Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11928 No. 6383
09-21-2016
CARRIE LYN DOORES, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Laura E. Wolff, Perkins Coie LLP, Anchorage, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Lindsey M. Burton, Assistant District Attorney, Palmer, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3PA-13-2944 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Palmer, John W. Wolfe, Judge. Appearances: Laura E. Wolff, Perkins Coie LLP, Anchorage, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Lindsey M. Burton, Assistant District Attorney, Palmer, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge MANNHEIMER.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Carrie Lyn Doores appeals her conviction for driving under the influence, AS 28.35.030(a). She asserts that most of the evidence against her was the fruit of an illegal investigative stop — i.e., a stop that was not supported by reasonable suspicion. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the investigative stop was supported by reasonable suspicion, and we therefore affirm Doores's conviction.
At approximately 4:45 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, October 26, 2013, Wasilla Police Officer Donald Ridge was driving behind two vehicles headed south on Knik Goose Bay Road. These vehicles reached the point in the road where the speed limit increased from 35 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour, but the car in front (which was driven by Doores) did not alter its speed: it continued to drive at about 35 miles per hour. The car behind started to "tailgate" Doores — i.e., started driving too close to Doores's vehicle.
Officer Ridge suspected that the drivers of both vehicles might be under the influence, but he decided to stop the second car (the one that was tailgating Doores).
Ridge performed a traffic stop of the second car, and he informed the driver that he had stopped her for driving too close to the car in front of her. At this point, according to Ridge, "[t]he driver and three other occupants [were] excited and concerned, and [they] immediately started telling [him] about the vehicle that was in front of them." They told Ridge that they thought the driver of the other car was drunk because they had seen the other car "swerving all over or driving all over the road."
Officer Ridge had not seen any of this swerving. But Ridge quickly determined that the driver of the stopped car was not intoxicated, so he let the driver go with just a warning, and then he went in search of Doores's vehicle.
When Ridge backtracked along his route, he found the first car, and he performed a traffic stop of this vehicle. The driver identified herself as Carrie Lyn Doores, and Ridge observed signs that Doores was intoxicated. After Doores performed poorly on field sobriety tests, Ridge took her into custody. An ensuing breath test showed that Doores's blood alcohol level was 0.17 percent, and she was charged with driving under the influence.
In the district court, Doores filed a motion asking the court to suppress all of the evidence stemming from the traffic stop. The court denied this motion, and Doores was ultimately convicted of driving under the influence.
On appeal, Doores renews her argument that the information known to Officer Ridge when he stopped Doores's car did not amount to the "reasonable suspicion" that is required before the police can perform an investigative stop. More specifically, Doores argues that it was unreasonable for Ridge to rely on the information provided by the driver and occupants of the other car — their allegation that Doores had been "swerving ... or driving all over the road."
See Ebona v. State, 577 P.2d 698, 700-01 (Alaska 1978); Coleman v. State, 553 P.2d 40, 46 (Alaska 1976).
In arguing this question, Doores relies heavily on the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Aguilar v. Texas and Spinelli v. United States — two cases that set out a test for analyzing the probative force of hearsay information offered to justify the issuance of a search warrant. (The federal courts have since abandoned the Aguilar-Spinelli test, but it remains the governing law in Alaska. See State v. Jones, 706 P.2d 317, 322-25 (Alaska 1985).)
378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964).
393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969).
This Court has previously acknowledged that the Aguilar-Spinelli test "provides a useful framework for evaluating the trustworthiness of hearsay reports", even outside the context of search warrant applications. Mix v. State, 893 P.2d 1270, 1272 (Alaska App. 1995), quoting Goodlataw v. State, 847 P.2d 589, 591 (Alaska App. 1993).
But unlike a search warrant, an investigative stop need not be supported by probable cause. Instead, the police need only a reasonable suspicion of imminent public danger or recent serious harm. We have expressly held that "[a] tip need not necessarily satisfy the Aguilar/Spinelli test in order to contribute to a finding that reasonable suspicion existed to justify an investigative stop." Mix, 893 P.2d at 1272; Goodlataw, 847 P.2d at 591. See also Williams v. State, 139 P.3d 1282, 1284 (Alaska App. 2006) ("the Aguilar-Spinelli test is not controlling when the issue is reasonable suspicion").
See Coleman v. State, 553 P.2d 40, 46 (Alaska 1976); Goodlataw v. State, 847 P.2d 589, 591 (Alaska App. 1993). --------
With this in mind, we turn to Doores's specific arguments.
Doores points out that the driver and the occupants of the second car might have had a motive to lie about Doores's driving behavior: Ridge had stopped the driver of the second car for a traffic violation, and the driver and her friends might have hoped that Ridge would decide to let the driver go with only a warning if they told the officer that Doores was committing a more serious driving offense.
Doores also points out that Officer Ridge testified that he did not personally observe Doores engage in any swerving or other dangerous driving.
But Ridge testified that, even before he spoke to the driver and passengers of the second car, he suspected that Doores might be under the influence. Ridge personally observed that Doores had not increased the speed of her vehicle after the speed limit on the road increased from 35 to 45 miles per hour. Doores maintained her slower speed even after the car behind Doores began to tailgate her. And Ridge's encounter with these vehicles took place shortly before 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
These factors add credence to the report that Ridge received from the four people in the other car — the report that Doores had been swerving. And, taken as a whole, we conclude that this information gave Ridge a reasonable suspicion that Doores was driving under the influence. Thus, Ridge's investigative stop of Doores's vehicle was justified.
The judgement of the district court is AFFIRMED.