State of Minnesota v. Tyler Thomas Devries Morse

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
A14-1202
Court of Appeals Lillehaug, J.
Took no part, Chutich, J.
State of Minnesota,
Appellant,
vs. Filed: May 11, 2016
Office of Appellate Courts
Tyler Thomas Devries Morse,
Respondent.
________________________
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and
Kathleen Kusz, Nobles County Attorney, Worthington, Minnesota, Travis J. Smith,
Special Assistant County Attorney, Slayton, Minnesota, for appellant.
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Lydia Villalva Lijó, Assistant
State Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondent.
________________________
SYLLABUS
The totality of the circumstances supported the district court’s conclusion that the
police officer had a reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify the stop of the appellant’s
vehicle.
Reversed and remanded.
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OPINION
LILLEHAUG, Justice.
After respondent Tyler Thomas Devries Morse allegedly took a wide right turn
and weaved once within his lane around 2:00 a.m., he was pulled over by a police officer
on suspicion of driving while impaired. The question presented in this case is whether,
under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had a reasonable, articulable suspicion
to justify the vehicle stop. We conclude that he did, and accordingly reverse the court of
appeals and remand to that court to address any remaining issues on appeal.
I.
Shortly before 2:00 a.m., bar closing time, on October 20, 2012, a Worthington
police officer observed Morse’s pickup truck leaving the downtown area. The officer
approached Morse’s vehicle from behind while Morse was stopped at a stop sign with his
right-turn signal activated, at the intersection of Second Avenue and Okabena Street.
Morse turned right on Okabena Street. The officer testified that the angle of the
right turn onto Okabena Street is “somewhere between 100- and 120-degree[s].”
Okabena Street does not have a painted center stripe. According to the officer, Morse’s
vehicle “crossed over the center of the road almost striking a vehicle that was parked on
the other side of the road.” The officer followed Morse’s vehicle. Morse then made a
left turn onto First Avenue. The vehicle “weaved towards the center line of the road,
almost touching it, and move[d] back into its lane.” Morse did not cross the centerline.
The officer testified that the weaving was “[v]ery slight. Almost a drift.” In the officer’s
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opinion, the drift was significant because “most of the time drivers are impaired when
they are drifting like that, at that time of day.”
The officer stopped Morse’s vehicle on First Avenue. The officer observed
several indicia of impairment, including watery eyes and a strong odor of alcohol coming
from inside of the vehicle. The officer asked Morse to step out of the vehicle and to
perform standard field sobriety tests. Morse completed the horizontal gaze nystagmus
test, during which the officer “observe[d] all six clues of impairment.”
The officer arrested Morse and took him to the jail. At 3:06 a.m., Morse provided
a breath sample with an alcohol concentration of 0.19 percent. Morse was then charged
with one count of second-degree driving while impaired—under the influence of alcohol,
Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 1(1) (2014), 169A.25, subd. 2 (2014), and one count of
second-degree driving while impaired—alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more within
2 hours, Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 1(5) (2014), 169A.25, subd. 2.
Morse moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that there was no valid basis for the
traffic stop. During the contested omnibus hearing, the officer testified and the squad-car
video was received as evidence. The district court found the video evidence of Morse’s
right turn “to be significantly less compelling than the Officer’s testimony indicated, and
the video evidence clearly [did] not support the Officer’s recollection that [Morse’s]
vehicle nearly struck a vehicle parked along the curb of Okabena Street.” The court
found that “the driver’s side rear tire of his vehicle appear[ed] to at least touch the center
seam of the road,” and therefore, Morse did not turn “as close as practicable to the right-
hand curb or edge of the roadway,” as required by Minn. Stat. § 169.19, subd. 1(a)
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(2014). The court also found that the squad video “clearly show[ed] [Morse’s] vehicle
drifting.” Although the court noted that the “statutory standard [for a right turn] is
admittedly somewhat vague,” it concluded that, based on the totality of the
circumstances—Morse’s driving conduct, the time of night, and the officer’s training and
experience—there was a reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify the stop. Observing
that the “basis for the traffic stop . . . rests on a relatively thin reed,” the court
acknowledged that “this ‘thin reed’ passes constitutional scrutiny based on the facts
presented.” The court therefore denied Morse’s motion to dismiss the charges.
Following a stipulated-facts trial, Morse was found guilty of one count of second-
degree driving while impaired—alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more within 2 hours,
Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 1(5), 169A.25, subd. 2. The prosecutor dismissed the
remaining charge. The district court stayed execution of a 365-day sentence and placed
Morse on probation. Morse appealed the conviction on two issues: (1) the validity of the
initial traffic stop; and (2) the denial of his motion to suppress the results of the breath
test because he had not voluntarily consented to the test.
On the first issue, a divided panel of the court of appeals reversed. The court, sua
sponte, addressed the constitutionality of Minnesota’s right-turn statute, Minn. Stat.
§ 169.19, subd. 1(a). The court concluded that the “definition of ‘practicable’ is not only
flexible and subject to differences of opinion, it is inherently ambiguous and vague.”
State v. Morse, No. A14-1202, 2015 WL 3822833, at *5 (Minn. App. June 22, 2015).
The court also stated that “[f]ailing to turn ‘as close as practicable’ is not measurable by
some objective standard. . . .” Id. The court “note[d] the risk that [the] statute is
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unconstitutionally vague unless it is narrowly construed.” Id. And when the doctrine of
reasonable, articulable suspicion was “combined with vagueness of the right-turn law, the
subjectivity of the standard [was] compounded. This create[d] a level of officer
discretion . . . of constitutional concern.” Id. To avoid what the court termed
“compounded subjectivity,” it narrowly applied Minn. Stat. § 169.19, subd. 1(a) to the
facts of this case. Reversing the district court, the court held that Morse did not violate
the statute, that there was “no traffic violation to supplement the single weave,” and that
therefore the stop was improper. Id. The State filed a petition for review, which we
granted.
The State contends that the court of appeals erred in its analysis of the
constitutionality of Minn. Stat. §169.19, subd. 1(a), and that, in any event, the stop was
supported by a reasonable, articulable suspicion. Morse responds that the court of
appeals’ constitutional analysis was well-reasoned. Morse also argues that, regardless of
whether the statute is constitutional, the record demonstrates that the district court erred
by concluding that the stop was supported by a reasonable, articulable suspicion.
II.
The court of appeals erred in addressing the constitutionality of the right-turn
statute. Neither party raised this constitutional issue in the district court. Nor was it
raised or argued on appeal. We have said, “A reviewing court must generally consider
‘only those issues that the record shows were presented and considered by the trial court
in deciding the matter before it.’ ” Thiele v. Stich, 425 N.W.2d 580, 582 (Minn. 1988)
(quoting Thayer v. Am. Fin. Advisers, Inc., 322 N.W.2d 599, 604 (Minn. 1982)).
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The court of appeals appears to have seized on the district court’s passing
comment that the right-turn statute is “somewhat vague.” But this comment was not
essential to the district court’s holding. Therefore, we conclude that the court of appeals
erred when it raised the constitutionality of the right-turn statute sua sponte and then
decided the issue.
III.
We now turn to whether the district court erred by concluding that a reasonable,
articulable suspicion supported the stop. “In reviewing a district court’s determinations
of the legality of a limited investigatory stop, we review questions of reasonable
suspicion de novo.” State v. Britton, 604 N.W.2d 84, 87 (Minn. 2000). “Reasonable
suspicion must be ‘based on specific, articulable facts’ that allow the officer to ‘be able to
articulate . . . that he or she had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the
seized person of criminal activity.’ ” State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836, 842-43 (Minn.
2011) (quoting State v. Cripps, 533 N.W.2d 388, 391 (Minn. 1995)).
“The reasonable-suspicion standard is ‘not high.’ ” Id. (quoting State v.
Timberlake, 744 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 2008)). “[A] trained police officer is entitled
to draw inferences on the basis of ‘all of the circumstances . . . inferences and deductions
that might well elude an untrained person.’ ” State v. Johnson, 444 N.W.2d 824, 826
(Minn. 1989) (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418 (1981)). The district
court’s findings of fact will not be set aside unless they are clearly erroneous. State v.
Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn. 2008).
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Morse’s argument relies on the contention that neither the wide right turn nor the
single weave alone would have justified the stop, but the district court did not rely on any
single factor. The district court correctly assessed the totality of the circumstances of the
stop.
The relevant circumstances found by the district court included: (1) the squad-car
video supporting the officer’s assertion that Morse’s right turn “onto Okabena Street was
not as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway”; (2) the squad-
car video showing Morse’s vehicle drifting in its lane; (3) the fact that the events
occurred close to 2:00 a.m. bar closing time; (4) the fact that Morse was leaving
downtown, an area with bars; and (5) the officer’s training and experience.
On the second circumstance, this court has held a stop to be justified when an
officer observed a vehicle weaving within its lane even when the officer did not believe
that the driving violated the traffic laws. State v. Ellanson, 293 Minn. 490, 490-91,
198 N.W.2d 136, 137 (1972) (concluding the stop was reasonable because the officer
“had a right to stop [the driver] in order to investigate the cause of the unusual driving”).
The first, third, fourth, and fifth circumstances, considered collectively, fortify the basis
for the investigatory stop.
Based on the totality of the circumstances, including the deference given to
officers regarding inferences and deductions made based on their training, we have no
difficulty in concluding that the district court correctly determined that the stop of
Morse’s vehicle was valid because it was supported by a reasonable, articulable
suspicion.
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Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and remand to that
court to address any remaining issues on appeal.
Reversed and remanded.
CHUTICH, J., not having been a member at the time of submission, took no part
in the consideration or decision of this case.
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