Gunn v. State

956 N.E.2d 136, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1843, 2011 WL 5034299
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 24, 2011
Docket49A02-1102-CR-82
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 956 N.E.2d 136 (Gunn v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gunn v. State, 956 N.E.2d 136, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1843, 2011 WL 5034299 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

SULLIVAN, Senior Judge.

Appellant Ken Gunn was charged with Class A misdemeanor carrying a handgun without a license. Ind.Code §§ 35-47-2-1 (2007), -23(c) (1997). He brings this interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Concluding that the evidence was obtained as the result of an unlawful traffic stop, we reverse.

On June 13, 2010, Officer Robert Wen-dling of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was traveling westbound on Gateway Drive when he saw a vehicle, driven by a man later identified as Gunn, making a left turn from westbound Gateway Drive to southbound High School Road. At that location, High School Road is a four-lane road with two lanes in each direction. In making the left turn and entering southbound High School Road, the vehicle did not go into the lane closest to the center line but swung out into the outer lane. Believing that turning left into a lane other than the lane in the right half of the roadway closest to the center line was a traffic infraction, Officer Wendling initiated a traffic stop.

Officer Wendling asked Gunn for his driver’s license. He also inquired as a matter of routine whether there were any guns in the vehicle. Gunn responded that he had a gun on his right hip. Officer Wendling removed the gun from Gunn’s hip and asked if he had a permit for the gun. Gunn handed Officer Wendling a permit. When Officer Wendling returned to his vehicle, he noticed that the permit had expired just three weeks earlier on May 23, 2010. After verifying with the dispatcher that Gunn had not renewed the permit, Officer Wendling arrested Gunn.

The State charged Gunn with Class A misdemeanor carrying a handgun without a license. In September 2010, Gunn filed a motion to suppress on grounds that the gun was obtained as the result of an illegal traffic stop. The trial court denied the motion after a hearing. Upon Gunn’s request, the trial court certified its order for interlocutory appeal, and this Court accepted jurisdiction.

Gunn raises one issue, which we restate as: whether the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress. Specifically, Gunn contends that the traffic stop violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution because Officer Wen-filing’s justification for the stop was invalid. Therefore, his argument continues, any evidence obtained as a result of the stop should be suppressed.

Our standard for reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress is well settled. We review such rulings in a manner similar to other sufficiency matters. State v. Quirk, 842 N.E.2d 334, 340 (Ind.2006). We do not reweigh the evidence, and we consider conflicting evidence most favorable to the ruling. Id. Unlike typical sufficiency reviews, however, we will consider not only the evidence favorable to the ruling but also the uncontested evidence favorable to the defendant. 1 Powell v. *139 State, 898 N.E.2d 328, 334 (Ind.Ct.App.2008), trans. denied. The ultimate determination of whether an officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop is reviewed de novo. Harper v. State, 922 N.E.2d 75, 79 (Ind.Ct.App.2010), trans. denied.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, and its safeguards extend to brief investigatory stops of persons or vehicles that fall short of traditional arrest. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002). A police officer may briefly detain a person for investigatory purposes without a warrant or probable cause if, based upon specific and articulable facts together with rational inferences from those facts, the official intrusion is reasonably warranted and the officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity maybe afoot. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Indiana has adopted this analysis for the purpose of determining the legality of an investigatory stop under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. See, e.g., State v. Belcher, 725 N.E.2d 92, 94 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied; Taylor v. State, 639 N.E.2d 1052, 1054 (Ind.Ct.App.1994) (“We hold that Article I, § 11 of the Indiana Constitution permits brief police detention of an individual during investigation if the officer reasonably suspects that the individual is engaged in, or about to engage in, illegal activity. The reasonable suspicion requirement is satisfied where the facts known to the officer, together with the reasonable inferences arising from such facts, would cause an ordinarily prudent person to believe that criminal activity has or is about to occur.”).

An officer may stop a vehicle when he or she observes a minor traffic violation. Ransom v. State, 741 N.E.2d 419, 421 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied. A stop is lawful if there is an objectively justifiable reason for it, and the stop may be justified on less than probable cause. Id. An officer’s decision to stop a vehicle is valid so long as his or her on-the-spot evaluation reasonably suggests that lawbreaking occurred. Meredith v. State, 906 N.E.2d 867, 870 (Ind.2009). This discretion, however, does not extend to an officer’s mistaken belief about what constitutes a violation as a matter of law. Id.

Here, Officer Wendling initiated the traffic stop after observing Gunn’s left turn because he believed Gunn had committed a traffic infraction by turning left into the outer lane instead of into the inner lane closest to the center line. Gunn asserts that the traffic stop was invalid because his left turn complied with the relevant statute. Whether Gunn’s left turn constituted a traffic infraction presents an issue of statutory interpretation. The primary purpose of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and give effect to the legislature’s intent. Taylor v. State, 929 N.E.2d 912, 921 (Ind.Ct.App.2010), trans. denied. The language of the statute itself provides the best evidence of legislative intent, and we strive to give the words in the statute their plain and ordinary meanings. Id.

The manner in which to make a turn at an intersection is governed by Indiana Code section 9-21-8-21 (1991), which provides in pertinent part:

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Bluebook (online)
956 N.E.2d 136, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1843, 2011 WL 5034299, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gunn-v-state-indctapp-2011.