Chandler Turner v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

MEMORANDUM DECISION
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED
this Memorandum Decision shall not be Nov 10 2016, 8:31 am
regarded as precedent or cited before any CLERK
court except for the purpose of establishing Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
the defense of res judicata, collateral
estoppel, or the law of the case.
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Corey L. Scott Gregory F. Zoeller
Indianapolis, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
Ian McLean
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
Chandler Turner, November 10, 2016
Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No.
49A02-1602-CR-229
v. Appeal from the Marion Superior
Court
State of Indiana, The Honorable Jose Salinas, Judge
Appellee-Plaintiff Trial Court Cause No.
49G14-1506-F6-22475
Vaidik, Chief Judge.
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Case Summary
[1] Chandler Turner appeals his convictions for possession of cocaine and
marijuana, contending that the police violated his rights under the federal and
state constitutions when they seized the drugs and that the trial court therefore
should have kept the State from using the drugs as evidence at trial. Finding no
error, we affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
[2] In June 2015, a detective told Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer Cathy
Faulk that an African-American male named “Chan” or “Chandler” was
dealing drugs out of a black Toyota on the 3000 block of Roberta Drive in
Indianapolis. Officer Faulk patrolled the block in the following days and saw
an African-American male in a black Toyota Corolla. She did not observe any
drug activity, but one morning she decided to confront him. She drove by the
Toyota, parked her own car down the block, and walked toward the man, who
by then had gotten out of the Toyota and was standing on a nearby sidewalk.
Officer Faulk spoke to the man, asked for and received his ID, confirmed that
his name was Chandler Turner, and learned that he was on house arrest for a
drug charge and that he was not near his home or his place of work. She then
asked Turner if she could pat him down, and he consented. Officer Faulk did
not find any contraband on Turner, but she nonetheless handcuffed him
because she “didn’t feel like running after him if he decide[d] to run.” Tr. p.
125.
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[3] Once she had Turner in cuffs, Officer Faulk walked over to the Toyota. She
looked through the window of the driver’s door and in the cargo pocket of that
door saw “a white lid on a container that had two burn marks on top of the
lid.” Id. at 120. Based on her experience with similar items—she later testified
that she had seen “[m]ore than a hundred,” id. at 121—Officer Faulk believed
that the lid had been used to smoke illegal drugs. As such, she opened the door,
grabbed the container, and removed the lid. Inside she found baggies of
cocaine and marijuana.
[4] The State charged Turner with possession of cocaine as a Level 6 felony and
possession of marijuana as a Class A misdemeanor. Before trial, Turner filed a
motion to suppress the drugs, claiming that Officer Faulk violated his rights
under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and
Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. The trial court held an
evidentiary hearing at which it heard testimony from Officer Faulk and others,
then denied the motion. When the State sought to introduce the drugs into
evidence at the bench trial a few months later, Turner again objected. The trial
court overruled the objection and eventually found Turner guilty as charged.
[5] Turner now appeals.
Discussion and Decision
[6] On appeal, Turner renews the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11
arguments he made to the trial court. When a defendant challenges a trial
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court’s ruling on such constitutional claims, we review the matter de novo.
Garcia v. State, 47 N.E.3d 1196, 1199 (Ind. 2016).
I. Fourth Amendment
[7] Turner first contends that Officer Faulk violated his rights under the Fourth
Amendment when she confronted him, patted him down, and handcuffed him
and that the trial court should have applied the exclusionary rule to bar the
admission of the drugs into evidence. The exclusionary rule is “a deterrent
sanction that bars the prosecution from introducing evidence obtained by way
of a Fourth Amendment violation.” Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 231-32
(2011).
[8] The Fourth Amendment provides, in part, that “[t]he right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated[.]” The State concedes that Officer
Faulk violated this provision when she handcuffed Turner, since she had no
“objective justification” for doing so. Appellee’s Br. p. 28, 32. It argues,
however, that Officer Faulk’s discovery and seizure of the drugs was
independent of and not tainted by that violation and that application of the
exclusionary rule would therefore be inappropriate. We agree.
[9] As the State notes, the United States Supreme Court has held that “whether the
exclusionary sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case is an issue
separate from the question whether the Fourth Amendment rights of the party
seeking to invoke the rule were violated by police conduct.” Hudson v.
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Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591-92 (2006). The exclusionary rule is implicated only
if the challenged evidence was obtained as a result of the Fourth Amendment
violation, that is, if the evidence would not have been obtained “but for” the
violation. Id. at 592. Here, it cannot be said that Officer Faulk would not have
discovered and seized the drugs “but for” her illegal conduct. Handcuffing
Turner did not lead Officer Faulk to the drugs. She could have just as easily
looked through the window of the Toyota before she handcuffed Turner—in
fact, before she talked to him or even approached him. In other words, the fact
that Officer Faulk found the drugs while Turner was handcuffed does not mean
that she found the drugs because he was handcuffed. The trial court did not err
by refusing to exclude the drugs based on Officer Faulk’s illegal detention of
Turner.
[10] That is not the end of our inquiry, however. Apart from Officer Faulk’s
handcuffing of Turner, exclusion of the drugs might be appropriate if her
subsequent conduct—looking into the Toyota, opening the door, picking up the
container, and removing the lid—separately violated the Fourth Amendment.
Generally, police must have a warrant to conduct a search or seizure. See, e.g.,
Clark v. State, 994 N.E.2d 252, 260 (Ind. 2013). Here, the police did not have a
warrant to enter the car and seize the container. Therefore, we will find a
Fourth Amendment violation unless the State can establish that an exception to
the warrant requirement applies. See id.
[11] The State asserts that the container was in open view, that the burn marks on
the lid gave Officer Faulk probable cause to believe that the container was drug
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paraphernalia, and that this probable cause triggered the “automobile
exception” to the warrant requirement. See, e.g., Thurman v. State, 602 N.E.2d
548, 554 n.11 (Ind. Ct. App. 1992) (explaining that automobile exception
allows warrantless seizure of contraband discovered in open view), trans. denied.
Turner does not dispute that the container was in open view or that the
automobile exception would apply if the criminal character of the container was
apparent. Rather, he contends that the burn marks on the lid did not give rise
to probable cause that the container had been used to consume illegal drugs.
We disagree.
[12] For purposes of the Fourth Amendment, probable cause exists when the facts
available to the police officer “would warrant a person of reasonable caution in
the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime is present.” Florida v. Harris,
133 S. Ct. 1050, 1055 (2013). Officer Faulk testified that she had seen “more
than a hundred” items like the container, Tr. p. 121, and that, given her training
and experience, the two burn marks made it “immediately apparent” to her that
the container had been used to ingest narcotics (one mark being an “inhalation
point,” the other an “exhalation point”), id. at 41, 127. This testimony was
more than sufficient to support a finding of probable cause to believe that the
container was drug paraphernalia.
[13] Turner has failed to persuade us that the trial court erred by rejecting his Fourth
Amendment claim.
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II. Article 1, Section 11
[14] Turner also argues that even if the Fourth Amendment does not bar the
admission of the drugs, Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution does.
Like the Fourth Amendment, Article 1, Section 11 provides, in part, that “[t]he
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable search or seizure, shall not be violated[.]” Turner
correctly notes that notwithstanding the textual similarity between the two
provisions, the Indiana Supreme Court has established an independent analysis
for Article 1, Section 11 claims. See Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356 (Ind.
2005) (explaining that issue is whether search or seizure was “reasonable,”
which turns on a balance of “1) the degree of concern, suspicion, or knowledge
that a violation has occurred, 2) the degree of intrusion the method of the
search or seizure imposes on the citizen’s ordinary activities, and 3) the extent
of law enforcement needs”). We need not engage in that analysis, however.
Turner’s argument under Article 1, Section 11 focuses entirely on Officer
Faulk’s conduct before she walked to the Toyota and looked through the
window. As discussed in relation to Turner’s Fourth Amendment claim, while
it is undisputed that Officer Faulk acted illegally before she went to the car—
specifically, by handcuffing Turner—her discovery and seizure of the drugs was
independent of and untainted by that illegality. Turner does not separately
contend that Officer Faulk violated Article 1, Section 11 by looking into the car,
opening the door, picking up the container, or removing the lid. Therefore, we
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cannot say that the trial court erred by rejecting Turner’s claim under the
Indiana Constitution.
[15] Affirmed.
Baker, J., and Najam, J., concur.
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