Haley v. State ex rel. Department of Public Safety

2005 OK CIV APP 82, 123 P.3d 31, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 74, 2005 WL 2939212
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 25, 2005
DocketNo. 101,581
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2005 OK CIV APP 82 (Haley v. State ex rel. Department of Public Safety) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Haley v. State ex rel. Department of Public Safety, 2005 OK CIV APP 82, 123 P.3d 31, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 74, 2005 WL 2939212 (Okla. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

LARRY JOPLIN, Presiding Judge.

¶ 1 Defendant/Appellant State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Department of Public Safety (DPS), seeks review of the trial court’s order vacating the drivers’ license revocation of PlaintiflyAppellee Conrad E. Haley (Haley) for lack of a valid arrest. In this appeal, DPS challenges the trial court’s order as affected by errors of both law and fact.

12 On May 4, 2004, an officer of the Edmond Police Department arrested Haley for operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and Haley refused to submit to a blood or breath test. DPS issued an order revoking Haley’s drivers’ license, and upon administrative review, a hearing officer sustained the revocation. Haley then commenced the instant action for judicial review of his drivers’ license revocation in the trial court.

¶ 3 On direct examination at trial, the arresting officer testified:

I noticed the vehicle was slow to change lanes. It would signal its intent to change a lane; it was very slow about changing lanes. As it approached the traffic lights, it would slow down way back behind the traffic lights before it came up for a stop. .... I saw the vehicle coming out of the [Oxford Apartments] driveway on the wrong side of the drive....
It’s a — there’s a one-way in and a one-way out divided by a grass median.
He was coming out of the — he was coming out of the entrance into the apartment complex.
I made contact with the driver, told him why I had stopped him.
His response was real slow. He — he kind of seemed startled that I had stopped him.
While talking to him, I smelled the odor associated with the consumption of an alcoholic beverage on his breath and person. I saw that he had slow and uncoordinated movements while he was looking for his driver’s license and his insurance form.
He — he was able to find the driver’s license. He never located his insurance.
I asked him if he’d been drinking.
[He said] [t]hat he’d had one beer.
I then had asked him to get out of his car in order to perform field sobriety tests.
I was able to observe that he was unsteady on his feet.
[H]is speech was slow and mumbled.
[After I completed the field sobriety tests,] I placed him under arrest for driving under the influence.

¶ 4 On cross-examination, Haley’s attorney further questioned the arresting officer concerning the matters to which he testified on direct. Haley’s attorney then asked, and the officer answered:

Q: Okay. So did you make the decision to arrest him after you detected the odor?
A: No.
[33]*33Q: After you had the odor and the slow uncoordinated movements?
A: It was — are you asking with just those two?
Q: Yes.
A: No.
Q: It was after he admitted drinking a beer?
A: No.
Q: After he was unsteady on his feet?
A: No.

The arresting officer then described his administration of a horizontal gaze nystagmus test (HGT) to Haley, and identified the clues of intoxication he detected in the process.

¶ 5 At the close of the evidence, Haley interposed a demurrer and motion for directed verdict, asserting that DPS failed to present evidence showing any driving offense committed in the arresting officer’s presence, and therefore, an invalid arrest. Based on the arresting officer’s testimony on cross-examination, the trial court agreed with Haley:

It is clear from [the arresting officer’s] testimony that he did not rely on his observations of Haley prior to the field sobriety test in his determination to arrest Haley for driving under the influence. Despite the Court’s comments suggesting that the officer had not yet testified regarding his reason for determining that Haley was driving under the influence, he was not interrogated on that issue and did not volunteer any information on the issue. Further, the Department did not seek to reopen its ease when [Haley] interposed a demurrer and the Court voiced its concern at the absence of such evidence.
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The information provided by [the arresting officer] when he came into contact with Haley, which information was not sufficient to bring him to the conclusion that Haley was driving under the influence, was not that information in his ken at the moment of arrest. And, while the courts consistently refer to the “prudent man,” thus tempting some to argue that the officer, being overly cautious, was not the prudent man, the courts have further instructed us that the officer must believe he has probable cause to make the arrest....: “The arrest of a person who is mistakenly thought to be someone else is valid if the arresting officer (1) has probable cause to arrest the person sought, and (2) reasonably believed the person arrested was the person sought.”
In the case at bar, [the arresting officer] did not reasonably believe that Haley was driving under the influence based on the evidence about which he testified in court. Rather, he based the arrest on knowledge which he obtained at a later time, and neither the court nor the litigants have had the opportunity to test that knowledge for its reasonableness or lack thereof. While the Department was given the opportunity to test these waters, it chose not to do so.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED BY THE COURT that the appeal must be sustained and the revocation is both vacated and held for naught. Haley’s driving privileges are restored.

(Emphasis original.) (Citations omitted.) DPS appeals.

¶ 6 In its first proposition of error, DPS argués that the question of whether the arresting officer had the statutory “reasonable grounds to believe the person had been operating a vehicle ... while under the influence” is gauged by an “objective” standard of a “prudent person,” and if the testimony and evidence demonstrates facts which would warrant an objective, prudent person to reasonably believe the person had been operating a motor vehicle while under the influence, the officer must be held to have effected a valid arrest. See, 47 O.S. 754(F); McGaughey v. State, 2001 OK CR 33, ¶¶ 25-26, 37 P.3d 130, 136-137; Washington v. State, 1999 OK CR 22, ¶¶ 28, 29, 989 P.2d 960, 971, 972; Davis v. State, 1990 OK CR 20, ¶ 21, 792 P.2d 76, 84; Parker v. Strong, 717 F.Supp. 767, 768 (W.D.Okl.1989). So, says DPS, given the objective indicia of intoxication to which the arresting officer testified — including unusual driving behavior, the odor of alcohol on his breath and person, slow and uncoordinated movements, the admission to consumption of one beer, unsteadiness on his [34]*34feet, slow and mumbled speech, and the clues of intoxication discerned in the HGT — the trial court erred in holding the arresting officer’s testimony did not demonstrate his subjective

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Bluebook (online)
2005 OK CIV APP 82, 123 P.3d 31, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 74, 2005 WL 2939212, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/haley-v-state-ex-rel-department-of-public-safety-oklacivapp-2005.