State of Maine v. Stuckey

Maine Superior

State of Maine v. Stuckey

DecidedJune 11, 2010

DocketCUMcr-09-8567

StatusUnpublished

This text of State of Maine v. Stuckey (State of Maine v. Stuckey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

State of Maine v. Stuckey, (Me. Super. Ct. 2010).

Pincite

Opinion

STATE OF MAINE SUPERlOR COURT CUMBERLAND, SS. UNIFIED CRlMINAL DOCKET DOCKET NO. PORSC-CR-09-8567 fit,

STATE OF MAINE, ) ) ) v. ) ORDER ON MOTION TO SUPPRESS ) ) KEVIN STUCKEY, ) Defendant. )

BACKGROUND

The motion in this case asks the court to decide whether a traffic stop for seatbelt

violations but made for the ulterior motive of searching defendant's vehicle for drugs

circumvents constitutional search and seizure requirements. This matter came before the

Court for hearing on April 6, 2009 on defendant's motion to suppress. Defendant was

present and represented by counsel, Peter Cyr, Esquire. Leanne Sutton, AAG,

represented the state. Defendant contends that the State lacked reasonable, articulable

suspicion to stop his motor vehicle and this stop was based on a mere pretext. Defendant

has been charged with Trafficking in Schedule W Drugs (Class B), 17-A M.R.S.A. §

1103(1-A)(3), Possession of Schedule W Cocaine in the Fonn of Cocaine Base (Class B),

17-A M.R.S.A. § 1107A(1)(A)(2), Trafficking in Schedule W Drug - Heroin (Class B),

17-A M.R.S.A. § 1103(1-A)(A), and Possession of Schedule W Drugs (Class D), 17-A

M.R.S.A. § 1107A(1)(C).

The salient facts relevant to the Motion to Suppress are as follows. At

approximately 7:30 p.m. on October 30,2009, MDEA Agents Philip Robinson and Scott Durst were in plain clothes in an unmarked cruiser traveling east bound on Congress

Street near the 7-11 Store when they observed a bluish green Toyota Corolla in front of

them. The agents were not conducting traffic patrol but were investigating drug

trafficking. They had heard information that a man in a blue Toyota was selling drugs.

When they came upon the blue Toyota directly in front of them, the agents wanted to

know the identity of the people in the vehicle. The agents observed that there were two

black males in the front seat of the Toyota. They had a "hunch" there were drugs in the

Toyota and they wanted a drug dog to see if the dog would indicate on the vehicle.

However, the agents did not have articulable suspicion to stop and search the vehicle.

They needed another reason to stop the Toyota.

The agents decided to follow the car that turned right onto State Street towards the

Casco Bay Bridge. The agents testified that just before the vehicle turned onto State

Street, they observed that neither occupant in the Toyota was wearing a seatbelt.

According to the agents, they could see the seatbelts hanging from the frame of the

vehicle and that the seatbelts were not over the occupants' shoulders. The agents

believed that this traffic violation gave them reason to stop the Toyota. Both agents

testified that they were more than 100% confident that the driver and passenger were not

wearing seatbelts.

Because the agents were in plain clothes and an unmarked 'vehicle, they decided

to ask South Portland Police to assist them in a stop when they got on the other side of

the Casco Bay Bridge. The agents also knew that a drug dog would be available. They

called South Portland Police Dispatch and asked for an officer to make a traffic stop. The

reason for the stop given to Dispatch was that the driver and passenger were not wearing

2 seatbelts. The agents gave a description of the vehicle as a Blue Toyota with a Maine

registration. Officer Pooler of the South Portland Police Department was sitting at the

traffic light near Broadway Street on the other side of the bridge. Officer Pooler

observed the Toyota jump from the center lane to the far right lane and turn right onto

Broadway. Pooler activated his blue lights to turn west, turned his police vehicle around

and pulled in between the Toyota and an unknown vehicle. Pooler waived off the

unknown vehicle, exited his vehicle, approached the driver in the Toyota and asked for

license, registration and proof of insurance. Pooler did not make any observations about

the Toyota and its occupants before he stopped the Toyota because he was relying on the

MDEA agents' observations for the stop. He could not see whether the occupants were

black or white or whether they were wearing a seatbelt because it was dark out, even

though he was focused on the driver and the passenger. When Pooler approached the

Toyota, he observed that the driver was wearing a seatbelt but the passenger was not.

According to the Pooler, the driver of the vehicle may have said that the passenger had

just taken his seatbelt off. Pooler did not see any activity of either passenger taking off or

putting on a seatbelt and he testified that he would have noticed such activity because of

his caution around officer safety when making a traffic stop.

The agents pulled in behind Pooler's police vehicle. As Pooler approached the

driver, Agent Durst also approached the vehicle, keeping an eye on the passenger the

whole time. Durst testified that he did not see a seatbelt on either occupant, nor did he

see either occupant put on or take off a seatbelt. After obtaining the identification

information from the driver, Pooler went back to the agents to ask then how they wanted

him to proceed.

3 DISCUSSION

Defendant contends that it is not believable that the agents were able to tell that

there were two black males in the Toyota and that they were not wearing seatbelts. He

argues that the stop was nothing more than a pretext for a drug search. He argues that the

officers should be held to a higher standard when there is a pretext for the stop. He argues

that higher standard is that the reasonableness must be real, not a mistake of fact, which

he argues was the case here.

The Maine Law Court has addressed pretext stops:

The Fourth Amendment mandates that an officer have a reasonable articulable suspicion that a traffic offense is occurring before making a stop. A mere hunch will not justify a stop, and the officer's reasons for stopping the vehicle must not be a mere pretext or ruse. A pretextual stop occurs when an officer uses a legal justification to stop a vehicle to search for evidence of an unrelated serious crime for which he did not have the reasonable articulable suspicion necessary to support a stop. The test is not whether the officer lawfully could have stopped defendant, but whether a reasonable officer would have made the stop absent the invalid purpose. This test recognizes that it is the departure from routine practice that makes the officer's conduct arbitrary, and it is the arbitrariness which violates the Fourth Amendment.

State v. Haskell, 645 A. 2d 619,621 (Me. I 994)(citations omitted).

Thus, there must be a legal justification to make the stop in the first place. Here,

the court questions whether the agents had the reasonable suspicion necessary to support

a stop in the first place. The court looks to the agents' justification because the South

Portland officer relied on the agents' observations in making his stop of defendant's

vehicle. Officer Pooler testified that he did not observe the seatbelt infraction or the race

of the occupants before he stopped the vehicle, and when he stopped the vehicle he

observed that the driver was wearing a seatbelt. Curiously, Agent Durst says the driver

was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the stop. The court further doubts the

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