State v. Stevenson

1

State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Antonio Earl Stevenson, Appellant.

No. A21-1142

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

August 8, 2022

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

Hennepin County District Court File No. 27-CR-20-22003

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

James R. Rowader, Jr., Minneapolis City Attorney, Zenaida Chico Assistant City Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Arielle S. Wagner, Kate M. Baxter-Kauf, Special Assistant Public Defenders, Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Reyes, Presiding Judge; Gaitas, Judge; and Wheelock, Judge.

GAITAS, Judge

Appellant Antonio Earl Stevenson, who was convicted of misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor offenses after a stipulated-facts court trial, challenges the district court's order denying his motion to suppress the evidence. Because we conclude that a sheriff's deputy unconstitutionally expanded the scope of a traffic stop by opening Stevenson's car door without an individualized, reasonable, and articulable justification, we reverse.

FACTS

Respondent State of Minnesota charged Stevenson with giving a peace officer a false name, Minn. Stat. § 609.506, subd. 2 (2020), obstructing legal process, Minn. Stat § 609.50 subd. 1(2) (2020), and driving after revocation, Minn. Stat § 171.24, subd. 2 (2020), following a traffic stop in Minneapolis. Stevenson moved the district court to suppress the evidence against him, arguing that it resulted from an unconstitutional seizure. An evidentiary hearing was held, and the facts presented were as follows.

On a fall afternoon in 2020, while patrolling Minneapolis in separate squad cars, two sheriff's deputies observed a car without a front license plate and with expired registration tabs. They initiated a traffic stop in a nearby parking lot, parking their squad cars behind the car. Stevenson was the driver and sole occupant of the stopped car.

Both deputies approached the car. One deputy walked to the driver's side, and the other went to the passenger's side. Rather than initiating contact with Stevenson through the car window, the deputy who approached the driver's side immediately opened the driver's-side door.

The deputy said, "S'up man. How you doing?" Stevenson raised both of his hands and said, "Good." The deputy then explained, "Stopped you for a few reasons." Gesturing to the rear window on the driver's side, he stated, "[O]bviously your tint." He then continued, "K, you've got no front plate and you also got expired tabs."

The deputy asked Stevenson whether the car was his. Stevenson responded that it was his car and that it was registered to him. When the deputy asked his name, Stevenson, speaking softly, said "Antwon." He pointed to the driver's-side door and told the deputy that his "ID" was there. The deputy, who smelled marijuana and observed "marijuana shake" on the driver's-side floorboard, asked, "Smoke weed in here?" Stevenson replied that he did not. The deputy asked Stevenson to exit the car, and the second deputy handcuffed Stevenson and placed him in the back of a squad car. Then, the deputies extensively searched the passenger compartment and trunk of Stevenson's car. The search revealed nothing. During this time, other law enforcement officers arrived at the scene.

The deputy suspected that Stevenson had provided a false name and that the driver's license in the car was not Stevenson's. But when the deputy confronted Stevenson with his suspicions, Stevenson insisted that the driver's license was his, and he refused to cooperate in further efforts to confirm his identity. Eventually, Stevenson was arrested for obstructing legal process. An identification procedure later performed at the jail revealed that Stevenson had given the deputy a false name and had produced a driver's license belonging to another person.

The focus of the evidentiary hearing on Stevenson's motion to suppress was the deputy's decision to open Stevenson's car door at the beginning of the traffic stop. Both deputies who initiated the stop testified at the hearing, and the state introduced video footage from the deputies' body-worn cameras.

In their testimony, the deputies confirmed that Stevenson was stopped for a licenseplate violation and expired tabs. Although the deputy who opened Stevenson's car door initially could not recall doing so, he acknowledged that he likely opened it after viewing the footage from his body-worn camera. When Stevenson's counsel asked the deputy why he opened the car door, the deputy testified that he did not recall how he "felt on that day," but if he opened the door, "it was to view more of what [he] could see." He explained, "[A]nytime I open a door to view someone, I'm doing it because-for officer safety reasons." The second deputy, who had approached the passenger side of Stevenson's car, testified that he could see through the back windshield and the front passenger window of Stevenson's car "pretty clearly."

Following the evidentiary hearing, the district court denied Stevenson's suppression motion in a written order, concluding that, although the deputy expanded the scope of the traffic stop by opening the car door, safety concerns justified the additional intrusion. Stevenson stipulated to the prosecution's case and had a court trial to preserve his suppression issue for appeal.^[1] The district court found Stevenson guilty of all three charges and placed him on probation for two years, staying 180 days of jail time.

Stevenson appeals.

DECISION

Stevenson argues that the deputy violated his federal and state constitutional rights by opening the driver's-side door of the car at the outset of the traffic stop. Although he concedes that the deputies had a lawful basis for the traffic stop, he contends that opening his car door was an additional intrusion that required additional justification. Stevenson argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence because the state failed to establish any reason for the expanded intrusion.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and article I, section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution, prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrantless searches and seizures are unreasonable under both the state and federal constitutions unless a recognized warrant exception applies. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 45455 (1971); State v. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d 145, 149 (Minn. 2009). The state must show that an exception to the warrant requirement applies. State v. Licari, 659 N.W.2d 243, 250 (Minn. 2003).

One exception to the warrant requirement permits limited investigatory seizures. State v. Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d 353, 363 (Minn. 2004). Under this exception, a police officer may briefly detain an individual when the officer "has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot." State v. Timberlake, 744 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 2008) (quoting Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968))). There is a reasonable, articulable suspicion if "the police officer [is] able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. "Generally, if an officer observes a violation of a traffic law, no matter how insignificant the traffic law, that observation forms the requisite particularized and objective basis for conducting a traffic stop." State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818, 823 (Minn. 2004). An officer's actions during a traffic stop, however, must be "reasonably related to and justified by the circumstances that gave rise to the stop in the first place." Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d at 364.

An investigatory seizure "may become invalid if it becomes 'intolerable' in its 'intensity or scope.'" Id. (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 17-18). The Minnesota Supreme Court has interpreted the state constitution to afford more protection from unreasonable seizures during traffic stops than the Fourth Amendment. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d at 152. Under the state constitution, any intrusion that is not closely related to the initial justification for the stop is invalid unless it can be justified by independent probable cause or reasonableness. Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d at 364. Thus, "each step of an officer's investigation must 'be tied to and justified by one of the following: (1) the original legitimate purpose of the stop, (2) independent probable cause, or (3) reasonableness.'" State v. Sargent, 968 N.W.2d 32, 38 (Minn. 2021) (quoting Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d at 365).

Where police action expanded the scope of a stop, a court must consider "whether the officers had reasonable, articulable suspicion to support that expansion." State v. Smith, 814 N.W.2d 346, 351 (Minn. 2012). Such suspicion "must be individualized to the person toward whom the intrusion is directed." Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d. at 365. And "[t]his particularized basis for the intrusion must be both articulable and reasonable." Id. at 364; see also United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18 (1981) ("[D]etaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.").

"To determine whether the officer's actions meet an objective standard of reasonableness the court should ask whether with the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or search, would a person of reasonable caution believe that the action taken was appropriate." State v. Othoudt, 482 N.W.2d 218, 223 (Minn. 1992). ...