State of New Hampshire v. Julie Hellinger ( 2023 )

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THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
___________________________
10th Circuit Court-Salem District Division
No. 2022-0253
Rockingham
No. 2022-0589
THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
v.
JULIE HELLINGER
Argued: May 11, 2023
Opinion Issued: November 2, 2023
John M. Formella, attorney general, and Anthony J. Galdieri, solicitor
general (Audriana Mekula, assistant attorney general, on the brief and orally),
for the State.
Sakellarios Legal, of Manchester (Olivier Sakellarios on the brief and
orally), for the defendant.
HANTZ MARCONI, J. The defendant, Julie Hellinger, was tried in Circuit
Court (Lown, J.) on charges of disobeying a police officer, see RSA 265:4 (2014)
(class A misdemeanor), and driving after suspension, see RSA 263:64, I, VII
(Supp. 2022) (violation-level offense). Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion
to suppress, arguing that the motor vehicle stop by the police was unlawful.
Her motion was denied, and the defendant was convicted on both charges. She
appealed her conviction for disobeying an officer to the superior court, and
appealed her conviction for driving after suspension directly to this court.
In the superior court, the defendant again moved to suppress. The Trial
Court (Ruoff, J.) denied the motion without a hearing. The defendant filed an
interlocutory appeal from this ruling. See Sup. Ct. R. 8. We consolidated the
two appeals. We now reverse her circuit court conviction for driving after
suspension, vacate the superior court order denying her motion to suppress,
and remand both matters.
I
We need not set forth the facts in detail. For purposes of these appeals,
it is undisputed that a Salem police officer stopped the defendant’s car on July
15, 2020. At some point, the defendant allegedly gave the officer a false name
and date of birth. The officer subsequently learned the defendant’s real name
and date of birth, and that her license had been suspended. The complaint for
disobeying a police officer is based upon the false identifying information
allegedly given by the defendant to the officer. See RSA 265:4, I(b) (no person,
while driving or in charge of a vehicle, shall “[g]ive a false name, date of birth, .
. . or any other false information to a law enforcement officer that would hinder
the . . . officer from properly identifying the person”).
II
We begin with the appeal from the conviction for driving after
suspension. The defendant argues that the trial court erred by denying his
motion to suppress. The State concedes that the trial court erred, and agrees
that the officer did not have the reasonable, articulable suspicion necessary to
support a motor vehicle stop of the defendant. See State v. O’Brien, 175 N.H.
697, 701 (2023) (to undertake a lawful traffic stop, the officer must have a
reasonable suspicion, based upon specific, articulable facts taken together with
rational inferences drawn from those facts, that the person stopped has been,
is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity). In light of the State’s
concession, we reverse the conviction for driving after suspension, and remand
to the circuit court.
III
We next consider the interlocutory appeal from the superior court. The
defendant again moved to suppress, arguing that the officer unlawfully
initiated the motor vehicle stop and impermissibly expanded the stop. The trial
court denied the motion, stating:
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Upon review, the Court finds that a hearing is not necessary to resolve
this issue. Assuming without deciding that the “stop” in this case was
“illegal,” evidence of a new crime that is committed after the alleged
illegal “stop” is not subject to the Exclusionary Rule. See State v.
Panarello, 157 N.H. 204 (2008) (holding that a new crime committed in
police presence purges the taint of any antecedent illegality). In this
case, the defendant is charged with committing an offense that is alleged
to have occurred after the motor vehicle stop. The defendant’s alleged lie
to the police about her identity came after the “stop” and is, thus, not
subject to exclusion. See also, State v. McGurk, 157 N.H. 765, 771-72
(2008).
In Panarello, we adopted a “new crime” exception to the exclusionary
rule, which we described as follows: “Under this exception, where the response
to an unlawful entry, search or seizure has been a physical attack (or threat of
same) upon an officer, courts have held that the evidence of this new crime is
admissible.” Panarello, 157 N.H. at 208 (quotation and ellipses omitted). We
found persuasive the rationale that the deterrent purpose of the exclusionary
rule would not be served by applying it “in cases where the accused has
committed a crime against police officers in response to police misconduct.” Id.(quotation omitted). As the defendant correctly notes, here there was no crime
committed against law enforcement. Thus, we are not persuaded that
Panarello supports the trial court’s decision.
We agree with the defendant that McGurk provides the appropriate
analytical framework governing the defendant’s motion. In McGurk, we
considered whether evidence of a new crime ought to be excluded by applying
the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. State v. McGurk, 157 N.H. 765, 771-
72 (2008). There, following an allegedly illegal initial search, the defendant
removed and swallowed marijuana that had been seized by the police during
the unlawful search. Id. at 768. As a result, he was charged with falsifying
physical evidence. Id. The State argued that the defendant’s illegal acts were
committed after the stop, and were unconnected to both the stop and the
search of the car. Id. at 771. We explained that if the evidence in question was
obtained only through the exploitation of an antecedent illegality, then it must
be suppressed. Id.Accordingly, the question to be resolved is whether, granting
establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant
objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or
instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary
taint.
In determining whether the taint of a Part I, Article 19 violation has
been purged, we consider the following factors: (1) the temporal proximity
between the police illegality and the acquisition of the evidence sought to
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be suppressed; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (3) the
purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.
Id. (quotations, ellipsis, and brackets omitted); see also State v. Hight, 146 N.H.
746, 750 (2001) (in determining whether State has purged taint of an unlawful
detention followed by a consent to search, court considers temporal proximity
between the police illegality and the consent to search, the presence of
intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official
misconduct).
To determine whether the taint of the illegal stop in this case has been
purged, with the result that the exclusionary rule does not require suppression
of the evidence of the false identifying information provided by the defendant to
the officer, the three factors identified in McGurk must be considered. The trial
court failed to undertake this analysis. We further agree with the defendant
that in order to undertake the required analysis, the trial court in this case
must first hold an evidentiary hearing. We note that in McGurk, we concluded
that we had no need to discuss the first and third factors of the three-factor
test, concluding that the second factor was “sufficient to purge the taint.”
McGurk, 157 N.H. at 771. That conclusion, however, was based upon “the
facts of [that] case.” Id. We reiterate that, on remand, the trial court shall,
following an evidentiary hearing, consider the three factors set forth in McGurk
in ruling upon the defendant’s motion to suppress.
The State cites cases from other jurisdictions that it contends would
support a holding that false-identification crimes committed after an unlawful
stop fall under the new crime exception to the exclusionary rule. We conclude,
however, that this case is governed by our own precedent; thus, we have no
need to consult decisions from other jurisdictions.
Accordingly, we vacate the trial court’s ruling denying the defendant’s
motion to suppress and remand.
Reversed in part; vacated in part;
and remanded.
MACDONALD, C.J., and HICKS, BASSETT, and DONOVAN, JJ.,
concurred.
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