Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11809 Court of Appeals No. A-11800 Court of Appeals No. A-11810 No. 6353
06-15-2016
DEAN A. WILSON, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Michael Barber, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Samuel D. Scott, Assistant District Attorney, Kenai, 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 Nos. 3KN-13-99 CR, 3KN-10-38 CR, & 3KN-11-1558 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Kenai, Matthew Christian, Magistrate Judge. Appearances: Michael Barber, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Samuel D. Scott, Assistant District Attorney, Kenai, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge SUDDOCK.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Dean A. Wilson was arrested for driving with a revoked license. He subsequently filed a motion to suppress, arguing that the evidence against him was the fruit of an illegal investigative stop. Based upon the testimony of the two Alaska State Troopers who contacted Wilson, the district court denied Wilson's suppression motion. The district court ruled that the testimony of the two troopers established that their contact with Wilson had been an "inadvertent" encounter not amounting to an investigative stop.
The court stated that it found both troopers' testimony credible, yet their testimony differed significantly regarding the circumstances of the encounter. The testimony of one trooper (Travis Tillman) supported the district court's ruling that the encounter was not an investigative stop. Trooper Tillman testified that Wilson stopped his vehicle close to where the troopers were parked, and that Wilson sat there waiting—"long enough [that the two troopers] looked at each other like, 'This person's waiting for us to come up and talk to him,' or something like that."
But the other trooper (Ethan Norwood) testified that when he saw Wilson's vehicle approach, he decided that he wanted to talk to the driver, so he got out of his patrol car "and walked towards the direction of the approaching [vehicle]." When Wilson saw Norwood walking toward him, Wilson stopped his vehicle and rolled down his window. Norwood walked to the side of Wilson's vehicle, started talking to Wilson, and asked Wilson for his driver's license — at which point, Wilson confessed that his license was revoked.
If Trooper Norwood's testimony is accurate, then Wilson may well have been subjected to an investigative stop. But the district court did not resolve this discrepancy between the testimony offered by the two state troopers — and resolution of this discrepancy is crucial to a proper decision in Wilson's case. The district court thus departed from the mandate of Alaska Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(d), which states that "[w]here factual issues are involved in determining a motion to suppress evidence, the court shall state its essential findings on the record." Accordingly, we must remand this case to the district court for further findings of fact.
See Majaev v. State, 223 P.3d 629, 633-34 (Alaska 2010) (holding that motorist was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes when a state trooper motioned with his hand for the motorist to return to him after the motorist started to drive away).
See Rockwell v. State, 176 P.3d 14, 19 (Alaska App. 2008); Long v. State, 837 P.2d 737, 742 (Alaska App. 1992); Burks v. State, 706 P.2d 1190, 1191 (Alaska App. 1985). --------
The district court shall issue supplemental findings of fact within sixty days of the issuance of this opinion. The non-prevailing party will have thirty days to file a supplemental brief addressing the district court's findings. The prevailing party will then have thirty days to file its brief. After these supplemental briefs are filed, we will resume our consideration of Wilson's case.