State of Maine v. Ryan Turner , 169 A.3d 931 ( 2017 )

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2017 ME 185Docket: Ken-16-402
Argued: April 13, 2017
Decided: August 22, 2017
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
STATE OF MAINE
v.
RYAN TURNER
SAUFLEY, C.J.
[¶1] Ryan Turner drove his car up over a sidewalk median in Waterville
and drew the attention of a Winslow police officer who had just stopped
another driver, coming across the bridge into Waterville, for a traffic
infraction that had occurred in Winslow. After Turner careened onward, he
pulled into a parking lot and stopped his car. The Winslow officer stopped
what he was doing, followed Turner, and approached Turner in the parking
lot. Following that contact, Turner was charged by an arriving Waterville
officer with operating under the influence (Class D), 29-A M.R.S.
§ 2411(1-A)(C)(1) (2016). After a jury found Turner guilty, the court
(Kennebec County, Benson, J.) entered a judgment of conviction. Turner
appeals from the conviction, arguing that the motion court (Marden, J.) erred
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in denying his motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the Winslow
officer’s extraterritorial stop of his vehicle because the officer exceeded the
authority granted to him by 30-A M.R.S. § 2671 (2016) and Winslow, Me.,
Code § 2-44 (2010). We affirm the judgment of conviction.
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] The following facts were found by the motion court and are
supported by competent evidence in the suppression record. See State v.
Kierstead, 2015 ME 45, ¶ 14, 114 A.3d 984.
[¶3] On March 19, 2015, at approximately 10:00 p.m., a Winslow law
enforcement officer initiated a traffic stop in Winslow, but the car drove into
Waterville before stopping. While engaged in that traffic stop in Waterville,
the officer heard a loud noise and observed a silver four-door sedan drive
over the curb and proceed in an erratic manner while turning from Spring
Street onto Front Street. The officer terminated the traffic stop and attempted
to locate the silver sedan on Front Street. He noticed a vehicle of identical
appearance parked in an adjacent bank parking lot. The officer pulled his
cruiser in behind the vehicle, leaving sufficient room for the vehicle to pull
around the cruiser, and turned on the cruiser’s blue lights. He noticed that the
motor was not running and that there was damage to the vehicle and fluid on
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the ground consistent with what one would observe after a vehicle had been
driven over a curb. The officer also made observations of the driver, whose
appearance indicated impairment. The officer asked for the driver’s license
and registration and identified the driver as Turner. The officer took no
further action and immediately notified Waterville police.1 The record reflects
that a Waterville officer arrived approximately two minutes later.
[¶4] Turner was charged by complaint with criminal operating under
the influence and failing to submit to a chemical test (Class D), 29-A M.R.S.
§ 2411(1-A)(C)(1). He entered a not guilty plea and moved to suppress all
evidence obtained from the Winslow officer’s stop of the vehicle, arguing that
he was unreasonably seized by the Winslow police officer because the officer
was acting outside the municipality where he had been appointed, in violation
of Maine’s “fresh pursuit” statute, 30-A M.R.S. § 2671, and the Winslow Code.
[¶5] On April 26, 2016, the court held a suppression hearing where the
Winslow officer was the only testifying witness. After the hearing, the court
entered an order denying the motion to suppress. Turner filed two motions
for further findings of fact and conclusions of law and a motion to reconsider.
1 The Winslow officer testified that he did not communicate directly with Waterville police but
rather contacted “the Waterville communication center,” which dispatches for both Winslow police
and Waterville police.
4
The court ultimately concluded that the officer’s observations of the erratic
operation and possible property damage constituted specific and articulable
facts for the officer to reasonably believe that a misdemeanor had been
committed in his presence or that the driver was impaired and needed
assistance. See M.R.U. Crim. P. 41A(d). The court further concluded that
Turner was not seized until the Winslow officer asked for Turner’s license and
registration, at which time the encounter became an investigatory detention.
The court declined to give weight to Turner’s argument that the Winslow
officer did not have jurisdictional authority to seize him in Waterville. Citing
to State v. Rideout, 2000 ME 194, 761 A.2d 288, and State v. Jolin,
639 A.2d 1062 (Me. 1994), the court concluded, “The officer had probable
cause to arrest [Turner] and his action was reasonable in light of an
immediate need to prevent [Turner] from harming himself or others. An
extraterritorial arrest is not per se unreasonable giving rise to the application
of the exclusionary rule.” The court declined to make further findings
regarding the Winslow officer’s contact with the Waterville Police
Department.
[¶6] Following the denial of the motion to suppress, the court
(Benson, J.) held a one-day jury trial on August 22, 2016. The jury found
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Turner guilty, and the court sentenced him to the mandatory ninety-six hours’
imprisonment required by his refusal to submit to a chemical test, a 150-day
license suspension, and a $600 fine. See 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(5)(A) (2016).
Turner timely appealed. See 15 M.R.S. § 2115 (2016); M.R. App. P. 2(b)(2)(A).
II. DISCUSSION
[¶7] Turner argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to
suppress because he was unreasonably seized when the Winslow officer,
outside that officer’s territorial jurisdiction, stopped him in violation of
Maine’s fresh pursuit statute and the local ordinance. When reviewing a trial
court’s denial of a motion to suppress, we review the findings of fact for clear
error and the conclusions of law de novo. State v. Gerry, 2016 ME 163, ¶ 11,
150 A.3d 810. Because Turner does not challenge the court’s factual findings,
we review only the legal determination that the officer’s seizure of Turner was
constitutional and reasonable. See Kierstead, 2015 ME 45, ¶ 14, 114 A.3d 984.
“We will uphold the denial of a motion to suppress if any reasonable view of
the evidence supports the trial court’s decision.” Id. (quotation marks
omitted).
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A. Fourth Amendment Seizure
[¶8] The State contests the court’s finding that the Winslow officer
subjected Turner to an investigatory detention. It argues that, without
investigatory detention, Turner’s Fourth Amendment rights were not
implicated.2 Although Turner asserts that the State cannot contest this finding
because it did not cross-appeal, when the defendant appeals, the State is not
required to cross-appeal and “may argue that error in the proceedings at trial
in fact supports the judgment.” 15 M.R.S. § 2115-A(3). Ultimately, we defer to
the motion court’s factual findings and final conclusion that the Winslow
officer effected a brief, investigatory detention of Turner for which Turner
was entitled to the protections of the Fourth Amendment.3
[¶9] Therefore, we must determine whether the officer’s actions
constituted an unreasonable seizure. See State v. Gulick, 2000 ME 170,
¶¶ 12-13, 759 A.2d 1085. As always, this is a mixed question of fact and law.
2 In its original order on Turner’s motion to suppress, the court concluded that the officer did
not seize Turner for Fourth Amendment purposes. The court stated that it “[was] not satisfied that
the mere operation of the officer’s blue light determines a traffic stop or detention of the operator.”
After Turner filed a joint motion for further findings of fact and conclusions of law and motion for
reconsideration, the court withdrew its prior finding and found that Turner was seized when the
officer requested Turner’s license and registration, but not before.
3 To support an investigatory detention of a motor vehicle, a law enforcement officer “must have
an objectively reasonable, articulable suspicion that either criminal conduct, a civil violation, or a
threat to public safety has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur.” State v. Sylvain, 2003 ME 5,
¶ 11, 814 A.2d 984.
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See Gerry, 2016 ME 163, ¶ 11, 150 A.3d 810. We begin with the operative
facts. The court found that the officer parked his cruiser behind Turner’s car,
activated the cruiser’s emergency lights, and asked Turner for his license and
registration. The Winslow officer was in Waterville as a result of a legitimate
pursuit of a motorist who traveled into Waterville in the course of a traffic
stop that originated in Winslow. The Winslow officer directly observed
Turner’s erratic and potentially dangerous operation of the car, and the
Winslow officer’s contact with Turner occurred immediately following that
erratic operation and after Turner had himself stopped his car in the parking
lot. Finally, the record reflects that the Winslow officer contacted the
Waterville dispatch center and that the Waterville officer arrived within
minutes of that contact.
[¶10] On these facts, the Winslow officer certainly had sufficient
articulable suspicion of either the commission of a crime or the existence of a
health and safety crisis to support the stop of Turner’s vehicle, had the officer
been operating within his geographic authority. Thus, the legal question
presented is whether the extraterritorial nature of the stop rendered it
“unreasonable” for purposes of a Fourth Amendment analysis, requiring
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suppression of the evidence obtained during the Winslow officer’s stop of
Turner.
B. Violation of the Fresh Pursuit Statute
[¶11] The geographic scope of the Winslow officer’s authority is
defined by statute. Maine’s fresh pursuit statute provides, in pertinent part,
“No police officer has any authority in criminal or traffic infraction matters
beyond the limits of the municipality in which the officer is appointed, except,”
as relevant here, to “[a]rrest a person who travels beyond the limits of the
municipality in which the officer is appointed when in fresh pursuit of that
person.” 30-A M.R.S. § 2671(2)(E).
[¶12] An exception to the limitations set out in section 2671(2)(E)
exists when the officer observes the commission of a crime outside of his or
her municipality. A municipality may authorize its police officers who have
completed the basic training course required for continued full-time
employment to make warrantless extraterritorial arrests of “[a]ny person
who has committed or is committing in the officer’s presence any Class D or
Class E crime.” 30-A M.R.S. § 2671(2-A); 17-A M.R.S. § 15(1)(B) (2016); see
also 25 M.R.S. § 2804-C (2016). Pursuant to section 2671(2-A), the Town of
Winslow has authorized its full-time police officers to make such
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extraterritorial arrests “if, when possible, the law enforcement agency of a
foreign municipality in which the arrest is to be made is notified in advance or,
when not possible, the law enforcement agency of the foreign municipality in
which the arrest has been made is notified immediately after the arrest.”
Winslow, Me., Code § 2-44 (incorporating the language in section 2671(2-A)).
[¶13] Here, the entire encounter between Turner and the Winslow
officer took place in Waterville outside that officer’s territorial limits.
Accordingly, although the “fresh pursuit” authority set out in section
2671(2)(E) applied to the Winslow officer’s pursuit of the motorist across the
bridge into Waterville, that provision did not apply to his stop of Turner.
Thus, for the Winslow officer to have had statutory authority to seize Turner
in Waterville, he must have complied with the Winslow ordinance enacted
pursuant to section 2671(2-A).
[¶14] Pursuant to section 2671(2-A) and the Winslow Code, a Winslow
officer acting outside of the officer’s municipality must contact the applicable
municipal law enforcement agency as soon as possible. Turner argues that his
seizure was unauthorized because the Winslow officer did not notify
Waterville police in advance of the stop despite the officer’s testimony that it
was “possible” to do so. The trial court twice declined to make that factual
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finding, and the court did not make any other finding regarding the exact
timing of the contact. Because the defendant specifically sought further
factual findings, our review is confined to the court’s explicit findings. In the
absence of findings either that the officer notified Waterville in advance of the
stop or that it was not possible for the officer to have done so, we cannot
affirmatively conclude that the officer had statutory and municipal authority
to seize Turner outside of his territorial limits. Cf. Ehret v. Ehret, 2016 ME 43,
¶ 12, 135 A.3d 101 (confining appellate review to the trial court’s explicit
findings that are supported by the record when a motion for further findings
of fact and conclusions of law has been filed pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 52).
Accordingly, we assume without deciding that the officer acted without
statutory authority when he approached Turner in his stopped car.
C. Exclusionary Rule
[¶15] Thus, the question presented is narrowed to this: in the context
of these facts, where (1) the officer had a reasonable and articulable suspicion
that a crime had been committed in his presence, or that a person was in need
of assistance, in the neighboring municipality but (2) the officer was without
statutory authority to act in that municipality, was the “seizure” unreasonable
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for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, thereby requiring suppression of the
evidence?4
[¶16] Turner argues that, based on our precedent, the officer’s conduct
was unreasonable. He contends that the evidence should be suppressed
because his conduct was not necessary to prevent imminent harm, was not
carried out for community caretaking purposes, and was not undertaken at
the request of Waterville law enforcement.
[¶17] A review of the precedent on which Turner relies is illuminating.
In Jolin, we first considered whether the exclusionary rule applied when an
arrest based on probable cause was made in violation of the fresh pursuit
statute. 639 A.2d at 1064. In that case, a Brewer police officer who was in
Bangor returning from a coffee break stopped and arrested a driver whom she
had witnessed driving erratically in Bangor. Id. at 1063. The exclusionary
rule did not require suppression because “the officer had probable cause to
arrest [the] defendant and her action was reasonable in light of the immediate
need to prevent [him] from harming himself or others.” Id. at 1064.
4 The “exclusionary rule applies to violations of a defendant’s Fourth Amendment right to be
free from unreasonable searches and seizures.” State v. Jolin, 639 A.2d 1062, 1064 n.2 (Me. 1994)
(citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961)). As we have held on several occasions, however,
“evidence obtained from an extraterritorial arrest based on probable cause should not per se be
excluded.” Id. at 1064.
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[¶18] In State v. Pike, a Milo officer approached the driver of a car who
had pulled over just beyond the Milo town line to see whether there was a
problem with the driver or if the car had broken down. 642 A.2d 145, 146
(Me. 1994). After observing indicators of impairment, the officer performed a
license check and notified the appropriate law enforcement agency of the
stop. Id. We held that, even if the officer had violated the fresh pursuit
statute—which we assumed but did not decide—the exclusionary rule did not
apply because the officer had probable cause to detain the driver, and he
“acted reasonably and did not intentionally disregard the territorial limits to
which he was subject in order to ferret out crime.” Id. at 147.
[¶19] Similarly, in Rideout, we affirmed a defendant’s conviction when a
Fort Fairfield officer traveling in Presque Isle observed a vehicle he believed
was being driven by a driver whose license had been suspended, requested
that a Presque Isle officer stop the vehicle, and was told by the dispatcher to
make the stop himself. 2000 ME 194, ¶¶ 2-3, 9, 761 A.2d 288. We held that “a
reasonable and articulable suspicion satisfies the probable cause component
of the Jolin and Pike test,” that the officer’s actions were reasonable, and that
the officer was not attempting to ferret out crime with intentional disregard of
his territorial limits. Id. ¶¶ 8-9.
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[¶20] Contrary to Turner’s contention, the circumstances in Jolin, Pike,
and Rideout do not support his assertion that the stop here was unreasonable.
Taken together, the cases stand for the proposition that the exclusionary rule
does not require the suppression of evidence if the extraterritorial exercise of
the officer’s authority was (1) supported by the law and constitutional
requirements that would have applied had the officer been within his lawful
territory; (2) justified by the facts surrounding the stop; and (3) not made
unreasonable by the presence of other factors, such as a willful disregard of
territorial limits, the seeking out of crime in another territory, or a complete
failure to contact the local law enforcement agency. Although we have not
decided “the point at which a violation of the fresh pursuit statute might
trigger an exclusionary rule,” Pike, 642 A.2d at 147, and we do not do so here,
we have indicated that an intentional disregard of territorial limits to ferret
out crime could require the suppression of evidence, see Rideout, 2000 ME 94,
¶ 9, 761 A.2d 288; Jolin, 639 A.2d at 1064; Pike, 642 A.2d at 147.
[¶21] In the matter before us, the officer did not intentionally make an
excursion into Waterville to ferret out crime; rather, he happened to observe a
crime being committed while engaged in a lawful, extraterritorial traffic stop.
See 30-A M.R.S. § 2671(2)(E). He also communicated his actions promptly
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enough that a Waterville officer arrived on the scene almost immediately.
Furthermore, based on the officer’s observations of the driver striking the
median and operating erratically, the officer could have reached several
reasonable conclusions justifying the officer’s further investigation. For
example, until the officer located the vehicle parked in the bank’s parking lot,
the officer could have reasonably believed that the driver would continue to
pose an imminent risk to public safety or was himself in some circumstance
needing assistance. Until the officer checked the driver’s condition through
personal contact, the officer could have been reasonably acting in his
community caretaking capacity. Under all of these circumstances, the officer’s
request for Turner’s license and registration during the very brief period
between making contact with him and the arrival of the Waterville officer was
not unreasonable.
[¶22] In sum, the Winslow officer’s action of pursuing an erratically
operated vehicle was reasonable, as was his initial contact with the driver, and
the officer did not intentionally disregard his territorial limits in an attempt to
ferret out crime. The motion court did not err in denying Turner’s motion to
suppress.
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The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Scott F. Hess, Esq. (orally), The Law Office of Scott F. Hess, LLC, Augusta, for
appellant Ryan Turner
Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, Francis Griffin, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally),
and Mary-Ann Letourneau, Stud. Atty., Prosecutorial District IV, Augusta, for
appellee State of Maine
Waterville District Court docket number CR-2015-289
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY