Foreign Jurisdiction Law Clerk: Part 1

State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836. (This is an independent analysis of the case, not shepardized)

This is a 2011 Minnesota Supreme Court case involving an apparent 4th amendment violation. Trial court and intermediate appellate court had denied defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found on defendant. Defendant was driver of the vehicle, which had stopped to drop off a passenger, a known drug “aficionado,” but was originally followed due to the license place not matching the vehicle in question. The passenger, who got out of the vehicle and allegedly appeared to throw something back into the vehicle, was arrested based on his prior dealings with drugs and police. Defendant got out of the car, and police told her to stay there, they had to ask her something. They then asked her to turn out her pockets, revealing a cigarette packet, which ultimately contained a baggie of meth. Minnesota law holds that “a police officer may temporarily detain a suspect without probable cause if (1) “the stop was justified at its inception” by reasonable articulable suspicion, and (2) “the actions of the police during the stop were reasonably related to and justified by the circumstances that gave rise to the stop in the first place.” State v. Askerooth,681 N.W.2d 353, 364 (Minn. 2004) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-21). Evidence obtained as a result of a seizure without reasonable suspicion must be suppressed.”

In the initial appeal to this case to the intermediate court, the parties stipulated to the facts, and the supreme court reviewed as such, holding “[t]he only basis in the record for suspecting that anyone possessed drugs was Detective Jensen’s assertion that he had probable cause to arrest Hanson for previous drug sales. But the record does not describe the foundation of that probable cause. Nor does it indicate any objectively articulable facts that would have allowed the police to reasonably infer that Hanson was carrying drugs at the time of his arrest on April 22. The record also does not indicate whether Hanson recognized Detective Jensen as a law enforcement officer, which would be necessary to support the officer’s suspicion that Hanson left something in the truck in response to the presence of the police. The record does not indicate that any of the officers saw Diede reach for anything while she was in the truck or that the officers looked into the truck to see if the object they saw Hanson leave there had been removed from the truck.”

The state leans on some key 4th amendment cases, but the court quickly distinguishes both: Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 124 S. Ct. 795, 157 L. Ed. 2d 769 (2003), and Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 119 S. Ct. 1297, 143 L. Ed. 2d 408 (1999). “In both Houghton and Pringle, the police had already discovered drugs or drug paraphernalia inside the car.”

“Neither case supports the contention that the police may reasonably suspect a person of possessing a controlled substance merely because she is in the same truck as a suspected drug dealer who appears to leave something in the truck as he is getting out of it. Cf.United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 586-87, 68 S. Ct. 222, 92 L. Ed. 210 (1948) (holding that probable cause to search a vehicle does not justify searching a passenger).”

The state also alternatively argues that the search of defendant was an extension of the investigation of the mismatched plates, and the court quickly drops this argument like a bad habit, largely in part to it being absolute BS(Id at no shit, sherlock).

And….for the part we really care about “Because Detective Jensen did not have a reasonable articulable suspicion that Diede was engaged in drug-related criminal activity, his request to search Diede’s cigarette package exceeded the scope of the initial temporary investigative seizure. Consequently, the district court erred when it denied Diede’s motion to suppress the methamphetamine evidence discovered in the cigarette package.”

Court also found that Diede did not consent to the search, despite the state arguing that she did, she said no clearly several times before eventually submitting to the search of the cigarette package, et al.

Court finally refuted the argument that the police would have inevitably found the contraband because they “could have” arrested her for the mismatched plates.