State of Arizona v. Dale Lee Evans

IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
STATE OF ARIZONA,
Appellee,
v.
DALE LEE EVANS,
Appellant.
No. CR-14-0285-PR
Filed June 4, 2015
Appeal from the Superior Court in Cochise County
The Honorable Wallace R. Hoggatt, Judge
No. CR-200500455
AFFIRMED
Opinion of the Court of Appeals, Division Two
235 Ariz. 314, 332 P.3d 61 (2014)
AFFIRMED
COUNSEL:
Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General, John R. Lopez IV, Solicitor
General, Joseph T. Maziarz (argued), Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals
Section, Phoenix, Amy Pignatella Cain, Assistant Attorney General,
Criminal Appeals Section, Tucson, Attorneys for State of Arizona
Joel A. Larson (argued), Legal Defender, Cochise County, Bisbee, Attorney
for Dale Lee Evans
David J. Euchner, Tucson, Attorney for Amicus Curiae Arizona Attorneys
for Criminal Justice
JUSTICE BERCH authored the opinion of the Court, in which CHIEF
JUSTICE BALES, VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER, and JUSTICES
STATE v. EVANS
Opinion of the Court
BRUTINEL and TIMMER joined.
JUSTICE BERCH, opinion of the Court:
¶1 The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people
to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const.
amend. IV. An officer’s investigatory stop of a vehicle is a seizure and
therefore must be based on reasonable suspicion. United States v. Cortez,
449 U.S. 411, 417, 421–22 (1981). We must decide whether, to establish that
reasonable suspicion exists, the state must show that the circumstances
giving rise to a vehicle stop “eliminate a substantial portion of the innocent
motoring public,” as petitioner Dale Evans asserts. We conclude that the
Fourth Amendment does not require such a showing.
I. BACKGROUND
¶2 Cochise County Deputy Sheriff Dana Anderson saw Evans,
who was the driver of a truck stopped at a stop sign on an adjoining street,
“[f]lailing his arms” with closed fists toward the truck’s front seat
passenger. Anderson alerted his partner to a potential assault and
instructed him to turn around. As the patrol car approached, Evans drove
away from the intersection. The deputies initiated a traffic stop that
ultimately led to Evans’s arrest for possession of marijuana, possession of
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Opinion of the Court
drug paraphernalia, and aggravated driving under the influence. Before
trial, Evans moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that the deputies
lacked reasonable suspicion to pull him over.
¶3 At the suppression hearing, Anderson testified that he could
clearly see the truck’s driver direct three rapid, closed-fisted movements
toward the passenger. He demonstrated the arm movements he witnessed.
Defense counsel asked during cross-examination if Anderson had seen
“blows” actually being struck, and thus the motions Anderson
demonstrated apparently suggested punching or hitting. The deputy
acknowledged that he did not see contact between Evans’s fists and the
passenger. Nonetheless, he was concerned enough that he directed his
partner to turn the patrol car around so they could investigate further.
¶4 The trial court denied Evans’s motion to suppress, finding
that “the arm movements, though they might not have been criminal
activity, were articulable facts that justified the Officers in trying to find out
more.” The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of Evans’s
suppression motion. State v. Evans, 235 Ariz. 314, 315 ¶ 1, 332 P.3d 61, 62
(App. 2014). Deferring to the trial court’s ability to view Anderson’s
demonstration of the actions that aroused his suspicion, id. at 317 ¶ 8, 332
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Opinion of the Court
P.3d at 64, the court of appeals declined to require that “every stop be
supported by testimony regarding how the factors ‘serve to eliminate’
innocent conduct” before reasonable suspicion will be satisfied, id. at 320
¶ 22, 332 P.3d at 67 (quoting United States v. Foreman, 369 F.3d 776, 781 (4th
Cir. 2004)).
¶5 We granted review to clarify what constitutes reasonable
suspicion sufficient to justify an investigatory stop, a recurring issue of
statewide importance. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, Section
5(3) of the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. § 12–120.24.
II. DISCUSSION
¶6 Whether there is a sufficient legal basis to justify a stop of a
vehicle is a mixed question of fact and law. State v. Gonzalez-Gutierrez, 187
Ariz. 116, 118, 927 P.2d 776, 778 (1996). We review the trial court’s factual
findings on the motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion, but we review
its ultimate legal determination de novo. Id.; see also State v. Gilstrap, 235
Ariz. 296, 297 ¶ 6, 332 P.3d 43, 44 (2014).
¶7 “[P]olice can stop and briefly detain a person for investigative
purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable
facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even if the officer lacks probable
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Opinion of the Court
cause.” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (quoting Terry v. Ohio,
392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). Although the reasonable suspicion standard affords
flexibility, investigatory stops cannot be arbitrary. “The Fourth
Amendment requires ‘some minimal level of objective justification’ for
making the stop.” Id. (quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217 (1984)).
¶8 Courts have struggled to articulate when evidence rises to a
level that satisfies the reasonable suspicion standard. See Ornelas v. United
States, 517 U.S. 690, 695 (1996) (noting that “[a]rticulating precisely what
‘reasonable suspicion’ and ‘probable cause’ mean is not possible”).
Reasonable suspicion has been called a “commonsense, nontechnical
conception[] that deal[s] with ‘the factual and practical considerations of
everyday life on which reasonable and prudent [people], not legal
technicians, act.’” Id. (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231 (1983)). In
determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, officers and courts
reviewing their actions take into account “the totality of the
circumstances—the whole picture” of what occurred at the scene. Cortez,
449 U.S. at 417. From “that whole picture” the officers must derive “a
particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person
stopped of criminal activity.” Id. at 417–18. Although a mere
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Opinion of the Court
“unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch’” does not establish reasonable
suspicion, consideration “must be given . . . to the specific reasonable
inferences [that an officer] is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his
experience.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.
¶9 Citing several cases, Evans argues that the state must show
that the “factors together . . . serve to eliminate a substantial portion of
innocent travelers before the requirement of reasonable suspicion will be
satisfied.” See, e.g., United States v. Neff, 681 F.3d 1134, 1142 (10th Cir. 2012);
Foreman, 369 F.3d at 781; Karnes v. Skrutski, 62 F.3d 485, 493 (3d Cir. 1995),
abrogated on other grounds by Curley v. Klem, 499 F.3d 199 (3d Cir. 2007). That
is, his argument suggests that officers must affirmatively consider the
number of people who might engage in the activity observed so that
significant percentages of innocent travelers are not subject to seizures.
¶10 We view the constitutional requirements differently. To say
that an officer must have “particularized” suspicion incorporates the notion
that the facts supporting a stop must be specific, distinct, or “particular” to
the suspect. That alone will eliminate most members of the public. See Reid
v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 441 (1980) (noting that particularized suspicion
necessarily does not “describe a very large category of presumably innocent
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Opinion of the Court
travelers”). And that most non-criminal activity does not give rise to
“suspicion” also serves to prevent the reported facts from applying to too
many people. Cf. Gonzalez-Gutierrez, 187 Ariz. at 121, 927 P.2d at 781(holding that a Hispanic driver glancing, scratching his head, and gripping
his steering wheel tightly was insufficiently particularized to provide a
reasonable suspicion of illegal alienage). Thus, the requirement that an
officer state facts that, when taken together, give rise to particularized
suspicion already serves to eliminate a substantial number of innocent
travelers.
¶11 Nor, as Evans concedes, need the officer expressly rule out the
possibility of innocent explanations for the conduct. See United States v.
Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277 (2002). “Although there could, of course, be
circumstances in which wholly lawful conduct might justify the suspicion
that criminal activity was afoot,” that would be an unusual case, and the
combination of actions and circumstances would have to be such that a “fair
inference” justified the observing officer’s reasonable suspicion. Reid, 448
U.S. at 441; cf. Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 10 (“[T]he relevant inquiry is not whether
particular conduct is ‘innocent’ or ‘guilty,’ but the degree of suspicion that
attaches to particular types of noncriminal acts.” (quoting Gates, 462 U.S. at
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Opinion of the Court
243 n.13)).
¶12 Particularized suspicion is a common sense assessment that
officers make every time they conduct an investigatory stop. If all the
circumstances taken together, along with the reasonable inferences derived
from them, describe behavior that is entirely ordinary, then that behavior
cannot reasonably give rise to particularized suspicion. In deciding that
behavior is, in the totality of the circumstances, suspicious, a reasonable
officer recognizes that the circumstances are atypical in a way that suggests
possible criminal conduct.
¶13 Thus, the reasonableness standard does not demand that an
officer affirmatively “consider the number of innocent travelers who might
engage in similar behaviors,” Evans, 235 Ariz. at 320 ¶ 20, 332 P.3d at 67,
nor does it require that the officer rule out possible alternative, innocent
explanations for the actions observed, Navarette v. California, 134 S. Ct. 1683,
1691 (2014). It requires only that an officer exercise common sense to
determine whether the facts justify an objectively reasonable suspicion.
Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 695–96.
¶14 We agree with the court of appeals that there is no “additional
requirement” that every stop be supported by testimony regarding how the
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Opinion of the Court
factors “serve to eliminate” innocent conduct. Evans, 235 Ariz. at 320 ¶ 22,
332 P.3d at 67 (quoting Foreman, 369 F.3d at 781). Officers need not provide
such testimony at suppression hearings, and trial courts need not make
separate findings on that point. Instead, the trial court must exercise its
judgment to determine whether an officer’s suspicion was reasonable
under the totality of the circumstances. This is what occurred when the
superior court concluded that Anderson’s observation of Evans appearing
to punch his passenger justified an investigatory stop. Although there
might have been an innocent explanation for Evans’s actions, the court did
not abuse its discretion in concluding that Anderson had reason to suspect
that an assault or domestic violence event was occurring that warranted
further investigation.
¶15 Evans observes that two Arizona cases―State v. Sweeney, 224
Ariz. 107, 113 ¶ 22, 227 P.3d 868, 874 (App. 2010), and State v. Teagle, 217
Ariz. 17, 24 ¶ 25, 170 P.3d 266, 273 (App. 2007)―have cited with approval
Foreman’s “serve to eliminate” language, 369 F.3d at 781. He asserts that the
court of appeals’ disavowal of that language in this case has created a split
of authority on the court of appeals.
¶16 We do not read either Teagle or Sweeney, which merely quote
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Opinion of the Court
the cited language from Foreman, as creating a rule requiring a separate
showing. The court of appeals in this case read them similarly, disavowing
the “serve to eliminate” language in Foreman only insofar as it “articulates
a standard not present in Sokolow[].” Evans, 235 Ariz. at 319 ¶ 16, 332 P.3d
at 66. It correctly held that “[w]hen determining whether reasonable
suspicion exists, the police are not required to rule out the possibility of
innocent explanations for a defendant’s conduct.” Id. at 320 ¶ 19, 332 P.3d
at 67 (quoting State v. Ramsey, 223 Ariz. 480, 485 ¶ 23, 224 P.3d 977, 982 (App.
2010)).
¶17 We hold that reasonable suspicion under the Fourth
Amendment does not require officers to testify about how their
observations reduce or eliminate the possibility that innocent travelers will
be subject to seizures or trial courts to make specific findings on that issue.
Objectively reasonable, particularized suspicion of criminal activity
necessarily will reduce the risk of sweeping in a substantial number of
innocent travelers.
III. CONCLUSION
¶18 We affirm the opinion of the court of appeals and the trial
court’s denial of Evans’s motion to suppress.
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