Young v. State

173 N.E.3d 1078 (Table)

Nancy Jo YOUNG, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff

Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-12

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED August 31, 2021

Attorney for Appellant: Theodore J. Minch, Sovich Minch, LLP, Indianapolis, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General, Jodi Kathryn Stein, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Crone, Judge.

Case Summary

[1] Nancy Jo Young was charged with level 6 felony possession of methamphetamine and level 6 felony unlawful possession of a syringe. She appeals the denial of her motion to suppress items seized from her vehicle during a traffic stop. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History¹

[2] The facts most favorable to the trial court's ruling are as follows. Shortly after 5:00 a.m. in the predawn darkness of July 24, 2019, Hendricks County Sheriff's Department Deputy Ryan Blinn and Danville Police Department Officer Jeffrey Slayback were investigating a roadside incident on County Road 300 East in Hendricks County. They saw a Nissan Maxima travel by "with [a] mattress bung[ee] corded and roped down to the top[,]" anchored to the "mirrors on the side of the vehicle." Tr. Vol. 2 at 6, 7. Deputy Blinn was concerned because "the mirrors are not structural points of a vehicle so any high speed especially mixed with the weight of a mattress [...] will cause the wind to get up under the mattress and rip the mirrors off the vehicle[,]" which could cause the vehicle "to crash or the mattress to fly off onto someone else[.]" Id. at 7. The two men got into their vehicles and followed the Maxima.

[3] Deputy Blinn, who was directly behind the Maxima, saw it "travel left and right in its travel lane [...] at an inconsistent speed. It would speed up and slow down and speed up and slow down." Id. He "was unsure whether it was a possible impairment or whether it was the driver unable to properly operate their vehicle with a mattress strapped to the top." Id. The Maxima approached County Road 150 South, signaled, and made a right turn onto that road. Deputy Blinn activated his emergency lights, which caused his dashboard camera to record the previous thirty seconds of the pursuit.² Those thirty seconds of the dashcam video show the Maxima drifting within its lane, slowing, then almost running off the right side of the road to avoid an oncoming vehicle before making the turn onto County Road 150 South.

[4] The Maxima stopped in the right travel lane. Deputy Blinn parked behind it, and behind him parked Officer Slayback, who was accompanied by his canine Zeke. Deputy Blinn activated his body camera, exited his car, and approached the Maxima. Young was in the driver's seat, and Chad Stanley was in the front passenger seat. Young asked if she should have had her "hazards" on, and the deputy responded, "No, you're fine." State's Ex. 2.³ He told her that he stopped her because she was "kind of swerving," and he was afraid that she was "going to leave the roadway." He also stated that her "tag light" was not "bright enough" because he "couldn't see [the tag] from fifty feet." See Ind. Code §§ 9-19-6-4(e) ("Either a tail lamp or a separate lamp must be placed and constructed so as to illuminate the rear registration plate with a white light and make the plate clearly legible from a distance of fifty (50) feet to the rear."), 9-19-6-24 ("A person who violates this chapter commits a Class C infraction.").

[5] Deputy Blinn asked Young where she and Stanley were going. She stated that they were taking her mattress to her boyfriend's home at County Road 125 West and County Road 400 South. According to Young, she had been moving in with her boyfriend, and the mattress was the "one thing [she] couldn't get moved." The deputy asked why they were moving it at "five in the morning," and Young replied that she was a "third-shifter" and had taken "vacation hours" to do so. Deputy Blinn asked Young for her driver's license, and she handed it to him. The deputy asked Stanley if he "had an ID," which he did not, so the deputy asked Officer Slayback to get his name and date of birth. Young stated that she "woke [Stanley] up out of bed" and that he "forgot that [she] was coming to get him." Deputy Blinn asked Young if she could "step out of the vehicle and talk to [him] real quick." Because the ropes securing the mattress were lashed to the side mirrors on the car doors, Young replied that she would have to climb out the window, which she did.

[6] Deputy Blinn asked Young to accompany him to the front of his car. He questioned her about how she knew Stanley, who was a "friend," and where she was moving from and moving to. The deputy told Young to "hang tight" and walked toward his car door. He turned and asked if she "had anything to drink today or ingested any drugs, marijuana, anything like that[,]" and she said no. The deputy queried, "Nothing that would cause you to swerve[,]" and Young replied that the oncoming vehicle was "coming kind of fast" and she was "being overly cautious probably" because of the mattress. After a brief discussion about the mattress, Deputy Blinn got into his car and started typing on his laptop; at one point, the photo of a man resembling Stanley appeared on the computer screen. Officer Slayback, who was outside the car, talked with Deputy Blinn about whether Young and Stanley had "priors." The deputy said, "She does."

[7] Eight minutes into the bodycam video, Deputy Blinn exited his car. Young was still standing in front of his car, and Stanley was standing behind the Maxima. The deputy asked Young if she had "ingested anything today, legal or illegal." She said no, and the deputy used his flashlight to "see how [her] pupils [were] reacting to the light." On appeal, both parties describe this as a horizontal-gaze nystagmus test, which is a field sobriety test used to detect intoxication. At the suppression hearing, Deputy Blinn testified that he did not notice the odor of an alcoholic beverage and that he is "not a drug recognition expert[,]" and thus his ability "to detect impairment outside of alcohol is very limited[.]" Tr. Vol. 2 at 13. Deputy Blinn again asked why the Maxima was swerving, and Young again claimed that she was being "overly cautious." The deputy asked Young if, "to [her] knowledge, there was anything that [she] shouldn't have in the vehicle," such as "alcohol, drugs, dead bodies, anything like that[,]" and she said, "No, there's nothing illegal in it."⁴

[8] Deputy Blinn asked Young if he could search the Maxima, and she replied that her lawyer had advised her "to never submit to a search, but, I mean, there's nothing in there, so." The deputy attempted to clarify whether Young was denying him permission to search the Maxima: "Your lawyer said no, so you're saying no." She reiterated that her lawyer had advised her never to consent to a search, "but that's been years ago." The deputy asked why she had needed a lawyer, and she replied, "I'm sure you saw it on my record." Deputy Blinn said that he could not "do a criminal history search" that "pops up with everything you've ever done."⁵ Young stated that in 2011 she was pulled over while driving her "ex's car" in Hendricks County and got arrested for a "syringe" and a "baggie" that were found inside. The deputy asked, "Nothing like that in the car though now, right?" She replied, "Absolutely not." Deputy Blinn asked Stanley to stand next to Young and "just hang out for a second" and stated that he was "going to go get some stuff typed up[.]"

[9] Eleven minutes into the bodycam video, Deputy Blinn reentered his car, examined Young's driver's license, and entered some information on his laptop. Two minutes later, the deputy got out of the car. Officer Slayback summoned Young to the driver's side of the deputy's car, and Deputy Blinn approached Stanley at the front of the car and patted him down. The deputy asked Stanley when Young had picked him up, and he stated that she had awakened him around 2:00 or 3:00. Deputy Blinn asked Stanley when he had last used "any kind of narcotic." Stanley replied, "About two and a half months ago." The deputy asked if there was "anything" in the Maxima, and Stanley said, "Not that I know of." He said that they were delivering the mattress to Young's boyfriend, and then she was going to take him back home. The deputy asked if the Maxima was Young's car, and Stanley said yes.

[10] Approximately fifteen minutes into the bodycam video, Deputy Blinn asked Stanley, "Is there anything, to your knowledge, that's in the car that should not be there?" Stanley replied, "For real, we just went over there to get the mattress[.]" The deputy said, "Well, the dog alerted on the car, that's why I'm asking you. That's why I'm asking you these questions, because, like, the dog will alert to the presence of narcotic odor." The dashcam video shows Zeke alerting on the Maxima twelve minutes after the deputy activated his emergency lights, which was shortly before the deputy exited his car and started questioning Stanley. Stanley denied knowing about anything illegal in the Maxima.

[11] Deputy Blinn approached Officer Slayback and asked if Young said anything to him. The officer reported that she said that someone might have "smoked weed" or "done some other things inside of the car," but "she said there's nothing in the car." Deputy Blinn and another officer searched the Maxima and found a glass pipe with suspected methamphetamine residue, syringes, and suspected meth in various containers and forms. The deputy handcuffed Young, put her in his vehicle, and Mirandized her. Young denied owning the meth but admitted that she had "relapsed somewhat recently."

[12] Young was charged with level 6 felony possession of methamphetamine and level 6 felony unlawful possession of a syringe. She filed a motion to suppress the items seized from her car during the traffic stop. In October 2020, after a hearing, the trial court...