State v. Landreth

88 P.3d 1226, 139 Idaho 986, 2004 Ida. App. LEXIS 28
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 12, 2004
DocketNo. 29399
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 88 P.3d 1226 (State v. Landreth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Landreth, 88 P.3d 1226, 139 Idaho 986, 2004 Ida. App. LEXIS 28 (Idaho Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

WALTERS, Judge Pro Tem.

Richard Jack Landreth appeals from the judgment of conviction entered by the district court after a jury found him guilty of drug-related charges. We affirm.

I.

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

At approximately 3:30 a.m. on March 17, 2002, an employee of a grocery store in Co-eur d’Alene contacted police to report a suspicious vehicle moving from parking space to parking space in the grocery store’s parking lot. The vehicle was described as a light-colored truck and was last seen parked next to a red van. An officer drove to the parking lot, observed a light-colored truck next to a red van, and stopped to talk with the driver. While walking to the truck, the officer observed an orange extension cord running from the hood of the truck to the wall of the grocery store. The officer asked the driver if everything was all right, what he was doing there, how he got there, and who he was. The driver responded that all was well, that he was waiting for his battery to get warm, that the employees of the grocery store knew he was there, and that he had come from a friend’s house. The driver produced his driver’s license upon the officer’s request for identification. The officer matched the picture to the driver, Landreth, and gave the pertinent information to dispatch to ran a driver’s query. During their conversation, Landreth told the officer that he was wanted on an arrest warrant. A few minutes after the officer contacted dispatch, dispatch informed the officer that Landreth had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Lan-dreth was arrested and searched incident to his arrest. A small red bindle of methamphetamine fell from Landreth’s pocket during the search. Inside the truck, officers found methamphetamine, marijuana, and drag paraphernalia. As a result, Landreth was charged with possession of methamphetamine, I.C. § 37-2732(c)(l); possession of marijuana, I.C. § 37-2732(c)(3); and possession of drug paraphernalia, I.C. § 37-2734A.

Prior to trial, Landreth filed a motion to suppress the evidence found during the search incident to his arrest, claiming that his brief detention while the officer ran a driver’s query violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The district court [988]*988denied the motion, holding that, under State v. Godwin, 121 Idaho 491, 826 P.2d 462 (1992), the very minimal intrusion was justified under the circumstances. A jury found Landreth guilty of all three charges. Lan-dreth appeals from his judgment of conviction arguing that the district court erred when it denied his motion to suppress.

II.

ANALYSIS

Landreth argues that his motion to suppress should have been granted because there was no legal justification for briefly detaining him to run the driver’s query, thus tainting the evidence found as a result of the search incident to his arrest. Specifically, Landreth asserts that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot as required to effectuate an investigatory stop. Landreth also contends that the brief detention was not justified in light of the police community caretaker function because Landreth needed no assistance. The state argues that the discovery of the outstanding arrest warrant dissipated any taint of the evidence caused by the detention.

The standard of review of a suppression motion is bifurcated. When a decision on a motion to suppress is challenged, we accept the trial court’s findings of fact which are supported by substantial evidence, but we freely review the application of constitutional principles to the facts as found. State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 669, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct.App.1996). At a suppression hearing, the power to assess the credibility of witnesses, resolve factual conflicts, weigh evidence, and draw factual inferences is vested in the trial court. State v. Valdez-Molina, 127 Idaho 102, 106, 897 P.2d 993, 997 (1995); State v. Schevers, 132 Idaho 786, 789, 979 P.2d 659, 662 (Ct.App.1999). When a search or seizure is conducted pursuant to a warrant, the defendant must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that his or her constitutional rights were violated by the search or seizure. State v. Northover, 133 Idaho 655, 658, 991 P.2d 380, 383 (Ct.App.1999).

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. A warrant-less search is presumptively unreasonable unless it falls within certain special and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-55, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); State v. Ferreira, 133 Idaho 474, 479, 988 P.2d 700, 705 (Ct.App.1999). A search incident to a valid arrest is among those exceptions and, thus, does not violate the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-63, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969); State v. Moore, 129 Idaho 776, 781, 932 P.2d 899, 904 (Ct.App.1996). Landreth does not challenge the validity of the warrant for his arrest. Instead, Landreth asserts that the evidence obtained from the search was tainted because he was illegally detained when the officer obtained Landreth’s license, ran the driver’s query and thereby discovered the warrant.

In support of his argument, Landreth relies on Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). In Brown, a case not involving the suppression of evidence but rather the constitutionality of a criminal statute, the United States Supreme Court found unconstitutional a Texas statute that made it a criminal act for a person to refuse to give his name and address to an officer upon the officer’s request for such information. The underlying facts in Brown showed that the officer had observed Brown and another man walking away from one another in an alley in an area with a high incidence of drug traffic. Because the situation looked suspicious and the officer had never seen Brown in that area before, the officer stopped Brown and asked him to identify himself and explain what he was doing. The officer did not claim to suspect Brown of any specific misconduct, nor did he have any reason to believe that Brown was‘armed. When Brown refused to provide identification, the officer arrested him for the statutory violation. The Court held that detaining Brown for the purpose of having Brown identify himself constituted a seizure of his person subject to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment that the seizure be- “reasonable.” [989]*989The Court recognized that in some circumstances an officer may detain a suspect briefly for questioning although he does not have “probable cause” to believe that the suspect is involved in criminal activity, as is required for a traditional arrest. Id. at 51, 99 S.Ct. 2637.

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Bluebook (online)
88 P.3d 1226, 139 Idaho 986, 2004 Ida. App. LEXIS 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-landreth-idahoctapp-2004.