Opinion
Docket No. 21975
Filed March 18, 1997 Affirmed. See State v. Benefiel, 131 Idaho 226, February 24, 1998.
Appeal from the District Court of the Second Judicial District, State of Idaho, Nez Perce County. Hon. Ida R. Leggett, District Judge; Hon. Carl B. Kerrick, Magistrate.
Decision of district court suppressing evidence on appeal from magistrate division, reversed. Case remanded.
Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; John C. McKinney, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for appellant. John C. McKinney argued.
Clark Feeney, Lewiston, for respondent. Douglas L. Mushlitz argued.
This is an appeal from a district court's order suppressing evidence acquired following a traffic stop. The primary issue in this case is whether a law enforcement official who did not have authority to make traffic stops in his official capacity nonetheless had the authority as a private citizen to conduct an investigative stop as a corollary to the right to make a citizen's arrest. We also address whether the roadside questioning of the defendant, who was detained pursuant to a traffic stop, constituted a custodial interrogation requiring a Miranda warning.
I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURE
This appeal focuses upon the actions of Ed Crowe, a Bureau of Indian Affairs officer who apparently possessed authority to enforce tribal and federal laws on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. The record does not indicate whether the events giving rise to this case occurred within the boundaries of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. It is undisputed, however, that Officer Crowe had no authority, either on or off the reservation, to enforce laws against driving under the influence of alcohol or other traffic laws.
Neither party has cited the federal statutes or regulations that establish the scope of Officer Crowe's authority. For purposes of this appeal, we accept the parties' mutual acknowledgement that the governing law did not empower Officer Crowe to make stops or arrests for traffic offenses.
On October 12, 1993, Officer Crowe was traveling on Highway 12 in a marked law enforcement vehicle with an overhead light bar. He noticed that a pickup traveling ahead of him was being driven erratically. He followed the pickup for five or six miles, during which time he observed it cross over the center line and the fog line several times. Officer Crowe contacted the Nez Perce County Sheriff's Office by radio and reported his observations regarding the pickup. When Officer Crowe observed that the driving was becoming more erratic, he decided to stop the pickup because he was afraid it would hit another vehicle. He effectuated the stop, apparently by using the overhead lights on his vehicle.
Officer Crowe then spoke with the driver of the pickup, Gary Benefiel. He told Benefiel why he had been stopped and asked if he had been drinking. Benefiel admitted to having a few drinks. Officer Crowe also noticed the odor of alcohol coming from the passenger area of Benefiel's pickup. He then asked Benefiel to perform a field sobriety test. Benefiel made two attempts to perform the test and, in Officer Crowe's opinion, failed both times. Crowe kept Benefiel's driver's license and instructed him to wait in his pickup. Idaho State Police Officer Rouse arrived on the scene within a few minutes of the stop. After informing Officer Rouse about his observations of Benefiel, Officer Crowe left the scene.
Officer Rouse then continued the investigation, asking Benefiel to perform five field sobriety tests. When Benefiel failed several of the tests, Officer Rouse placed him under arrest. In making his determination to arrest Benefiel, Rouse also considered Officer Crowe's observations regarding Benefiel's driving pattern. Officer Rouse did not advise Benefiel of his Miranda rights at any time before his arrest.
After being charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in violation of I.C. Section 18-8004, Benefiel filed a motion to suppress all of the evidence obtained during the traffic stop and to dismiss the charge. In support of his motion, Benefiel argued that the stop was unlawful because Officer Crowe was acting outside the scope of his authority. Benefiel also argued that the evidence obtained by Officer Rouse must be suppressed because Benefiel had not been advised of his Miranda rights. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). The magistrate concluded that although Officer Crowe had no authority in his official capacity to make a traffic stop, he possessed authority under I.C. Section 19-604 to arrest Benefiel as a private citizen, and consequently also had the authority to make an investigative stop as a private citizen. The magistrate reasoned that because an investigative stop is a more limited intrusion than a full- scale arrest, the statutory authority to make a citizen's arrest must inherently carry with it the authority to make a citizen's investigative stop. The magistrate also found that Miranda warnings were not required until after Benefiel was formally placed under arrest by Officer Rouse.
Benefiel filed a motion for leave to take an interlocutory appeal of the magistrate's decision. The district court granted the motion and reversed the order of the magistrate, holding that Officer Crowe did not have authority, while acting as a private citizen, to conduct an investigative stop. The district court held that because Officer Crowe effectuated the stop and the ensuing investigation by using the indicia of his office, including his law enforcement vehicle and his uniform, the resulting evidence must be suppressed. The district court also reversed the magistrate's ruling on the Miranda issue. The court determined that Officer Crowe's stop had ripened into an arrest, requiring Officer Rouse to give Benefiel the Miranda warnings before asking him any questions or requesting that he perform field sobriety tests. The district court granted Benefiel's motion to suppress evidence and remanded the case to the magistrate division for further proceedings. The State now appeals from the district court's decision, arguing that the magistrate had resolved the issues properly.
II. ANALYSIS
When the district court acts in an appellate capacity on appeal from the magistrate division and a further appeal is taken, the higher appellate court reviews the record of the magistrate independently of, but with careful attention to the district court's analysis. State v. Stringer, 126 Idaho 867, 869-70, 893 P.2d 814, 816-17 (Ct.App. 1995); State v. Van Sickle, 120 Idaho 99, 101, 813 P.2d 910, 912 (Ct.App. 1991). The case at bar does not involve any disputed questions of fact; rather, it turns on the proper identification and application of law. Consequently, we exercise free review. State v. Breed, 111 Idaho 497, 500, 725 P.2d 202, 205 (Ct.App. 1986).
A. The Investigative Stop
We consider first whether the traffic stop by Officer Crowe was lawful.
A police officer, acting without official authority retains all of the rights of an ordinary citizen, including the right to effect a citizen's arrest. State v. Griffiths, 113 Idaho 364, 369, 744 P.2d 92, 97 (1987). See also Hill v. State, 665 So.2d 1024, 1027 (Ala.Ct.App. 1995); State v. Phoenix, 455 So.2d 1024 (Fla. 1984); People v. O'Conner, 520 N.E.2d 1081 (Ill. 1988); State v. Littlewind, 417 N.W.2d 361, 363 (N.D. 1987). The parties here agree, however, that Officer Crowe's initial stop of Benefiel cannot be characterized as an arrest but instead amounted to an investigative stop, known as a Terry stop, which is a detention of a person by a police officer for investigation of possible criminal activity. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
The State has acknowledged throughout this case that, prior to the stop, Officer Crowe did not have probable cause to arrest Benefiel for DUI.
The State contends that Officer Crowe had the authority in his capacity as a private citizen, acting pursuant to the citizen's arrest statute, to make a Terry stop. Specifically, the State argues that the authority to make a citizen's arrest, conferred by I.C. Section 19-604, inherently includes a citizen's authority to conduct an investigative stop because such a stop is less intrusive than an arrest.
I.C. Section 19-604 states:
A private person may arrest another:
1. For a public offense committed or attempted in his presence.
2. When the person arrested has committed a felony, although not in his presence.
3. When a felony has been in fact committed, and he has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it.
The State's argument, however, fails to take into account a significant difference between arrests and Terry stops with respect to the quantum and quality of information that is a necessary predicate to the action. Although a Terry stop may be justified by mere "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 884 (1975); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498 (1983); Terry, 392 U.S. at 20-22; State v. Rawlings, 121 Idaho 930, 932, 829 P.2d 520, 522 (1992), an arrest is permissible only if it is based upon information giving rise to probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that the arrested person committed it. Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964); State v. Kysar, 116 Idaho 992, 993, 783 P.2d 859, 860 (1989); State v. Quimby, 122 Idaho 389, 391, 834 P.2d 906, 908 (Ct.App. 1992). Specifically with regard to citizen's arrests, I.C. Section 19-604 empowers a citizen to make such an arrest only when a public offense (either a felony or a misdemeanor) has been committed or attempted in the citizen's presence or when a felony has in fact been committed and the citizen "has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it." The text of the statute requires that the offense be completed before the private individual may act; it does not give private persons the authority to act upon mere reasonable suspicion or to stop other persons to determine if a public offense has been or is about to be committed. The language of the statute presumes that an investigation is unnecessary because facts already known to the citizen justify an arrest.
Terry stops traditionally have been viewed solely as a police function. In the Terry decision itself, the United States Supreme Court indicated that the factors to be considered in determining whether an investigative detention and associated search are justified include the officer's experience in law enforcement. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 30. Private citizens are not equipped by training and expertise, as law enforcement personnel are, to detect and investigate criminal activity. Although Officer Crowe was a law enforcement officer, a holding that he possessed authority as a private citizen to make a Terry stop would confer the same authority upon all citizens. We find nothing in the language of I.C. Section 19-604 which suggests that the legislature so intended. Further, to invest private citizens with the power to make investigative stops would, we fear, invite more breaches of the peace than it would prevent. Accordingly, we conclude that Officer Crow did not possess authority as a private citizen, to make an investigative stop, and while his actions were undoubtedly well-intended, they were illegal.
Our conclusion that Officer Crowe's stop of Benefiel was unlawful raises a further question — whether the evidence gained from the stop must be suppressed. Both parties to this action have assumed, without discussion, that if the investigative stop was illegal, the illegality must be remedied by exclusion of the evidence. We conclude, however, that the exclusionary rule should not be utilized in this circumstance where the stop, though unlawful, was not violative of the defendant's constitutional rights and where there exist other adequate deterrents to the police misconduct.
The exclusionary rule was first adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914), and was made applicable to the states in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S 643 (1961). Even before the Mapp decision, our own Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule to preclude use in our state courts of evidence obtained in violation of a defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or under Art. I, Section 17 of the Idaho Constitution. State v. Arregui, 44 Idaho 43, 254 P.2d 788 (1927). The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to prevent violation of constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. Weeks, supra; Wong Sun, 371 U.S. 471, 484 (1963); Mapp, 367 U.S. at 647-49; Arregui, supra. The exclusionary rule assures that "[e]vidence or information acquired as a result of a constitutionally impermissible seizure will be excluded unless the causal connection between the seizure and the acquisition has been broken." State v. Bainbridge, 117 Idaho 245, 249, 787 P.2d 231, 235 (1990) (emphasis added). Thus, the doctrine was not created, nor has it been extended in Idaho, to remedy all types of illegalities that may occur when law enforcement officials make contact with suspected criminals. Rather, its purpose historically has been to protect those rights which are constitutionally secured. Accordingly, the test for whether the evidence at issue here should be suppressed based upon the exclusionary rule is not whether the investigative stop was illegal, but whether it was unconstitutional.
Authorities from other jurisdictions reaching a similar conclusion include People v. Wolf, 635 P.2d 213, 217 (Colo. 1981); People v. Clark, 450 N.W.2d 75 (Ct.App.Mich. 1990); State v. Mangum, 226 S.E.2d 852, 854 (N.C.Ct.App. 1976).
We do not suggest that statutory violations by peace officers will never warrant exclusion of unlawfully gained evidence. Indeed, in State v. Rauch, 99 Idaho 586, 586 P.2d 671 (1978), the Idaho Supreme Court held that when police entered a home without complying with Idaho's "knock and announce" statutes, I.C. Sections 19-611, 19-4409, the trial court must exclude evidence gained in the ensuing search. In Rauch, however, the violated statutes were designed to protect the same privacy interests that are safeguarded by the Fourth Amendment and Art. I, Section 17 of the Idaho Constitution. In Benefiel's case, the officer violated only those rules which circumscribed the type of criminal laws he was empowered to enforce. Such rules had no relationship to Benefiel's privacy interests. We do not condone conduct by police officers that exceeds their authority or jurisdiction. However, there exist sanctions for such acts, other than the exclusion of evidence, which we believe provide adequate deterrence. These sanctions include potential civil liability and criminal prosecution. Regarding criminal liability, see I.C. Section 18-703.
We turn then to examine whether the evidence against Benefiel is suppressible for a constitutional violation. Since Officer Crowe's detention of Benefiel cannot be justified as the act of a private citizen, we must evaluate its constitutionality as the act of a law enforcement officer (albeit one that exceeded his official authority). As noted above, an investigative detention of an individual by an agent of the government is constitutionally permissible if the officer is aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences therefrom, that warrant suspicion that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 884; Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143 (1972); State v. Waldie, 126 Idaho 864, 866-67, 893 P.2d 811, 813-14 (Ct.App. 1995). Whether a police officer has the requisite reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop is determined on "the basis of the totality of the circumstances." United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 (1981); State v. Rawlings, 121 Idaho 930, 932, 829 P.2d 520, 522 (1992); State v. Johns, 112 Idaho 873, 736 P.2d 1327 (1987). In this case, the existence of reasonable suspicion has not been disputed, and it is clear from the facts as found by the magistrate that Officer Crowe had reasonable suspicion to stop Benefiel to determine if he was driving under the influence of alcohol. See State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 559, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct.App. 1996) (holding that an officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop in order to determine if an individual was driving while intoxicated after the vehicle the suspect was driving swerved across a lane of traffic and touched the fog line). Consequently, the investigative stop of Benefiel, although unlawful, was constitutionally sound, and exclusion of the evidence is not appropriate.
B. Miranda Warnings
Benefiel also challenged some of the evidence obtained by Officer Rouse on the ground that it was acquired in violation of Benefiel's Miranda rights. Benefiel asserts that Officer Crowe's traffic stop eventually ripened into an arrest and that Benefiel was therefore in custody when Officer Rouse arrived on the scene. As a consequence, Benefiel argues, Officer Rouse was required to inform him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), before requesting that he answer questions or perform field sobriety tests. We do not agree.
In Miranda, the United States Supreme Court held that once a person is "in custody," the police, prior to questioning, must give the well-known warnings regarding the suspect's right to silence and right to counsel. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444. See also State v. Myers, 118 Idaho 608, 610, 798 P.2d 453, 455 (Ct. App. 1990). The test for determining whether a suspect is in custody for purposes of Miranda is whether there is a formal arrest or a restraint on the suspect's freedom of action "of the degree associated with a formal arrest." California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125 (1983); Myers, 118 Idaho at 610, 798 P.2d at 455. In Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440 (1984), the United States Supreme Court was faced with essentially the same issue presented here, whether the roadside questioning of a motorist detained pursuant to a traffic stop constitutes a custodial interrogation requiring a Miranda warning. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 434. The Court determined that ordinary traffic stops are "noncoercive" in nature and that persons temporarily detained pursuant to such stops are not "in custody" for Miranda purposes. Id. at 440. The Court explained that two features of the ordinary traffic stop mitigate the danger that a motorist questioned by police will be induced to respond to questions when he would not otherwise do so:
First, detention of a motorist pursuant to a traffic stop is presumptively temporary and brief . . . . In this respect, questioning incident to an ordinary traffic stop is quite different from stationhouse interrogation, which frequently is prolonged, and in which the detainee often is aware that questioning will continue until he provides his interrogators the answers they seek.
Second, circumstances associated with the typical traffic stop are not such that the motorist feels completely at the mercy of the police. . . . [T]he typical traffic stop is public, at least to some degree. Passersby, on foot or in other cars, witness the interaction of officers and motorist. This exposure to public view both reduces the ability of an unscrupulous policeman to use illegitimate means to elicit self-incriminating statements and diminishes the motorist's fear that, if he does not cooperate, he will be subject to abuse. The fact that the detained motorist typically is confronted by only one or at most two policemen further mutes his sense of vulnerability. In short, the atmosphere surrounding an ordinary traffic stop is substantially less "police dominated" than that surrounding the kinds of interrogation at issue in Miranda itself, and in the subsequent cases in which we have applied Miranda."
Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 437-39 (citations omitted). We have followed the Berkemer approach, holding that persons subjected to traffic stops were not in custody and therefore not entitled to Miranda warnings. State v. Hartwig, 112 Idaho 370, 732 P.2d 339 (Ct.App. 1987); Myer, supra; State v. Jones, 115 Idaho 1029, 772 P.2d 236 (Ct.App. 1989).
Nothing in the circumstances of this case takes it out of the realm of an ordinary traffic stop for the purpose of this analysis. Benefiel's detention prior to his formal arrest was relatively brief, it occurred in full public view, and it did not involve excessive police domination. Therefore, the absence of Miranda warnings did not render the evidence gathered by Officer Rouse inadmissible.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons we reverse the order of the district court and remand this case for further proceedings in the magistrate division consistent with this opinion.
Chief Judge WALTERS and Judge PERRY CONCUR.