Opinion
KENCD-CR-22-2223
08-11-2023
STATE OF MAINE v. MEGAN D. WITHAM
ORDER ON MOTION TO SUPPRESS
JULIA M. LIPEZ, JUSTICE, MAINE SUPERIOR COURT
Introduction
Defendant Megan D. Witham has been charged by criminal complaint with operating under the influence (29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411(1-A)(A)). She seeks to suppress evidence gathered by the police after a traffic stop. For the following reasons, the defendant's motion is DENIED.
Factual Findings
Shortly after midnight on July 16, 2022, Trooper Haley Fleming of the Maine State Police was sitting in a marked police cruiser at the intersection of Central Street and Second Street in Hallowell. He saw multiple women enter a white sport utility vehicle (SUV) located in a parking lot. Thereafter he observed that the driver of the SUV had trouble backing out of her parking space. The SUV performed several jerky motions and almost hit a small structure before it successfully left the lot. After pausing to pick someone up on the side of the road, the SUV drove through a stop sign on Second Street and turned left on Center Street. At the intersection with Water Street, the SUV came to a full stop, but failed to signal before turning right.
Trooper Fleming caught up with the vehicle on Water Street, where it pulled over even before the trooper activated his police lights. The trooper spoke with the driver, who provided a Maine driver's license in the name of Megan Witham. The driver said she was coming from the Tap Room, which Trooper Fleming knew to be a bar in Hallowell. He observed that she had red, glassy eyes and was slurring her speech. He also noticed an odor of alcohol coming from the SUV. As she attempted to answer the trooper's questions, the driver was shuffling through papers looking for proof of insurance. Trooper Fleming noticed that she seemed to have trouble dividing her attention between the papers and the trooper's questions, and that she was not particularly dexterous as she flipped through the papers. Trooper Fleming knew from his training and experience that a lack of dexterity and an inability to divide one's attention can be signs of impairment.
The trooper returned to his cruiser while the driver continued to look for her insurance card. Several minutes later, when the trooper returned to the SUV, the driver presented her insurance card. Trooper Fleming then asked the driver to exit the SUV so that he could perform field sobriety tests.
Because the defendant does not challenge any of the trooper's actions once the testing began, the State did not present evidence regarding what occurred after that point.
Procedural History
The defendant filed a motion to suppress "all evidence and/or observations resulting from the detention and subsequent request to perform field sobriety tests" on the basis that Trooper Fleming stopped the SUV and performed field sobriety tests without reasonable articulable suspicion to do so. Def.'s Mot. at 1. At a hearing on the motion to suppress, Fleming, the State's only witness, did not identify the defendant, who was present at the hearing. The defendant did not testify, and she presented no witnesses.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the defendant advanced an alternate basis for suppression, arguing that the State failed to identify her as the person driving the SUV. The court granted the defendant's request for additional time to submit a brief on the identity issue. Several days later, at a conference on an unrelated matter, with a representative of the State present, defense counsel informed the court that he was abandoning the identity argument and would file something in writing saying so. The court has not received anything from the defendant, and so will address the identity issue herein.
The defendant also maintains her argument that Trooper Fleming lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to detain her.
In reaching its decision, the court has considered the testimony at the hearing, State's Exhibit 1, which is a recording from Trooper Fleming's cruiser, and the parties' arguments.
Discussion
A. Reasonable Articulable Suspicion
Both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 5 of the Maine Constitution require a police officer to have "an objectively reasonable, articulable suspicion that either criminal conduct, a civil violation, or a threat to public safety has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur," before conducting a brief investigatory stop of a motor vehicle. State v. LaForge, 2012 ME 65, ¶ 8, 43 A.3d 961 (quoting State v. Porter, 2008 ME 175, ¶ 8, 960 A.2d 321). "(T]he threshold for demonstrating an objectively reasonable suspicion necessary to justify a vehicle stop is low, in that 'reasonable articulable suspicion is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence,' . . . and need not rise to the level of probable cause." Id. ¶ 10 (quoting Porter, 2008 ME 175, ¶ 9, 960 A.2d 321). The defendant contends that Trooper Fleming did not have a reasonable, articulable basis to stop her vehicle or to detain her to perform field sobriety tests. The State bears the burden of establishing that the officer's actions were reasonable. State v. Sylvain, 2003 ME 5, ¶ 7, 814 A.2d 984.
Here, the officer had two independent bases to stop the defendant's vehicle: suspicion that the defendant committed civil traffic infractions (failure to stop at a stop sign and failure to signal a turn, see 29-A M.R.S. §§ 101(84), 2057, 2071), and that she was impaired. On the latter point, it was late at night and the officer observed the defendant struggle to exit her parking space and almost hit a small structure before she drove through a stop sign. LaForge, 2012 ME 65, ¶ 13, 43 A.3d 961 (finding reasonable articulable suspicion of impaired driving where officer saw defendant "drive onto the centerline twice, then later completely cross the fog line with his passenger-side tires twice, and then completely cross the centerline with his driver-side tires twice more"); cf. State v. Webster, 2000 ME 115, ¶ 8, 754 A.2d 976 (noting that observations of "a driving maneuver that suggested impaired judgment" contributed to probable cause that defendant operated under the influence). On these facts, the stop of the defendant's vehicle was justified based on an objectively reasonable articulable suspicion. LaForge, 2012 ME 65, ¶ 13, 43 A.3d 961.
Further, the Law Court has held that "a brief detention of a driver to" subject the driver to field sobriety tests is permitted if an officer has "a reasonable articulable suspicion of impairment ." State v. Wilcox, 2023 ME 10, ¶ 16, 288 A.3d 1200 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the defendant's bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, impaired dexterity, and odor of alcohol, combined with her problematic driving, was sufficient to cause an objectively reasonable officer to conclude that she might be intoxicated. That is all that was needed to briefly detain her to conduct field sobriety tests. Id. ¶ 23 (holding that defendant's slurred speech, inter alia, gave rise to a reasonable articulable suspicion of intoxication sufficient to conduct field sobriety testing); see also State v. Moulton, 1997 ME 228, ¶ 10, 704 A.2d 361 (listing slurred speech, red and glassy eyes, and the odor of alcohol on one's breath as indicia of intoxication).
B. Identity
The defendant argues in the alternative that the court should grant her motion to suppress because Trooper Fleming did not identify her at the suppression hearing as the person he pulled over. The Law Court has previously rejected an identical argument, holding that the "State does not have an obligation at a hearing on a motion to suppress, as it does at trial on the merits, to identify the defendant who is alleged to have committed the crime." State v. Maloney, 1998 ME 56, ¶ 5, 708 A.2d 277. Indeed, by bringing the motion to suppress, the defendant has identified herself "as the person whose rights were allegedly violated." Id. As such, identity is not at issue at this stage of the proceedings.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the defendant's motion to suppress is DENIED.
The entry is:
Defendant's motion to suppress DENIED.