State v. Styles

665 S.E.2d 438, 362 N.C. 412, 2008 N.C. LEXIS 685

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: August 27, 2008
• Docket: 442A07
• Status: Published

Opinions

NEWBY, Justice.

In this case we must determine whether defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the traffic stop that led to his convictions. Because the stop of defendant’s vehicle was constitutional, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals that affirmed the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the stop.

Around 1:00 a.m. on 28 February 2004, Officer Greg Jones of the Bryson City Police Department was on duty and traveling on Main Street, a three lane road with two lanes in Officer Jones’ direction of travel and one lane in the opposite direction. Defendant, who was operating a vehicle moving in the same direction and in front of Officer Jones’ patrol vehicle, changed lanes without signaling. Officer Jones stopped defendant’s vehicle. Upon approaching the driver’s side of the vehicle, Officer Jones immediately detected an odor of marijuana. After defendant declined to consent to a search of his vehicle, Officer Jones deployed a drug-sniffing dog that was in his patrol vehicle. When the dog alerted to the presence of narcotics, Officer Jones initiated a search of the interior of defendant’s vehicle, where he discovered marijuana and a pipe. Officer Jones placed defendant under arrest and found methamphetamine on defendant when he conducted a pat-down search.

Defendant was indicted for possession of Schedule II controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, and marijuana. On 25 October 2005, defendant filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of Officer Jones’ stop of defendant’s vehicle. Defendant’s motion was denied on 31 October 2005, and defendant pled guilty to all charges, expressly reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress under N.C.G.S. § 15A-979(b). The trial court sentenced defendant to six to eight months imprisonment, suspended the sentence, and placed defendant on supervised probation for eighteen months.

On 7 August 2007, the Court of Appeals, in a divided opinion, affirmed the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress. The majority held Officer Jones had probable cause to stop defendant’s vehicle because Officer Jones observed a traffic violation by defendant: changing lanes without signaling. State v. Styles, 185 N.C. App. 271, 274-75, 648 S.E.2d 214, 217 (2007); see N.C.G.S. § 20-154(a) (2007). The dissent argued Officer Jones did not have probable cause to stop defendant’s vehicle because there was no competent evidence that defendant’s actions constituted a traffic violation. 185 N.C. App. at-, 648 S.E.2d at 217 (Stephens, J., dissenting). On 11 September 2007, defendant filed an appeal of right to this Court based on the dissenting opinion. See N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2) (2007).

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” U.S. Const, amend. IV, and the North Carolina Constitution provides similar protection, N.C. Const, art. I, § 20. A traffic stop is a seizure “even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660, 667 (1979). Traffic stops have “been historically reviewed under the investigatory detention framework first articulated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968).” United States v. Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d 392, 396 (3d Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). Under Terry and subsequent cases, a traffic stop is permitted if the officer has a “reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 120 S. Ct. 673, 675, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570, 576 (2000).

Reasonable suspicion is a “less demanding standard than probable cause and requires a showing considerably less than preponderance of the evidence.” Id. at 123, 120 S. Ct. at 675-76, 145 L. Ed. 2d at 576 (citation omitted). The standard is satisfied by “ ‘some minimal level of objective justification.’ ” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S. Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L. Ed. 2d 1, 10 (1989) (quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217, 104 S. Ct. 1758, 1763, 80 L. Ed. 2d 247, 255 (1984)). This Court requires that “[t]he stop ... be based on specific and articulable facts, as well as the rational inferences from those facts, as viewed through the eyes of a reasonable, cautious officer, guided by his experience and training.” State v. Watkins, 337 N.C. 437, 441, 446 S.E.2d 67, 70 (1994) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S. Ct. at 1880, 20 L. Ed.2d at 906). Moreover, “[a] court must consider ‘the totality of the circumstances — the whole picture’ in determining whether a reasonable suspicion” exists. Id. (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S. Ct. 690, 695, 66 L. Ed. 2d 621, 629 (1981)). See generally State v. Barnard,-N.C.-,-, 658 S.E.2d 643, 645 (2008).

“The Terry standard was for many years accepted as the standard governing [routine] traffic stops. But, in 1996, dictum of the Supreme Court in Whren v. United States raised some doubt.” Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d at 396 (internal citations omitted). In Whren, the Court stated that “the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 1772, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89, 95 (1996) (citations omitted).

In the years since Whren, this Court has occasionally discussed whether a traffic stop was constitutional in terms of probable cause. See State v. Ivey, 360 N.C. 562, 633 S.E.2d 459 (2006); State v. McClendon, 350 N.C. 630, 517 S.E.2d 128 (1999). At the same time, a distinction has developed in the Court of Appeals by which that court has required probable cause for traffic stops “made on the basis of a readily observed traffic violation,” but reasonable suspicion for stops “based on an officer’s mere suspicion that a traffic violation is being committed.” State v. Young, 148 N.C. App. 462, 470-71, 559 S.E.2d 814, 820-21 (Greene, J., concurring), appeal dismissed and disc. rev. denied, 355 N.C. 500, 564 S.E.2d 233 (2002), quoted in State v. Wilson, 155 N.C. App. 89, 94, 574 S.E.2d 93, 97-98 (2002), appeal dismissed and disc. rev. denied, 356 N.C. 693, 579 S.E.2d 98, and cert. denied, 540 U.S. 843, 124 S. Ct. 113, 157 L. Ed. 2d 78 (2003). The State argues this distinction is incorrect because reasonable suspicion is the standard for both types of traffic stops. We agree.

Subsequent to Whren, federal courts have continued to hold that reasonable suspicion remains the necessary standard for stops based on traffic violations. Most recently, in Delfin-Colina, the Third Circuit addressed whether, after Whren, the required standard for a stop based on a readily observed traffic violation was reasonable suspicion or probable cause: “Was the Court, shifting gears, now requiring ‘probable cause’ as the predicate for a traffic stop? The consensus is to the contrary. . . . [T]he Second, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have all ‘construed Whren to require only that the police have “reasonable suspicion” to believe that a traffic law has been broken.’ ” 464 E3d at 396 (quoting United States v. Willis, 431 F.3d 709, 723 (9th Cir. 2005) (W. Fletcher, J., dissenting)). In accord with every federal circuit to consider this issue, we hold that reasonable suspicion is the necessary standard for traffic stops, regardless of whether the traffic violation was readily observed or merely suspected.¹ See id. at 396-97 (determining that reasonable suspicion is the appropriate standard for a traffic stop based on a readily observed traffic violation); Willis, 431 F.3d at 714-15 (applying reasonable suspicion standard to a traffic stop based on readily observed traffic violations); Holeman v. City of New London, 425 F.3d 184, 189 (2d Cir. 2005) (determining that either reasonable suspicion or probable cause is sufficient to support all types of traffic stops); United States v. Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d 1271, 1275-76 (11th Cir. 2003) (concluding traffic stop based on a readily observed traffic violation would have been reasonable if police officer had either probable cause or reasonable suspicion); United States v. Ramstad, 308 F.3d 1139, 1144 (10th Cir. 2002) (requiring probable cause or reasonable suspicion for a traffic stop based on a readily observed traffic violation); United States v. Callarman, 273 F.3d 1284, 1286-87 (10th Cir. 2001) (same), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1072, 122 S. Ct. 1950, 152 L. Ed. 2d 853 (2002); United States v. Lopez-Soto, 205 F.3d 1101, 1104-05 (9th Cir. 2000) (determining that reasonable suspicion is the appropriate standard for a traffic stop based on a readily observed traffic violation); United States v. Ozbirn, 189 F.3d 1194, 1198-99 (10th Cir. 1999) (requiring either probable cause or reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation had occurred).

Having determined that reasonable suspicion is the appropriate standard, we now turn to the facts of this case. Officer Jones stopped defendant’s vehicle for failure to signal in violation of N.C.G.S. § 20-154(a), which states in pertinent part:

(a) The driver of any vehicle upon a highway or public vehicular area before starting, stopping or turning from a direct line shall first see that such movement can be made in safety . . . and whenever the operation of any other vehicle may be affected by such movement, shall give a signal as required in this section, plainly visible to the driver of such other vehicle, of the intention to make such movement.

Defendant argues there is no evidence that the movement of his vehicle could have affected the operation of another vehicle. We disagree.

The trial court found that at the time defendant’s vehicle changed lanes without a signal, it was “being operated by the defendant immediately in front of’ Officer Jones’ patrol vehicle. As defendant has not specifically assigned error to this finding of fact, it is not reviewable on appeal. See State v. Campbell, 359 N.C. 644, 662, 617 S.E.2d 1, 13 (2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1073, 126 S. Ct. 1773, 164 L. Ed. 2d 523 (2006). This finding of fact indicates that defendant’s failure to signal violated N.C.G.S. § 20-154(a), because it is clear that changing lanes immediately in front of another vehicle may affect the operation of the trailing vehicle. Officer Jones’ observation of defendant’s traffic violation gave him the required reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s vehicle. Thus, the trial court’s findings of fact support its conclusion of law that defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated by the stop.

AFFIRMED.

Justice HUDSON concurs in the result only.

1 . Our holding is consistent with McClendon and Ivey. Neither case concerned a factual situation in which the distinction between probable cause and reasonable suspicion was relevant. As in Whren, the issue in McClendon was not whether the officer had probable cause to stop the defendant’s vehicle, but what weight to give the officer’s subjective motivations. 350 N.C. at 635-36, 517 S.E.2d at 131-32. Although we used the term “probable cause” in Ivey, the facts of that case make it clear that the officer did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant’s vehicle'. 360 N.C. at 563, 565-66, 633 S.E.2d at 460-62. To the extent language in Ivey may be interpreted as requiring probable cause, we specifically disavow that interpretation. In short, under this Court’s post-Whren cases, probable cause is sufficient, but not necessary, for a traffic stop.