State v. Hight

781 A.2d 11, 146 N.H. 746, 2001 N.H. LEXIS 155
CourtSupreme Court of New Hampshire
DecidedSeptember 6, 2001
DocketNo. 99-576
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 781 A.2d 11 (State v. Hight) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Hampshire primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hight, 781 A.2d 11, 146 N.H. 746, 2001 N.H. LEXIS 155 (N.H. 2001).

Opinion

NADEAU, J.

The defendant, Dorian Hight, appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled drug in violation of RSA 318-B:2 (1995) after a bench trial before the Keene District Court (Tenney, J.). The defendant challenges the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a consent search conducted following a motor vehicle traffic stop. We reverse and remand.

The following facts are undisputed. At 8:40 p.m. on the evening of May 9, 1999, the defendant, an African-American male, was pulled over by an officer of the Chesterfield Police Department for going 47 MPH in a 35 MPH zone and for having a defective taillight. The defendant was accompanied in the vehicle by two Caucasian passengers.

Upon approaching the defendant’s vehicle, the officer asked the defendant to state his place of origin and destination. He responded that he had just left Boston and was en route to Landmark College in Vermont. The officer asked the defendant to produce his driver’s license and automobile registration, which he did. After determining that the defendant’s license and registration were valid, the officer returned to the defendant and asked him to step out of the vehicle to answer some questions. At this time, the officer still had possession of the defendant’s license and registration.

The officer again asked the defendant to state his place of origin and his destination. The defendant again responded that he had come from Boston, where he and his passengers had been “hanging out,” and that he was going to Vermont. The officer told the defendant that he thought it was a long way to drive just to “hang out.” The defendant responded that they had also gone to a “frat party” while in Boston.

The officer, indicating that he was concerned the defendant had picked up drugs in Boston, asked him for permission to search the vehicle for drugs. The defendant consented to the search, which yielded no contraband. The officer then asked and was given [748]*748permission to pat the defendant down for weapons and to search his person and his wallet for drugs. The officer found a container that held a small amount of marijuana in the defendant’s back pocket. He also found a package of rolling papers in the defendant’s wallet. The two passengers were not searched. Subsequently, the officer arrested the defendant for possession of a controlled drug and returned the defendant’s license and registration. The defendant was later convicted and appealed.

On appeal, the defendant argues that the officer unlawfully detained him longer than necessary to write a traffic ticket, and, therefore, his subsequent consent to search was “tainted” by the unlawful detention. We address the defendant’s claims first under the State Constitution. See State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 231 (1983). With respect to the lawfulness of an investigative stop, the State Constitution is at least as protective as the Federal Constitution. See State v. Wallace, 146 N.H. 146, 148, (2001). Therefore, we need not engage in a separate federal analysis and look to federal cases for guidance only. See State v. Farrell, 145 N.H. 733, 736 (2001). When reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the trial court’s factual findings unless they lack support in the record or are clearly erroneous. See Wallace, 146 N.H. at 148. Our review of the trial court’s legal conclusions, however, is de novo. See id.

“In order for a police officer to undertake an investigatory stop, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion — based on specific, articulable facts taken together with rational inferences from those facts — that the particular person stopped has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.?’ Id. (quotation omitted); see also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-21 (1968). We have applied the Terry standard to motor vehicle stops. See State v. Pellicci, 133 N.H. 523, 528-29 (1990).

There is no dispute that the officer’s stop of the defendant for speeding and a broken taillight was a lawful investigatory stop. We have previously held, however, that the scope of an investigative stop “must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification!,] must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.” State v. Wong, 138 N.H. 56, 63 (1993) (quotation and ellipsis omitted). “[A]ny expansion of the scope of [a motor vehicle] stop to include investigation of other suspected illegal activity is [constitutionally] permissible . . . only if the officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that other criminal [749]*749activity is afoot.” Annotation, Permissibility Under Fourth Amendment of Detention of Motorist by Police, Following Lawful Stop for Traffic Offense, to Investigate Matters Not Related to Offense, 118 A.L.R. FED 567, 573 (1994); see also 4 W. LAFAVE, SEARCH AND SEIZURE: A TREATISE ON THE FOURTH AMENDMENT § 9.2(f), at 65 (3d ed. 1996).

The State concedes that the officer did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of other criminal activity which would justify detaining the defendant beyond the time necessary to check the defendant’s license and registration. The question before us is what effect, if any, did the defendant’s continued and unlawful detention have on his subsequent consent to search his vehicle and his person.

We have not yet had occasion to consider this issue. The United States Supreme Court, however, has expressly held that when consent to search is the product of an unlawful detention, such consent is “tainted” by the illegality of the detention. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 507-08 (1983). Although Royer did not involve a motor vehicle stop, we agree with Justice Stevens that when deciding the validity of consent that is the product of an unlawful detention during a motor vehicle stop, “[t]he proper disposition follows as an application of [the] well-settled law [articulated in Royer].” Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 51 (1996) (Stevens, J., dissenting).

Rather than adopting a per se rule suppressing evidence obtained during a consent search that stems from an unlawful detention, however, we ask “whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.” State v. Cobb, 143 N.H. 638, 650 (1999) (quotation omitted). “We require the government to demonstrate that any taint of an illegal search or seizure has been purged or attenuated not only because we are concerned that the illegal seizure may affect the voluntariness of the defendant’s consent, but also to effectuate the purpose of the exclusionary rule.” United States v. Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d 1046, 1054 (10th Cir. 1994). “The [exclusionary] rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair. Its purpose is to deter — to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way — by removing the incentive to disregard it.” Id. (quotation omitted).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
781 A.2d 11, 146 N.H. 746, 2001 N.H. LEXIS 155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hight-nh-2001.