with ease.
During the ensuing conversation, Leath discovered that neither Price nor Sandrock had a valid license. Price had an instructional permit, but he could not drive under this permit unless he was with someone who possessed a valid license, and Sandrock had no license.
Leath testified that, during this conversation, he detected a faint odor of "raw" marijuana coming from the vehicle. Because of this odor, Leath asked Price and Sandrock if they had any alcohol or marijuana in the vehicle. Price and Sandrock indicated they had marijuana in the vehicle. They opened up a toolbox and showed Leath a gray tin which contained a small amount of marijuana.
Despite these violations of the law, Leath told Price and Sandrock that he was not going to arrest them. However, he told them he could not let them drive the car, since neither of them had a valid license. Leath asked Price and Sandrock if there was someone he could call who could give them a ride. Sandrock replied that they didn't know anyone who could do that. Leath told them that he was not going to impound their car, but, because neither of them had a driver's license, he would have to call a tow truck to tow the car into Seward, where Price and Sandrock lived. Leath told them they could ride home in the tow truck if they wanted. He again assured them that he was not taking them to jail.
Leath then returned to his patrol car and radioed for a tow truck. At the same time, he asked two other troopers, who were nearby, to come to the scene to act as backup. When Leath returned from his patrol car, he issued three citations to Price: one for driving with an inoperable taillight, one for driving in violation of his permit, and one for possessing a small amount of marijuana in public. Leath explained to Price how to deal with these citations in Seward.
After issuing these citations to Price, Leath continued to question Price and Sandrock. Leath's continuation of his contact with Price and Sandrock is the action that, on appeal, Price and Sandrock contend was illegal.
After establishing that Price and Sandrock had been in Anchorage, Leath asked Price what was in the back of the vehicle. Price responded that there was a "whole bunch of trash." Leath then told Price that he had summoned other troopers to the scene, and he added — falsely — that these troopers were bringing a drug detection dog with them. Leath asked whether this drug detection dog was going to alert to anything in Price and Sandrock's vehicle, other than the marijuana that they had already disclosed to Leath. Leath also asked Price whether he would mind if the troopers looked through his vehicle.
When Leath asked if there were additional controlled substances in the car, Sandrock replied that there was Sudafed in the car. Sandrock explained that she and Price had purchased a total of four boxes of Sudafed at two different stores in Anchorage. Price told Leath that they purchased the Sudafed because he was sick, and Sandrock added that she needed Sudafed because of sinus problems.
Leath thought that these responses were suspicious, in that Price and Sandrock had apparently gone to two different stores in Anchorage to buy Sudafed, even though the drug was readily available in Seward where they lived. Leath knew that Sudafed was commonly used as a source material for manufacturing methamphetamine, and he suspected that Price and Sandrock were accumulating Sudafed for this purpose.
Further investigation led to a consensual search of Price and Sandrock's vehicle. This search revealed the Sudafed, plus other supplies and utensils commonly used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.
When Leath asked Price and Sandrock about these items, they offered innocent explanations for their possession of these things, but Leath found their answers unconvincing. He then arrested them for second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance.
Why we conclude that Leath's continued questioning of Price and Sandrock was lawful
On appeal, Price and Sandrock raise a single issue with regard to the traffic stop. They contend that, after Trooper Leath issued the three citations to Price, the purpose of the stop was satisfied, and therefore Leath violated their Fourth Amendment rights when he continued to question them while they waited for the tow truck.
But, as the superior court found, Trooper Leath's continued investigation was based on a number of suspicious facts that Leath became aware of during his encounter with Price and Sandrock, leading up to the issuance of the citations.
Price acted suspiciously from the very beginning of the encounter. He started to get out of the car, apparently so that his conversation with Leath would take place away from the vehicle. Then, when Leath directed Price to remain in the car, Price rolled his window down only a few inches, apparently wishing to talk to Leath through a small opening. When Leath directed Price to roll the window down farther, Price claimed — seemingly falsely — that the window was malfunctioning. From Price's actions, Leath could reasonably conclude that there was something in the car that Price did not want him to find.
After Price rolled the window down, Leath smelled marijuana. When he questioned Price and Sandrock about this odor, they promptly revealed a small tin of marijuana and turned it over to him. But in spite of the fact that Leath repeatedly assured Price and Sandrock that they would not be arrested for this minor drug offense, Price remained exceptionally nervous: according to Leath, Price was visibly sweating, his hands were shaking, and his voice was quavering. Leath also testified that it is not uncommon for drug suspects to voluntarily turn over a small quantity of drugs to the police, in the hope that the police will then cease their investigative efforts.
Cf. United States v. Bradford, 423 F.3d 1149, 1160 (10th Cir. 2005) (recognizing that a suspect's decision to present an officer with a small amount of contraband is a relevant fact that may be considered in determining whether the officer had grounds to continue his or her investigation — "to conclude otherwise, ... would create a[] perverse incentive for drug smugglers carrying large amounts of contraband to confess to small amounts of marijuana to avoid further inspection").
The superior court credited Leath's testimony and, based on this testimony, the court concluded that Leath had reasonable grounds for continuing to question Price and Sandrock as they waited for the tow truck to arrive. We agree.
Why we remand this case to the superior court for reconsideration of Price and Sandrock's motion for a new trial
When Judge Huguelet denied Price and Sandrock's motions for a judgment of acquittal and their alternative motions for a new trial, he applied only the legal standard for determining a motion for a judgment of acquittal: whether the evidence presented at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, was sufficient to support the convictions. Although this is the correct standard for assessing a motion for judgment of acquittal, it is the wrong standard for a judge to apply when deciding a motion for a new trial.
In Kava v. American Honda Motor Co. , the supreme court stated that when a party moves for a new trial, the court must decide the motion "based on its personal view of the evidence." We recently discussed this point of law in Taylor v. State. In Taylor, we explained that when a trial judge is asked to decide a motion for a new trial, he sits as a "thirteenth juror" in the sense that "[t]he judge does not defer to the jury's assessments of witness credibility or the weight of the evidence; rather, the judge must reach their own independent assessment of the evidence."
48 P.3d 1170 (Alaska 2002).
Id. at 1177.
262 P.3d 232 (Alaska App. 2011).
Id. at 233.
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It therefore appears that Judge Huguelet applied the incorrect legal standard when he denied Price and Sandrock's motion for a new trial, and we must remand this case to the superior court for reconsideration of that motion.
Conclusion
We AFFIRM the superior court's order denying Price and Sandrock's suppression motion, but we VACATE the superior court's order denying Price and Sandrock's motion for a new trial. This case is REMANDED to the superior court for reconsideration of the motion for a new trial.