State v. J. Stewart

Opinion

07/14/2026

DA 25-0574 Case Number: DA 25-0574

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA

2026 MT 152N

STATE OF MONTANA,

Plaintiff and Appellee,

v.

JESSIE EMILIA STEWART,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL FROM: District Court of the First Judicial District, In and For the County of Lewis and Clark, Cause No. DDC-2022-456 Honorable Christopher D. Abbott, Presiding Judge

COUNSEL OF RECORD:

For Appellant:

Brent W. Flowers, Beebe & Flowers, Helena, Montana

For Appellee:

Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Thad Tudor, Assistant Attorney General, Thad Nathan Tudor, Helena, Montana

Kevin Downs, Lewis and Clark County Attorney, Rachel Raymond, Deputy County Attorney, Helena, Montana

Submitted on Briefs: April 22, 2026

Decided: July 14, 2026

Filed:

__________________________________________ Clerk Justice Laurie McKinnon delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 Pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c), Montana Supreme Court Internal Operating

Rules, this case is decided by memorandum opinion and shall not be cited and does not

serve as precedent. Its case title, cause number, and disposition shall be included in this

Court’s quarterly list of noncitable cases published in the Pacific Reporter and Montana

Reports.

¶2 Jessie Emilia Stewart (Stewart) appeals the April 2, 2024 denial of her Motion to

Suppress entered in the First Judicial District Court, Lewis and Clark County. We affirm.

¶3 On August 4, 2022, Helena police photographed a vehicle as it left the scene of a

felony vandalism at a local church. Officers posted the photographs to an internal police

message board seeking to identify the owner of the vehicle. The photographs depicted a

white Chevrolet Lumina with “blacked-out wheels” and “distinctive markings by the

driver’s side taillight.” While patrolling on the night of September 5, 2022, Officer Jose

Guerrero (Officer Guerrero) observed a vehicle which matched the photographs and

followed the vehicle to a Wal-Mart parking lot. There, Officer Guerrero approached the

vehicle and told the driver, Stewart, that the vehicle was implicated in a crime and

requested identification. While waiting for dispatch to run Stewart’s driver’s license,

Officer Guerrero ordered Stewart to exit the vehicle and wait at the rear bumper. Dispatch

informed Officer Guerrero that Stewart was on probation and driving on a suspended

license. Roughly six minutes after Officer Guerrero first contacted Stewart, other officers

arrived at the scene and Officer Guerrero returned to his vehicle to review the vandalism

report.

2 ¶4 After several minutes of reviewing the report, Officer Guerrero looked through the

windows of Stewart’s vehicle and spotted a broken glass pipe of the type commonly used

to smoke methamphetamine in plain view on the driver’s side floorboard. An on-call

Montana Probation and Parole officer (Probation) telephoned Officer Guerrero and

informed him that Stewart had not been reporting, and, upon being informed about the

pipe, authorized a search of Stewart’s person and vehicle. In addition to the pipe, the search

revealed a stolen handgun, baggies containing methamphetamine, multiple cell phones,

and a scale. Stewart was arrested and placed on a probation hold. She was subsequently

charged with, inter alia, criminal possession of dangerous drugs, criminal possession with

intent to distribute, and criminal possession of drug paraphernalia.

¶5 On May 23, 2023, Stewart filed a motion in District Court to suppress the evidence

discovered on her person and in her vehicle, alleging that Officer Guerrero lacked the

necessary particularized suspicion to seize and investigate her and that Probation did not

have reasonable suspicion to search her vehicle or person. The District Court denied this

motion, finding that Officer Guerrero had the required particularized suspicion due to the

similarity in appearance between Stewart’s vehicle and the vehicle involved with the

church vandalism. The District Court further found that the discovery of the

methamphetamine pipe triggered reasonable suspicion that Stewart was violating the terms

of her probation by using drugs, so the remainder of the seizure was a constitutional

warrantless probationary search. Stewart pled guilty to criminal possession with intent to

distribute, while reserving her right to appeal the District Court’s denial of her Motion to

Suppress.

3 ¶6 Stewart now appeals, arguing that the District Court erred in finding that

particularized suspicion existed and that Officer Guerrero unjustifiably expanded and

prolonged the stop. She alleges further error in the finding that insufficient reasonable

cause existed for Probation to authorize a warrantless search of her person and her vehicle.

We address each of these issues in turn.

Lack of Particularized Suspicion

¶7 A district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence is reviewed for clear error

in the findings of fact, and for correctness in its interpretation of law. State v. Copelton,

2006 MT 182, ¶ 8, 333 Mont. 91, 140 P.3d 1074. “Lower court findings of fact are clearly

erroneous if not supported by substantial evidence, the court misapprehended the effect of

the evidence, or . . . we are firmly convinced that the court was otherwise mistaken.” State

v. Stanley, 2024 MT 271, ¶ 15, 419 Mont. 61, 558 P.3d 1147. A district court’s

interpretation of law is reviewed de novo. Stanley, ¶ 15.

¶8 Both the United States and Montana constitutions protect against unreasonable or

warrantless searches and seizures, and evidence obtained in violation of those provisions

is excluded from trial. State v. Elison, 2000 MT 288, ¶ 15, 302 Mont. 288, 14 P.3d 456.

One exception to the warrant requirement is an officer’s brief investigatory stop of a vehicle

(Terry stop). Such a stop is justified when the officer has particularized suspicion that an

occupant of that vehicle is currently or has previously been involved in criminal activity.

State v. Gopher, 193 Mont. 189, 194, 631 P.3d 293, 296 (1981). Section 46-5-401, MCA,

provides that the purpose of a Terry stop is to “obtain or verify an account of the person’s

4 presence or conduct or to determine whether to arrest the person,” and that the officer may

“request the person’s name and present address and an explanation of the person’s actions.”

¶9 Particularized suspicion exists when there is specific, articulatable, and objective

data from which an experienced police officer can make a rational inference that an

individual has previously or is currently engaged in criminal activity. City of Missoula v.

Kroschel, 2018 MT 142, ¶ 11, 391 Mont. 457, 419 P.3d 1208; Gopher, 193 Mont. at 193,

631 P.2d at 296; Elison, ¶ 15. Existence of particularized suspicion is “‘a factually driven

inquiry dependent upon the totality of the circumstances giving rise to the investigative

stop’ [and] requires more than a mere hunch or good faith belief that the person

is . . . engaged in criminal activity.” State v. Roberts, 2025 MT 110, ¶ 15, 422 Mont. 109,

569 P.3d 524 (quoting State v. Roberts, 1999 MT 59, ¶ 13, 293 Mont. 476, 977 P.2d 974).

The court “should consider the quantity, or content, and quality, or degree of reliability, of

the information available to the officer” when evaluating the totality of the circumstances.

State v. Pratt, 286 Mont. 156, 161, 951 P.2d 37, 40 (1997).

¶10 Here, Officer Guerrero initially stopped Stewart because he observed that her

vehicle closely resembled the vehicle photographed leaving the scene of the church

vandalism, especially due to the distinctiveness of the markings near the taillight and the

“blacked-out wheels.” A rational inference can be made that Stewart’s vehicle was

connected to the vandalism incident. Stewart contends that “[m]erely observing a white

Chevrolet Lumina is not enough to create a particularized suspicion of wrongdoing,” but

fails to consider that Officer Guerrero’s suspicion arose due to the distinctive features of

the vehicle, not simply the make and color. Although it is possible that Stewart’s vehicle

5 and the photographed vehicle are two different vehicles of the same type with closely

similar unique features, it is rational to infer that they are the same. Furthermore, it is

reasonable to infer that a person habitually drives the same vehicle, or at least that they

could provide information about others who drive that vehicle.

¶11 The instant case is analogous to Stanley. There, officers searching for a suspect

reported to be wearing a distinctive “Carrot Top” wig conducted a Terry stop on an

individual who was wearing such a wig, even though they quickly discovered that the

stopped individual was not the sought-after suspect. We determined that the officers had

particularized suspicion to conduct the Terry stop, as the distinctiveness of the wig could

lead to a reasonable inference that the individual had recent contact with the suspect.

Stanley, ¶ 32. Here, Officer Guerrero specifically articulated that the distinct features of

Stewart’s vehicle, namely the “blacked-out wheels” and the markings next to the taillight,

lead to his inference that Stewart’s vehicle and the photographed vehicle were the same.

As in Stanley, it was the observation of distinct features connected to previous criminal

behavior which established particularized suspicion, not observation of any immediate

criminality. Stanley, ¶ 32.

¶12 Stewart characterizes her stop by Officer Guerrero as based upon a “hunch” that her

vehicle looked “suspicious,” and argues that Officer Guerrero had observed no wrongdoing

by Stewart before stopping her. That Officer Guerrero had no direct observations of

criminality is not dispositive, as a Terry stop may be effectuated upon particularized

suspicion that a person had previously been involved in criminal activity. Gopher, 193

Mont. at 193, 631 P.2d at 296; see also Pratt, 286 Mont. at 161, 951 P.2d at 40.

6 Furthermore, Officer Guerrero did not stop Stewart on the basis that she might have

committed an unspecified crime; rather, her vehicle matched the vehicle associated with a

known, specific, previous crime. Stewart cites to State v. Reeves, 2019 MT 151, 396 Mont.

230, 444 P.3d 394, as analogous to the instant case. There, we held that “When the only

basis for suspecting a specific person of wrongdoing is inferences that could be drawn from

the conduct of virtually any law-abiding person, the resulting suspicion cannot, by

definition, be particularized.” Reeves, ¶ 13. Here, however, Stewart’s conduct does not

comport with that of “virtually any law-abiding person,” as her vehicle matches one

associated with a known, specific instance of criminal activity. It was not necessary for

Officer Guerrero to observe Stewart break any laws because the similarity of the vehicle’s

appearance to the photographs gave him a rational basis to infer that Stewart had broken a

law on a previous, particular occasion.

¶13 Stewart further argues that a mismatch between the license plate on the vehicle on

the evening of her arrest and the photographed license plate preclude Officer Guerrero from

stopping her based on lack of particularized suspicion. However, the officer who posted

the photographs of the vehicle to the police message board specifically noted that the

“[vehicle] has fictions [sic] plates.” The fictitious plates support that there was

particularized suspicion.

¶14 Moreover, Officer Guerrero became aware of the methamphetamine pipe on the

floor of Stewart’s vehicle before he was able to fully question Stewart regarding the

original purpose of the stop, the vandalism of the church. At that point, the scope of the

investigation ripened into a new one regarding dangerous drugs, for which the

7 methamphetamine pipe provided clear particularized suspicion. Given that he had not yet

completed the purpose defined by § 46-5-401, MCA, of “obtain[ing] or verify[ing] an

account of the person’s presence or conduct,” Officer Guerrero could not have unjustifiably

lengthened the initial stop. Officer Guerrero’s discovery of the pipe was incidental (as it

was in plain view) and occurred during the initial vandalism investigation. For the stop to

have been illegally lengthened, the pipe’s discovery must have occurred outside this initial

investigatory scope. See State v. Noli, 2023 MT 84, ¶¶ 46, 47, 412 Mont. 170, 529 P.3d

813.

¶15 We conclude that the District Court did not err in finding that particularized

suspicion existed to perform a Terry stop and investigation of Stewart.

Authorization by Probation to Search

¶16 Probation is considered a form of punishment and, accordingly, a probationer has a

reduced right to liberty and privacy than the typical citizen. State v. Brooks, 2012 MT 263,

¶ 14, 367 Mont. 59, 289 P.3d 105. Because of this diminished expectation of privacy, a

probationer must submit to a warrantless search of their person or vehicle when a probation

officer has reasonable cause to search. Admin. R. M. 20.7.1101(7) (2008); State v. Roper,

2001 MT 96, ¶ 12, 305 Mont. 212, 26 P.3d 741; State v. Burchett, 277 Mont. 192, 195, 921

P.2d 854, 856 (1996). Furthermore, “A probation and parole officer may authorize a law

enforcement agency to conduct a search, provided the probation and parole officer

determines reasonable suspicion exists that the offender has violated the conditions of

supervision.” Admin. R. M. 20.7.1101(7) (2008). “Whether reasonable grounds exist to

conduct a probationary search is a factual inquiry determined by the totality of the

8 circumstances.” State v. Fischer, 2014 MT 112, ¶ 11, 374 Mont. 533, 323 P.3d 891. A

probationer “must comply with all municipal, county, state, and federal laws and

ordinances and shall conduct himself/herself as a good citizen.” Admin. R. M.

20.7.1101(8) (2008).

¶17 Stewart contends that “even absent the unlawful initial stop . . . [Officer Guerrero]

had no lawful basis to look inside [Stewart’s] vehicle in the first instance,” as Officer

Guerrero did not have reasonable cause to conduct a probationary search. This assertion

does not comport with the totality of the circumstances. Officer Guerrero became aware

that Stewart was driving on a suspended license upon first contacting her, a violation of the

terms of Stewart’s probation and Admin. R. M. 20.7.1101(8) (2008). He was informed by

Probation shortly thereafter that Stewart had not been checking in as required. Finally, the

presence of the pipe in plain view on the vehicle’s floor indicated a high probability that

Stewart was illegally using methamphetamine, again violating the terms of her probation.

Officer Guerrero only began the search once he became aware of these facts and received

authorization from Probation. These circumstances indicate a likelihood that Stewart had

violated her probation, and thus provided reasonable cause to search Stewart.

¶18 We have determined to decide this case pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c) of our

Internal Operating Rules, which provides for memorandum opinions. In the opinion of the

Court, the case presents a question controlled by settled law or by the clear application of

applicable standards of review.

¶19 Affirmed.

/S/ LAURIE McKINNON

9 We Concur:

/S/ JAMES JEREMIAH SHEA /S/ KATHERINE M. BIDEGARAY /S/ BETH BAKER /S/ INGRID GUSTAFSON