State v. Wyatt

687 P.2d 544, 67 Haw. 293, 1984 Haw. LEXIS 120
CourtHawaii Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 16, 1984
DocketNO. 9280
StatusPublished
Cited by87 cases

This text of 687 P.2d 544 (State v. Wyatt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hawaii Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Wyatt, 687 P.2d 544, 67 Haw. 293, 1984 Haw. LEXIS 120 (haw 1984).

Opinion

*295 OPINION OF THE COURT BY

NAKAMURA, J.

Three questions are presented in this appeal by the State of Hawaii from an order suppressing evidence in a prosecution brought against Jacqueline L. Wyatt for Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicating Liquor in violation of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 291-4 1 and Possessing Intoxicating Liquor While Operating a Motor Vehicle on a Public Street in violation of HRS § 291-3.1. 2 They are: (1) whether the roadside questioning of the defendant after she had been stopped for a traffic violation constituted custodial interrogation for purposes of applying the Miranda rule; (2) whether the results of sobriety tests administered to the defendant were excludable as evidence on grounds that “neither probable cause nor reasonable grounds” existed for the administration *296 of such tests; and (3) whether the seizure of evidence from the passenger compartment of her automobile was unreasonable because it was preceded by a flashlight-aided scan of the compartment. Unlike the District Court of the First Circuit, we' conclude from a review of the record and relevant precepts of criminal jurisprudence that the questions call for answers in the negative. Thus, we set aside the district court’s suppression order and remand the case for trial.

I.

While standing on a sidewalk abutting Kalakaua Avenue near midnight on March 13, 1983, Officers Main and Todt of the Honolulu Police Department observed an automobile, an MG convertible with its top down, being driven without lighted headlamps. 3 Officer Main thus directed the driver, Jacqueline L. Wyatt, to drive the vehicle to the curb. When she did so, the officer asked her to produce her driver’s license, the vehicle’s registration certificate, and her no-fault insurance card. While she rummaged through her purse for those documents, Officer Main became aware of a smell of intoxicating liquor emanating from the pas *297 senger compartment of the automobile. So he asked if she had been drinking, which she readily admitted. She told him she had a drink earlier that night and then volunteered she had been cited for three traffic violations a few minutes earlier. 4 At this juncture, the officer ordered her to alight from the car and proceeded to administer a field sobriety test. When it indicated she might have been driving while under the influence of intoxicants, she was arrested for violating HRS § 291-4.

Meanwhile, Officer Todt, who had been directing traffic around the parked convertible, approached the vehicle’s left rear and noticed a green bottle behind the driver’s seat. He used his flashlight to obtain a better view of the passenger compartment and saw two empty bottles he instantly recognized as containers of a particular brand of beer, Moosehead. Looking further with the aid of the flashlight, he saw what appeared to be a bottle of vodka, half-full, between the two front seats. By then, Officer Main had arrested the defendant and directed her to a police car for transport to the police station.

Officer Todt continued to scan the passenger compartment after the defendant had been ordered from her vehicle and found two open Diet Pepsi cans smelling of alcohol and another empty Moosehead beer bottle. He seized all of the beverage containers. And when the defendant was booked at the police station, she was also charged with possessing opened containers of intoxicating liquors while operating a motor vehicle on a public street.

*298 Prior to trial the defendant moved to exclude as evidence the admission that she had consumed an alcoholic beverage on the night of her arrest, the results of the field sobriety test and a subsequent intoxilyzer test administered at the police station, and the empty beer bottles and half-empty vodka bottle seized from her vehicle. The district court excluded the statement because the defendant had not been apprised of her Miranda rights before being asked if she had been drinking; it suppressed the test results because it found “neither probable cause nor reasonable grounds for requiring the defendant to step out of the car to take a field test” existed when she was asked to do so; and it ruled the beverage containers were excludable as evidence because Officer Todt’s flashlight-aided scan of the passenger compartment, in its opinion, constituted an unreasonable search. The State perfected a timely appeal of the suppression order to this court pursuant to HRS § 641-13(7).

II.

Our analysis of the issues posed for decision begins with the roadside questioning of the defendant after she was stopped for operating a motor vehicle on a street in Waikiki without lighted headlamps in violation of the City’s traffic code.

A.

“[T]he government seeking to punish an individual [must] produce the evidence against [her] by its own independent labors, rather than by the cruel, simple expedient of compelling it from [her] own mouth.” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 460 (1966); State v. Russo, 67 Haw. 126, 131-32, 681 P.2d 553, 558 (1984). And the rule that “the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination,” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 444 (emphasis added), applies even where the object of the prosecution is to establish the commission of “a misdemeanor traffic offense.” Berkemer v. McCarty, _ U.S. *299 _,_, 104 S. Ct. 3138, 3144 (1984). 5

Whether interrogation was carried on in a custodial context is dependent on the totality of circumstances surrounding the questioning, State v. Paahana, 66 Haw. 499, 503, 666 P.2d 592, 595 (1983); State v. Melemai, 64 Haw. 479, 481, 643 P.2d 541, 544 (1982). The relevant circumstances, we have said, include “the time, place and length of the interrogation, the nature of the questions asked, [and] the conduct of the police at the time of the interrogation.” State v. Paahana, supra. But the ultimate test is whether the questioning was of a nature that “would ‘subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner’ and thereby undermine the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 299 (1980) (quoting

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Bluebook (online)
687 P.2d 544, 67 Haw. 293, 1984 Haw. LEXIS 120, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wyatt-haw-1984.