State v. Turner

59 P.3d 711, 114 Wash. App. 653, 2002 Wash. App. LEXIS 3148
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedDecember 20, 2002
DocketNo. 27464-7-II
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 59 P.3d 711 (State v. Turner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Turner, 59 P.3d 711, 114 Wash. App. 653, 2002 Wash. App. LEXIS 3148 (Wash. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinions

Seinfeld, J.

The State appeals from a trial court suppression order. Rickey F. Turner cross appeals the trial [656]*656court’s denial of prejudgment interest on the fines and costs he paid pursuant to an earlier judgment and sentence that this court later overturned. Finding that the State failed to carry its burden of establishing that the vehicle’s passenger compartment was within Turner’s immediate control at the time of his arrest, we affirm the trial court’s suppression order. Further finding that the State did not waive its sovereign immunity and, thus, is not liable for prejudgment interest, we also affirm the trial court’s ruling on prejudgment interest.

FACTS

A deputy sheriff contacted Rickey Turner after he observed Turner urinating in a parking lot.1 When the deputy first approached, Turner was standing near the open driver’s side door of a pickup truck; another person was seated in the passenger seat.

Turner denied that he had been urinating and became argumentative. The deputy then arrested him for indecent exposure and obstructing a public servant. A second deputy then searched the truck’s passenger compartment and discovered a rifle. The State charged Turner with unlawful possession of a firearm and obstructing a law enforcement officer. State v. Turner, 103 Wn. App. 515, 519, 13 P.3d 234 (2000).

A jury convicted Turner of the unlawful possession of a firearm charge, but we later reversed the conviction and remanded the case for retrial. Turner, 103 Wn. App. at 518-20, 526. Turner moved for reimbursement of the fines and costs he had paid under the reversed judgment and sentence and requested prejudgment interest. The trial court ordered reimbursement of the $471.70 Turner had paid toward the judgment, but denied him the $40.26 in ir terest he requested.

[657]*657On retrial, Turner moved to suppress evidence of the rifle. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the charge with prejudice.

The State appeals, arguing that the deputy found the rifle in a proper search incident to Turner’s arrest. Turner cross appeals the trial court’s refusal to grant him prejudgment interest.

DISCUSSION

I. Search

Under article I, section 7 of our state constitution, warrantless searches are per se unreasonable unless they fall under a specific exception to the warrant requirement. State v. Parker, 139 Wn.2d 486, 496, 987 P.2d 73 (1999). Such exceptions are “limited and narrowly drawn.” Parker, 139 Wn.2d at 496; see also State v. Porter, 102 Wn. App. 327, 330, 6 P.3d 1245 (2000). The State has the burden of establishing that a warrantless search falls within an exception. Parker, 139 Wn.2d at 496; Porter, 102 Wn. App. at 330.

Under the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement, officers may search a suspect’s person and the area within that person’s immediate control at the time of the arrest even in the absence of exigent circumstances. Porter, 102 Wn. App. at 330-31, 333-34. This permission extends to the passenger compartment of the suspect’s vehicle if the compartment was within the suspect’s immediate control at the time of or immediately prior “to the suspect’s being arrested, handcuffed, and placed in a patrol car . . . .” State v. Stroud, 106 Wn.2d 144, 152, 720 P.2d 436 (1986). To invoke this exception, the State must prove both close physical and close temporal proximity. See, e.g., State v. Johnston, 107 Wn. App. 280, 28 P.3d 775 (2001), review denied, 145 Wn.2d 1021 (2002).

Courts have upheld vehicle searches where, at the time of arrest, the suspect was (1) standing within the door to the [658]*658passenger compartment, (2) leaning into the vehicle, or (3) within several of feet of the vehicle. See Stroud, 106 Wn.2d at 145, 153 (search valid where one suspect was standing in the “swing of the open passenger door” and the other was only a couple of feet away from the vehicle); State v. Bradley, 105 Wn. App. 30, 33, 18 P.3d 602, 27 P.3d 613 (2001) (search valid where suspect leaned into vehicle, then walked 10 to 12 feet away from car leaving the door “somewhat ajar”).

But the required physical and temporal proximity have been lacking where (1) the suspect has been removed entirely from the scene, (2) the arrest occurred inside a building some distance away from the vehicle, (3) the suspect lawfully parked and locked the vehicle before the police contact, (4) the suspect was away from the car for an unspecified period and at the time of the arrest the officers were between the suspect and the closed car, or (5) the suspect had walked a significant distance away from the vehicle. Johnston, 107 Wn. App. at 288 (car search invalid where arrest occurred after suspects left car, went into store for unspecified time, when they returned the officers were between closed car and suspects, and proximity was unspecified); State v. Wheless, 103 Wn. App. 749, 14 P.3d 184 (2000) (car search invalid where arrest took place inside tavern); Porter, 102 Wn. App. at 333-34 (car search invalid when suspect was approximately 300 feet from vehicle when arrested); State v. Perea, 85 Wn. App. 339, 932 P.2d 1258 (1997) (car search invalid where suspect lawfully exited and locked his car before police contact); State v. Boyce, 52 Wn. App. 274, 758 P.2d 1017 (1988) (search not valid where suspect had been entirely removed from the scene).

In this case, neither the findings of fact nor the evidence indicate the distance between Turner and the truck; both merely use the relative word “near.”2 Given that [659]*659the truck door was open, the driver seat was vacant, and another person was sitting in the passenger seat, it was reasonable for the arresting deputy to assume that Turner was the vehicle’s driver. But absent evidence of Turner’s proximity to the vehicle, there was no basis for the trial court or this court to conclude that the passenger compartment was within Turner’s immediate control when the deputy approached him.

The State argues that the trial court used the wrong legal standard. It contends that the court’s reference in its findings to the deputy’s failure to observe Turner inside the vehicle and to the absence of evidence that he attempted to reach into or enter it indicates that the court erroneously relied on these facts.

We agree with the State that proof of immediate control does not require evidence that the defendant was in the vehicle or attempting to enter it. But the trial court’s descriptive findings do not establish that the court required proof of these facts to establish immediate control.

Here, unlike in Stroud, the record is silent as to the distance between Turner and the vehicle.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
59 P.3d 711, 114 Wash. App. 653, 2002 Wash. App. LEXIS 3148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-turner-washctapp-2002.