STATE OF MISSOURI v. NICHOLAS A. BARTON, Defendant-Respondent

• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Decided: October 25, 2022
• Docket: SD37421 and SD37422 (Consolidated)
• Status: Published

Opinion

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District

In Division

STATE OF MISSOURI, ) ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) v. ) Consolidated Nos. ) SD37421 and SD37422 NICHOLAS A. BARTON, ) ) Filed: October 25, 2022 Defendant-Respondent. )

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF BUTLER COUNTY

Honorable Thomas D. Swindle

REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

This appeal presents the question of whether a police officer necessarily violates

the Fourth Amendment when he makes an arrest that is prohibited by state law. Relying

upon Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008), we answer that question in the negative.

Pursuant to Moore, the Fourth Amendment requires only that an officer’s warrantless

arrest be based upon probable cause. Because the vast majority of the evidence presented

at the suppression hearing in this case was focused solely upon the officer having made

an arrest outside of his territorial jurisdiction in violation of state law -- and we cannot

discern the circuit court’s legal basis for granting the motion -- we reverse the ruling and

1 remand the case to allow the circuit court to determine whether the illegal arrest was

supported by probable cause and rule accordingly.

Evidence Adduced at the Motion Hearing & Procedural Background

On January 9, 2021, Lieutenant Josh Stewart (“Lt. Stewart”) of the Poplar Bluff

police department went to investigate a robbery that had taken place earlier that day at

The Bottle Shop, a business located within the city of Poplar Bluff in Butler County.

Quon McGyan (“Mr. McGyan”), the owner of The Bottle Shop, told Lt. Stewart that two

males had entered the shop, wearing hoodies and masks. One of the men approached Mr.

McGyan, pointed a gun in his face, and demanded money from the register. The suspects

then fled in a car that Mr. McGyan described as “a Dodge Caliber with a blue front end.

The remainder of the vehicle was either dark blue or black.” The Poplar Bluff Police

Department posted on social media some images of the vehicle that had been captured by

some undisclosed means. A resident of Campbell, a city in Dunklin County, saw the

social-media post and called the Poplar Bluff police department to report that his

neighbor was the owner of the car. The caller also said that the vehicle was currently

located on West Monroe Street in Campbell.1

Lt. Stewart contacted the Campbell police department and spoke with a female

officer. Lt. Stewart asked her to go to West Monroe Street and verify that the vehicle

was there, and, if so, keep it under surveillance until Lt. Stewart could arrive. The female

officer verified that the vehicle was still there, and she stayed with it until Lt. Stewart

arrived, accompanied by three other members of the Poplar Bluff police department.

1 We take judicial notice of the fact that Poplar Bluff is a Missouri city located in Butler County, and Campbell is a Missouri city located in Dunklin County. See Estate of Summer v. Mo. Dept. of Mental Health, 424 S.W.3d 506, 508 n.2 (Mo. App. S.D. 2014) (“A court may take judicial notice of the geographical location of cities in the state”).

2 After he made contact with the female officer from the Campbell police

department, Lt. Stewart knocked on the door of the West Monroe residence where the

vehicle was located, and a female answered the door. While speaking to the female, two

males arrived on the scene whose “size and build would have matched that what [sic] was

in the surveillance footage[.]” One of the males was Nicholas A. Barton (“Defendant”),

and he was eventually charged with committing first-degree robbery, armed criminal

action, and unlawful use of a weapon. See sections 570.023, RSMo Supp. 2017, 571.015,

RSMo Cum. Supp. 2020, and 571.030, RSMo 2016. Officers arrested Defendant based

upon their belief that he had been involved in the robbery at The Bottle Shop, and they

placed him inside a Campbell patrol car. Soon thereafter, Defendant confessed to taking

part in the robbery.

Defendant filed an amended motion to suppress evidence (“the motion”) obtained

after his warrantless arrest on the ground that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated

because the arresting officer was illegally acting outside of his territorial jurisdiction.

The motion sought the exclusion of “all testimony and other evidence relating to

or leading from any written, oral or recorded statement obtained from [Defendant],

whether incriminating or exculpatory[.]” The basis for the motion was that the Poplar

Bluff police officers who effected Defendant’s arrest in the Dunklin County city of

Campbell “ha[d] no arrest power in Dunklin County, Missouri.” Based upon that

premise, Defendant claimed that his “detention was unlawful in that the location of

Campbell, Dunklin County, Missouri was outside of the jurisdiction of the Poplar Bluff

Missouri Police Department[,]” rendering his detention without appropriate authority

3 under Missouri statute and the Missouri Constitution. The motion also claimed that

Defendant’s arrest was made without legal justification.

The circuit court granted the motion without stating any legal basis for the ruling,

and the State timely filed this interlocutory appeal.2

Standard of Review & Governing Law

“Our review of a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress is limited to a determination of whether there is substantial evidence to support the decision.” State v. Irvin, 210 S.W.3d 360, 361 (Mo.App.2006). We review the trial court’s decision to grant a motion to suppress under an abuse-of-discretion standard. State v. Selvy, 462 S.W.3d 756, 764 (Mo.App.2015). We will reverse the ruling only if it is clearly erroneous. Irvin, 210 S.W.3d at 361. . . . We view all facts and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling. Id. at 362. “If the trial court’s ruling is plausible, in light of the record viewed in its entirety, we will not reverse.” Selvy, 462 S.W.3d at 764. Despite the deference we afford the trial court’s order, “[t]he ultimate issue of whether the Fourth Amendment was violated is a question of law ... which this court reviews de novo.” State v. Ramires, 152 S.W.3d 385, 391 (Mo.App.2004).

State v. Humble, 474 S.W.3d 210, 214 (Mo. App. W.D. 2015).

“At a hearing on a motion to suppress, ‘[t]he State has the burden of showing by a

preponderance of the evidence that the motion to suppress should be denied.’” Id. at 215.

“It is well[-]established as a general rule that, in the absence of statute, municipal police

officers have no official power to apprehend offenders beyond the boundaries of their

municipality.” State v. Baldwin, 484 S.W.3d , 894 896 (Mo. App. W.D. 2016) (quoting

State v. Renfrow, 224 S.W.3d 27, 31 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007)). The State does not dispute

Defendant’s assertion that Lt. Stewart and the Poplar Bluff police officers apprehended

Defendant in Campbell, which was outside the boundary of their municipality.

2 “Section 547.200.1(3) permits the State to take an interlocutory appeal from ‘any order or judgment the substantive effect of which results in ... [s]uppressing evidence.’” State v. Baldwin, 484 S.W.3d 894, 896 n.2 (Mo. App. W.D. 2016).

4 Defendant claims that his illegal arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights and

requires the exclusion of his confession as the “fruit of the poisonous tree[.]” See

Renfrow, 224 S.W.3d at 33. The State disagrees, relying on Moore, in arguing that the

officer’s arrest in violation of a state statute did not constitute a Fourth Amendment

violation, and because Defendant’s arrest was supported by probable cause, the evidence

at issue should not have been excluded.3

In Moore, two Portsmouth, Virginia police officers stopped and arrested David

Lee Moore for driving with a suspended license. 553 U.S. at 166. In a search incident to

arrest, officers found crack cocaine on Moore’s person. Id. at 167. Virginia law only

permitted the officers to issue Moore a summons, as driving on a suspended license was

not an arrestable offense in Virginia. Id. Moore moved to suppress the evidence of his

possession of crack cocaine on the ground that the Fourth Amendment required its

suppression. Id. at 167-68.

In analyzing that assertion, the Supreme Court found no historical precedent to

support the position that the founders “understood [the Fourth Amendment] as a

redundant guarantee of whatever limits on search and seizure legislatures might have

enacted.” Id. at 168. In the absence of such historical precedent, the Court went on to

analyze a search and seizure in terms of traditional standards of reasonableness “by

assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy

and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate

governmental interests.” Id. at 171. In utilizing this approach, the Court found

3 The Fourth Amendment provides the same guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures as article I, section 15 of the Missouri Constitution, and therefore “any analysis of search and seizure questions under the Fourth Amendment is identical to search and seizure questions arising under Missouri law.” Selvy, 462 S.W.3d at 765 n.2.

5 no support for Moore’s Fourth Amendment claim. In a long line of cases, we have said that when an officer has probable cause to believe a person committed even a minor crime in his presence, the balancing of private and public interests is not in doubt. The arrest is constitutionally reasonable.

Id.

Any additional protections that a state wishes to provide are exclusively matters

of state law, and “‘whether or not a search is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth

Amendment[]’ . . . has never ‘depend[ed] on the law of the particular State in which the

search occurs.’” Id. at 172 (quoting California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 43 (1988)).

The Court went on to reaffirm its prior holdings that stand for the principal that an arrest

is reasonable, within Fourth Amendment standards, when an officer has probable cause to

believe that the offender has committed even a minor offense. Id. at 171 (citing Atwater

v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354 (2001)).

Because the Supreme Court of the United States held in Moore that an officer

who makes an arrest on probable cause does not violate the Fourth Amendment even

though the arrest is prohibited by state law, we agree that the unlawful arrest at issue here

did not automatically require the circuit court to suppress the evidence that it produced.

That said, applying the holding of Moore to the facts of the case at bar still leaves

the question of whether Lt. Stewart had probable cause to arrest Defendant; i.e. whether

Defendant’s warrantless arrest met the standard of reasonableness that is required by the

Fourth Amendment. See Moore, 553 U.S. at 173. See also State v. Tackett, 12 S.W.3d

332, 338 (Mo. App. W.D. 2000) (an officer must have probable cause to make an arrest

without a warrant).

“‘Probable cause to arrest exists when the arresting officer’s knowledge of the particular facts and circumstances is sufficient to

6 warrant a prudent person’s belief that a suspect has committed an offense.’” [State v.] Clayton, 995 S.W.2d [468,] 477 [(Mo. banc 1999)] (quoting State v. Tokar, 918 S.W.2d 753, 767 (Mo. banc 1996)). “There is no precise test for determining whether probable cause existed; rather, it is based on the particular facts and circumstances of the individual case.” Id. “‘Furthermore, probable cause is determined by the collective knowledge and the facts available to all of the officers participating in the arrest[.]’” Id. (quoting State v. Mayweather, 865 S.W.2d 672, 675 (Mo.App.1993)). “Probable cause [to arrest] does not mean absolute certainty.” State v. Closterman, 687 S.W.2d 613, 618 (Mo.App.1985). As such, “[t]o establish probable cause [to arrest] ‘[m]uch less evidence than is required to establish guilt is necessary.’” State v. Dixon, 655 S.W.2d 547, 553 (Mo.App.1983) (quoting State v. Dodson, 491 S.W.2d 334, 336 (Mo. banc 1973)), overruled on other grounds by State v. Carson, 941 S.W.2d 518, 520, 523 (Mo. banc 1997).

Tackett, 12 S.W.3d at 339.

In focusing solely upon the issue of the officer’s territorial jurisdiction and state-

law authority to effect the arrest, the circuit court may not have considered (and did not

address) whether Lt. Stewart violated the Fourth Amendment by arresting Defendant

without probable cause. Because credibility determinations are critical in making that

determination, we reverse the circuit court’s suppression order and remand the case for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

DON E. BURRELL, J. – OPINION AUTHOR

MARY W. SHEFFIELD, J. – CONCURS

JACK A. L. GOODMAN, J. – CONCURS