Opinion
No. 109,151.
2013-11-22
Donald J. STEJSKAL, Appellant, v. KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, Appellee.
Appeal from Rooks District Court; Edward E. Bouker, Judge. Michael S. Holland II, of Holland and Holland, of Russell, for appellant. John D. Shultz, Legal Services, Kansas Department of Revenue, for appellee.
Appeal from Rooks District Court; Edward E. Bouker, Judge.
Michael S. Holland II, of Holland and Holland, of Russell, for appellant. John D. Shultz, Legal Services, Kansas Department of Revenue, for appellee.
Before MALONE, CJ., McANANY and STANDRIDGE, JJ.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM.
Donald J. Stejskal appeals the district court's judgment upholding the suspension of his driver's license by the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDR) based on a blood test failure. Stejskal claims that the district court incorrectly determined that the certifying officer had reasonable grounds to request testing. Finding no error, we affirm the district court's judgment.
On September 4, 2011, Natural Resource Officer Mark Billinger of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks was at a campsite in Webster State Park when he noticed Stejskal drive into the area. When Stejskal exited his vehicle, Billinger observed that he was holding an open container of alcohol in his hand. After several minutes, Billinger watched as Stejskal took two cans of beer out of a cooler and then climbed back into his vehicle. Billinger started to walk towards Stejskal's vehicle with the intention of making contact, but Stejskal drove away before Billinger could reach the vehicle. As Stejskal drove by, Billinger noticed that he was “slumped down in the seat and his face looked droopy.”
About 10 minutes later, Stejskal drove back into the campsite area. Billinger determined that Stejskal was speeding, driving 21 mph in a 15 mph zone. Billinger was in his vehicle at the time and was preparing to stop Stejskal. Before Billinger could activate his emergency equipment, Stejskal parked, exited his vehicle, and began walking over to Billinger's vehicle. Stejskal stumbled along the way, which Billinger noted as a possible sign of impairment. Billinger asked Stejskal if he had been consuming alcohol and Stejskal replied that he had been drinking. Billinger observed that Stejskal's speech was slurred and that there was a strong odor of alcohol on his breath.
Billinger asked Stejskal to ride with him to a nearby maintenance shop where they could continue to talk away from the other people at the campsite. Billinger later testified that he wanted to ask Stejskal to perform field sobriety tests at the maintenance shop to avoid embarrassing him in front of the other campers at the scene. Stejskal agreed to go with Billinger to the maintenance shop. At the maintenance shop parking lot, Billinger asked Stejskal to perform two field sobriety tests. According to the notes from the subsequent administrative hearing, Stejskal refused to complete the walk-and-turn test. On the one-legged-stand test, Billinger observed three clues of impairment before Stejskal stopped the test. At that point, Billinger placed Stejskal under arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Subsequent KBI lab testing found that Stejskal's blood alcohol level at the time of his arrest was 0.18 grams per 100 milliliters of blood. Billinger completed the “Officer's Certification and Notice of Suspension” document, commonly referred to as a DC–27. Billinger identified the following facts as the basis for his reasonable grounds that Stejskal was under the influence of alcohol: odor of alcoholic beverages, failed sobriety tests, slurred speech, poor balance or coordination, and Stejskal's admission that he had consumed alcohol.
Stejskal requested an administrative hearing, which was held on May 21, 2012. A KDR hearing officer upheld the administrative action to suspend Stejskal's driver's license for a blood test failure under the Kansas Implied Consent Law, K.S.A. 8–1001 et seq . On June 4, 2012, Stejskal filed a petition for judicial review. The only issue raised in district court was whether Billinger had reasonable grounds to request testing. Stejskal argued before the district court that Billinger's act of transporting him to the maintenance shop constituted an effective arrest without probable cause and that Billinger did not have reasonable grounds to request testing prior to the transport. After hearing the evidence and arguments of counsel, the district court upheld the administrative suspension of Stejskal's driving privileges. Specifically, the district court found that Stejskal “failed to meet his burden to prove that [Billinger] lacked reasonable grounds to request testing.” The district court did not directly address Stejskal's argument that he was effectively under arrest at the time he was transported to the maintenance shop. Stejskal timely appealed the district court's judgment.
On appeal, Stejskal contends that Billinger did not have reasonable grounds to believe he was operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol when he transported Stejskal to the maintenance shop parking lot. Stejskal asserts that when he was transported to the maintenance shop parking lot, he was effectively placed under arrest even though Billinger did not have probable cause to arrest him at that time. Stejskal contends that the circumstances preceding his “effective arrest” do not rise to the level of probable cause to arrest or reasonable grounds to believe that Stejskal was operating a vehicle while under the influence to support a request for evidentiary testing.
This court applies a substantial competent evidence standard in reviewing a district court's ruling in a driver's license suspension case. Schoen v. Kansas Dept. of Revenue, 31 Kan.App.2d 820, 822, 74 P.3d 588 (2003). Substantial evidence is evidence which possesses both relevance and substance and which furnishes a substantial basis of fact from which the issues can reasonably be resolved. 31 Kan.App.2d at 822. However, when issues raised in a driver's license suspension case involve strictly legal questions, an appellate court's review is unlimited. Martin v. Kansas Dept. of Revenue, 285 Kan. 625, 629, 176 P.3d 938 (2008). Interpretation of a statute is a question of law over which an appellate court has unlimited review. Genesis Health Club, Inc. v.. City of Wichita, 285 Kan. 1021, 1031, 181 P.3d 549 (2008).
The Kansas Implied Consent Law is to be “liberally construed to promote public health, safety, and welfare.” K.S.A.2011 Supp. 8–1001(v); accord Huelsman v. Kansas Dept of Revenue, 267 Kan. 456, 462, 980 P.2d 1022 (1999). The burden of proof is on the licensee in the administrative action and subsequent appeal of that action. 267 Kan. at 462–63;K.S.A.2011 Supp. 8–1020(k), (q).
K.S.A.2011 Supp. 8–1001(b) provides that a law enforcement officer must have reasonable grounds to believe a person is operating or attempting to operate a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs before an officer can request a person to submit to evidentiary testing. Kansas courts rely on probable cause standards when reviewing whether an officer had reasonable grounds to believe a person was operating a vehicle under the influence to support a request for an evidentiary breath test. Smith v. Kansas Dept. of Revenue, 291 Kan. 510, 514–15, 242 P.3d 1179 (2010). Our Supreme Court has found that the term “reasonable grounds” is synonymous in meaning with the term “probable cause.” See 291 Kan. at 514–15.
Probable cause is the reasonable belief that a specific crime has been or is being committed by the defendant. Allen v. Kansas Dept. of Revenue, 292 Kan. 653, 656–57, 256 P.3d 845 (2011). Whether probable cause exists is determined by evaluating the totality of the circumstances and considering “the information and fair inferences therefrom, known to the officer at the time of arrest.” 292 Kan. at 657. There is no rigid application of factors, and courts should not merely count the facts or factors that support one side of the determination or the other. State v. McGinnis, 290 Kan. 547, 553, 233 P.3d 246 (2010).
Stejskal contends that he was effectively placed under arrest without probable cause when Billinger drove him away from the scene of their initial encounter. Though Stejskal never clearly states it in his brief, the implication of this argument seems to be that if Billinger arrested him without probable cause, the results of the subsequent field sobriety tests should be suppressed. This would leave only Billinger's observations prior to transporting Stejskal to the maintenance shop parking lot as a possible basis for establishing reasonable grounds to believe he was operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Stejskal asserts that the district court “implicitly” ruled that Billinger's conduct effectuated an arrest, although the district court did not address the issue directly.
To support his argument, Stejskal relies on this court's decision in City of Norton v. Wonderly, 38 Kan.App.2d 797, 172 P.3d 1205,rev. denied 286 Kan. 1176 (2008). In Wonderly, a law enforcement officer stopped the defendant's vehicle for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). During the course of the investigation, the officer handcuffed the defendant and transported him to the sheriff's office in order to conduct field sobriety tests. This court determined that the defendant was effectively placed under arrest when the officer, without seeking the defendant's consent, transported him in handcuffs to the sheriff's office to perform field sobriety tests. 38 Kan.App.2d at 807. This court concluded that without considering the results of the field sobriety tests, the officer lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant for DUI. 38 Kan.App.2d at 808–09.
The KDR argues that this court need not address Stejskal's claim that he was arrested when he was transported from the scene for further investigation for two reasons: (1) the district court correctly determined that Billinger already had reasonable grounds at the time he transported Stejskal to the maintenance shop; and (2) contrary to Stejskal's claim, the district court did not “implicitly” rule that Stejskal was under arrest—in fact, the district court never reached the issue.
We agree with the KDR that the district court did not make any finding, implicit or otherwise, that Stejskal was effectively under arrest at the time he was transported to the maintenance shop parking lot. The district court never even addressed the issue; rather, the district court concluded that Billinger had established reasonable grounds/probable cause before he transported Stejksal to the maintenance shop parking lot:
“The officer saw Mr. Stejskal drive, stop at his campground, exit his vehicle with beer in his hand, saw him disappear in whatever structure was there, then come back out, get another beer, get in his car. He saw him drive by. He was slumped in his seat. His face was droopy. Ten minutes later the officer sees Mr. Stejskal again. Mr. Stejskal is speeding, admittedly not in an egregious manner, but at least speeding. The officer got in his car for public safety reasons that he's explained. Mr. Stejskal did not wait until the officer activated his emergency equipment; he stopped, came back to his vehicle. On his way back he stumbled. He admitted that he had been drinking. His speech was slurred. There was a strong odor of alcohol.
“Whether we're talking about the fine points of arrest, custody, Terry-type stop, whatever we're talking about here, I think that those facts establish that any level of custody was justified on either reasonable grounds or probable cause theories.
“If Mr. Stejskal had at that point said I'm simply not going to cooperate with anything else you want me to do, there would have been probable cause to arrest him. So I think I don't need to go any further.”
Thus, our only task on review is to determine whether the district court erred in finding that Billinger had reasonable grounds to request testing before he transported Stejskal to the maintenance shop parking lot. The KDR compares the instant case to Campbell v. Kansas Dept. of Revenue, 25 Kan.App.2d 430, 431–32, 962 P.2d 1150,rev. denied 266 Kan. 1107 (1998). In Campbell, the petitioner was stopped by a police officer after being observed driving 15 mph over the speed limit. Upon making contact with the petitioner, the officer smelled liquor on his breath and noticed that his eyes were glazed and bloodshot. The petitioner admitted to the officer that he had consumed a few drinks. The officer later administered field sobriety tests to the petitioner, but this court determined that the officer's observations prior to the field sobriety tests were “more than sufficient” to satisfy a reasonably prudent officer that the petitioner had been driving under the influence of alcohol. 25 Kan.App.2d at 431–32.
The facts herein are similar to the facts in Campbell. Billinger observed Stejskal driving over the speed limit. Upon interacting with Stejskal, Billinger detected the strong odor of alcohol on Stejskal's breath, heard his slurred speech, and watched him stumble as he walked over to the patrol car. Stejskal admitted that he had been drinking and Billinger had previously seen him carrying and transporting open containers. Substantial evidence supports the district court's finding that Billinger had reasonable grounds to believe that Stejskal was driving under the influence before Billinger transported him to the maintenance shop parking lot. Because we agree with the district court that Billinger already had reasonable grounds to request testing when he transported Stejskal to the maintenance shop parking lot, we need not address Stejskal's claim that he was effectively placed under arrest at that time. Accordingly, we conclude the district court did not err in upholding the administrative suspension of Stejskal's driving privileges.
Affirmed.