Lester Leroy Hiltz, Jr. v. Commissioner of Public Safety ( 2015 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-1586
Lester Leroy Hiltz, Jr., petitioner,
Appellant,
vs.
Commissioner of Public Safety,
Respondent.
Filed June 15, 2015
Affirmed
Bjorkman, Judge
Dissenting, Johnson, Judge
Beltrami County District Court
File No. 04-CV-14-1762
John (Ben) Wangberg, Fuller, Wallner, Cayko, Pederson & Huseby, Ltd., Bemidji,
Minnesota (for appellant)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, William J. Young, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and
Rodenberg, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
BJORKMAN, Judge
Appellant challenges the revocation of his driver’s license under the implied-
consent statute, arguing that the evidence of his alcohol concentration should have been
suppressed because the stop of his vehicle was not justified by reasonable suspicion of
criminal activity. We affirm.
FACTS
Early in the morning on May 10, 2014, Beltrami County Sheriff’s Deputy Charles
Nelson observed a vehicle driving in front of him. The vehicle changed lanes, and
Deputy Nelson did not see a turn signal. Minnesota law requires drivers to signal before
changing lanes. Deputy Nelson executed a traffic stop based on the apparent traffic
violation. He identified the driver as appellant Lester Hiltz. Because Hiltz exhibited
indicia of intoxication, Deputy Nelson placed him under arrest. A subsequent breath test
revealed that Hiltz had an alcohol concentration above the legal limit. Hiltz was charged
with driving while impaired, and respondent Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety
revoked Hiltz’s driver’s license.
Hiltz filed a petition for judicial review of his license revocation, arguing that
Deputy Nelson did not have a valid basis to stop Hiltz’s vehicle because he had signaled
his lane change. At the hearing on Hiltz’s petition, Deputy Nelson testified that he
believed at the time of the stop that Hiltz had not signaled but realized, upon reviewing
the squad car video footage immediately before the hearing, that Hiltz activated his turn
signal “right before and as” he was changing lanes; it gave “two quick blinks.” Deputy
Nelson stated that visibility the night of the stop was “[n]ot ideal”—the street was well
lit, but it was drizzling and the road surface was wet, causing some glare in the
windshield. He also explained that his job not only requires him to look for traffic
violations, but he must simultaneously make general observations about his surroundings,
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maintain computer communications, and monitor two cell phones, a two-way radio, and a
PA system.
The district court sustained Hiltz’s license revocation, determining that the stop
was justified because Deputy Nelson honestly and reasonably believed that Hiltz
committed a traffic violation. Hiltz appeals.
DECISION
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits “unreasonable
searchs and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “A traffic stop for a suspected violation
of law is a ‘seizure’ of the occupants of the vehicle and therefore must be conducted in
accordance with the Fourth Amendment.” Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530, 536
(2014). We review the constitutionality of a traffic stop de novo. Wilkes v. Comm’r of
Pub. Safety, 777 N.W.2d 239, 242-43 (Minn. App. 2010). In doing so, we defer to the
district court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous. State v. Britton, 604
N.W.2d 84, 87 (Minn. 2000). But we independently determine questions of
reasonableness. See id.To justify a brief investigatory traffic stop, police require only reasonable
suspicion of criminal activity. State v. Richardson, 622 N.W.2d 823, 825 (Minn. 2001).
“The reasonable-suspicion standard is not high.” State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836, 843
(Minn. 2011) (quotation omitted). Police must only show that the stop was based on
more than “an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch.” State v. Timberlake,
744 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 2008) (quotation omitted). A stop will be upheld when
police can articulate a particular objective basis for the stop. Id.3
A traffic violation, no matter how insignificant, generally provides such a basis.
State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818, 823 (Minn. 2004). But an officer need not witness
an actual violation. State v. Pike, 551 N.W.2d 919, 921 (Minn. 1996). Police are
permitted to draw inferences from available facts, relying on their training and
experience, in articulating reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. State v. Smith, 814
N.W.2d 346, 352 (Minn. 2012). Such inferences are not always accurate, nor must they
be to be reasonable. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185-86, 110 S. Ct. 2793,
2800 (1990); see also Heien, 135 S. Ct. at 536 (“To be reasonable is not to be perfect
. . . .”). “[S]ufficient probability, not certainty, is the touchstone of reasonableness under
the Fourth Amendment.” Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 185, 110 S. Ct. at 2800 (quotation
omitted). Accordingly, even a mistaken belief that a particular driver committed a traffic
violation can justify a traffic stop if the mistake is “objectively reasonable.” See Heien,
135 S. Ct. at 539; City of St. Paul v. Vaughn, 306 Minn. 337, 342-43, 237 N.W.2d 365,
368-69 (1975) (holding stop justified because officer reasonably mistook defendant for
his brother, whose license was recently revoked); State v. Johnson, 392 N.W.2d 685, 687
(Minn. App. 1986) (holding stop justified because officer was reasonably mistaken as to
which vehicle committed traffic violations).
This case requires us to consider when a factual mistake is objectively reasonable.
As a general proposition, a factual determination bearing upon a search or seizure is
objectively reasonable when “‘the facts available to the officer at the moment’” would
justify “‘a [person] of reasonable caution’” in believing it. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 188,
110 S. Ct. at 2801 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880
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(1968)). An inference is objectively unreasonable if it is too attenuated or contrary to
facts the officer actually knows or observes. See State v. Burbach, 706 N.W.2d 484, 489
(Minn. 2005) (holding that it is unreasonable to infer open-container violation based
solely on oder of alcohol from adult passenger); Pike, 551 N.W.2d at 922 (explaining that
inference that driver of vehicle is registered owner, whose license is revoked, would be
unreasonable if officer observes that driver is of a different age or sex than the registered
owner). Within these parameters, an officer may be reasonably mistaken as to the
identity of the person who committed an actual violation, e.g., Vaughn, 306 Minn. at 342-
43, 237 N.W.2d at 368-69; Johnson, 392 N.W.2d at 687, or reasonably mistaken as to
whether a violation occurred, e.g., Heien, 135 S. Ct. at 540.
Deputy Nelson mistakenly believed that Hiltz committed a traffic violation by
failing to activate his turn signal before changing lanes. Whether that mistake was
reasonable turns on the facts available to the deputy at the time of the stop. The district
court made three findings of fact relevant to this inquiry: (1) glare caused by the damp
conditions limited Deputy Nelson’s visibility; (2) the deputy’s attention was divided
between monitoring Hiltz’s compliance with traffic laws and performing other tasks
necessary to his job, such as attending to the many instruments and devices within his
squad car; and (3) Hiltz’s signal was two blinks ending in the middle of his lane-change
maneuver. The record supports these findings. And these findings explain how Deputy
Nelson reasonably failed to observe the turn signal.
Hiltz argues that Deputy Nelson’s mistake was not reasonable because it was
“objectively determinable” from the video evidence that he in fact used his turn signal.
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We are not persuaded. The video depicts part of what occurred in front of Deputy
Nelson’s squad car at the time of the stop. As such, it bears on the credibility of the
deputy’s testimony about what he observed and why he suspected that Hiltz violated the
law. See State v. Shellito, 594 N.W.2d 182, 186 (Minn. App. 1999) (stating that we defer
to the district court’s factual findings based on squad car video evidence the same as
findings based on oral or documentary evidence). But it does not reflect the entirety of
the circumstances under which Deputy Nelson was operating when he decided to stop
Hiltz. And it is not information “available” to the deputy at the time of the stop within
the meaning of Terry.
Careful review of the video in the quiet of a courtroom confirms that Hiltz
activated his turn signal. It equally confirms that the perfunctory signal was difficult to
see and easily missed during even the briefest of distractions, such as checking the clock
or speedometer. It is reasonable to suspect that something so easily missed did not occur;
such an inference is a matter of probability, not a hunch. While Deputy Nelson’s mistake
relieves Hiltz of liability for a lane-change violation, it does not invalidate the traffic stop.
See Heien, 135 S. Ct. at 540 (explaining that a mistaken belief cannot justify the
imposition of criminal liability but may nonetheless justify an investigatory stop). On
this record, we conclude that Deputy Nelson’s mistaken belief that Hiltz failed to signal
his lane change is objectively reasonable. The district court did not err by denying
Hiltz’s motion to suppress and sustaining the revocation of his driver’s license.
Affirmed.
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JOHNSON, Judge (dissenting)
I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the court. The district court should have
granted Hiltz’s motion to suppress evidence because Deputy Nelson stopped Hiltz’s
vehicle based on a mistake that was not a reasonable mistake for Fourth Amendment
purposes.
The district court made only two findings of fact that are relevant to its conclusion
that Officer Nelson’s mistake was reasonable. First, the district court found, “That night
it had lightly rained on and off, the road surfaces were wet causing glare, and the
Deputy’s visibility was not ideal.” Second, the district court found, “Deputy Nelson . . .
testified that on a daily basis there are many instruments, devices, and necessary duties
placed on an officer on patrol than can cause an officer to be distracted, but are
nonetheless necessary to fulfill his duty as a peace officer.” In the final paragraph of the
memorandum accompanying its order, the district court concluded, “The Deputy’s
mistake as to whether Petitioner used his turn signal to change lanes was reasonable and
does not invalidate the otherwise valid stop.”
The district court did not expressly state whether its legal conclusion is based on
the first finding quoted above, the second finding quoted above, or both of those findings.
The district court also did not expressly find that either less-than-ideal visibility or
distraction caused Deputy Nelson’s mistake as to whether Hiltz signaled his lane change.
But such a finding must be implied because the district court’s conclusion that Deputy
Nelson’s mistake was reasonable must be based on at least one of those two findings.
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The district court’s first implied finding (that less-than-ideal visibility caused
Deputy Nelson’s mistake) would support the conclusion that Deputy Nelson’s mistake
was reasonable if that finding were correct, but it is clearly erroneous. Deputy Nelson’s
testimony does not support such a finding. He admitted that the video-recording shows
that Hiltz signaled his lane change, but he did not say that he made a mistake because of
less-than-ideal visibility. Furthermore, the first implied finding is contradicted by the
video-recording created by Deputy Nelson’s dashboard video-camera, which shows that
Hiltz’s signal was visible. Presumably Deputy Nelson had the same point of view as his
dashboard video-camera. Yet the district court did not explain how less-than-ideal
visibility prevented Deputy Nelson from seeing Hiltz’s signal but allowed his dashboard
video-camera to capture Hiltz’s signal. Moreover, the district court did not explain how
Deputy Nelson could have seen Hiltz’s lane change without seeing his signal. The video-
recording shows that the signal and the lane change are overlapping in time and occur
within the span of only a few seconds. The evidence in the record reasonably leads to
only one factual finding: that less-than-ideal visibility did not cause Deputy Nelson’s
mistaken belief that Hiltz failed to signal his lane change. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S.
372, 378, 127 S. Ct. 1769, 1775 (2007) (concluding that no genuine issue of material fact
exists because dashboard video-recording “quite clearly contradicts the version of the
story told by” plaintiff in section 1983 case).
The district court’s second implied finding (that distraction caused Deputy
Nelson’s mistake) is less infirm as a factual matter, but it does not allow for the legal
conclusion that Deputy Nelson’s mistake was reasonable. The United States Supreme
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Court has held that a law-enforcement officer’s mistake when performing a search or
investigatory stop might not invalidate the search or stop for purposes of the Fourth
Amendment. See Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530, 536 (2014); Illinois v.
Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 184, 110 S. Ct. 2793, 2799 (1990); Maryland v. Garrison, 480
U.S. 79, 85, 107 S. Ct. 1013, 1017 (1987); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 176,
69 S. Ct. 1302, 1311 (1949). But those holdings are based on the premise that a law-
enforcement officer often has imperfect information and, thus, can be expected only to
make reasonable assessments of a situation based on the information available to him or
her at that time. For example, in Garrison, police officers executed a search warrant for
the third floor of a residential building based on the mistaken but reasonable assumption
that all of the third floor was a single apartment when, in fact, the third floor was divided
into two apartments. 480 U.S. at 80, 107 S. Ct. at 1014. The Court reasoned that, even
though the officers made a mistake, “we must judge the constitutionality of their conduct
in light of the information available to them at the time they acted.” Id. at 85, 107 S. Ct.
at 1017 (emphasis added). Similarly, in Rodriguez, police officers searched a home with
the consent of a person in the home based on the mistaken but reasonable assumption that
the person had authority to consent to the search. 497 U.S. at 180, 110 S. Ct. at 2797.
The Court explained that, even though the officers made a mistake, it was necessary to
apply “an objective standard” by asking, “would the facts available to the officer at the
moment . . . warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the consenting party
had authority over the premises?” Id. at 188, 110 S. Ct. at 2801 (emphasis added)
(internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S. Ct.
D-3
1868, 1880 (1968)); see also Brinegar, 338 U.S. at 177, 69 S. Ct. at 1311-12 (concluding
that officers mistakenly but reasonably suspected person of unlawfully importing
alcoholic beverages from one state to another state based on “facts within the officers’
knowledge” about suspect’s prior activities); cf. Berge v. Commissioner of Pub. Safety,
374 N.W.2d 730, 731-32 (Minn. 1985) (concluding that officer reasonably suspected
driver of running stop sign even though officer’s view of scene was partially blocked).
Thus, if a person claims that an investigatory stop is a violation of the Fourth
Amendment because an officer’s determination of reasonable suspicion was based on a
mistake, the focus of the inquiry is the information available to the officer at the time of
the stop. The Supreme Court’s caselaw clearly provides that an officer’s mistaken reason
for an investigatory stop may be reasonable, even if mistaken, if clear and accurate
information was not available to the officer at that time. See Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 184,
110 S. Ct. at 2799; Garrison, 480 U.S. at 85, 107 S. Ct. at 1017. But nothing in the
Supreme Court caselaw suggests that an officer’s mistaken reason for a stop may be
deemed reasonable if clear and accurate information was available to the officer at the
time but the officer failed to perceive it due to inattentiveness, divided attention,
distraction, or similar intervening factors. Such a conclusion would be inconsistent with
the well-established objective standard, which asks: “would the facts available to the
officer at the moment of the seizure or the search warrant a man of reasonable caution in
the belief that the action taken was appropriate?” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S. Ct. at
1880 (emphasis added) (quotations omitted); see also Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 188, 110 S.
Ct. at 2801 (citing Terry for objective standard).
D-4
In this case, the information available to Deputy Nelson at the time of the stop was
available to the district court, and is available to this court, in the form of the video-
recording. There is no evidence and no finding that the video-recording depicts anything
other than what Deputy Nelson saw or could have seen through his windshield. The
video-recording shows with certainty that Hiltz signaled his lane change. Deputy
Nelson’s mistaken belief that Hiltz did not signal his lane change cannot be deemed
reasonable, for Fourth Amendment purposes, on the ground that the deputy had other
responsibilities that prevented him from observing Hiltz’s signal. That is not to say that
the deputy’s overall performance was unacceptable. Naturally there are limits to a single
person’s ability to achieve all aspects of a demanding, multi-faceted job. But this case is
concerned with Hiltz’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and
seizures. See U.S. Const. amend. IV. In that context, the deputy’s mistaken belief that
Hiltz failed to signal his lane change, when in fact Hiltz did signal his lane change,
should not convert an objectively unreasonable stop into a stop that satisfies the Fourth
Amendment’s reasonableness requirement.
I stated above that the district court made only two findings of fact that are
relevant to its conclusion that Officer Nelson’s mistake was reasonable. The district
court did not make a finding that Hiltz’s signal was too short in duration, either in
comparison to the norm or to the law. Accordingly, the district court did not make an
implied finding that the brevity of Hiltz’s signal caused Deputy Nelson’s mistake, and the
evidentiary record would not have allowed such a finding. Deputy Nelson’s testimony
indicates that Hiltz’s signal was not unduly brief because he testified that Hiltz’s signal
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“was two quick blinks like any other signal.” (Emphasis added.) A driver is required by
statute to use a signal for 100 feet before changing lanes. See Minn. Stat. § 169.19,
subds. 4-5 (2014). There was no testimony at the hearing as to whether Hiltz complied
with this statute. Depending on his speed, Hiltz could have traveled 100 feet during the
time necessary for two blinks of his signal. The brevity of Hiltz’s signal actually makes
Deputy Nelson’s mistake less reasonable, not more reasonable. If Hiltz’s signal was
typically brief, and if a typical signal may be performed within the time that the officer
looked away to attend to other duties, then the officer is not reasonable in believing that
the driver failed to do something that the officer would have missed while looking away.
In any event, the district court’s order says nothing to suggest that the brevity of Hiltz’s
signal caused Deputy Nelson’s mistake. That justification for the officer’s stop has been
introduced into the Fourth Amendment analysis for the first time on appeal.
For these reasons, I would conclude that the district court erred by denying Hiltz’s
motion to suppress evidence. Therefore, I would reverse the district court’s dismissal of
Hiltz’s petition to rescind the commissioner’s revocation of his driver’s license.
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