Monica Dycus v. State of Indiana
Monica Dycus v. State of Indiana
Opinion
Indiana's Constitution affords its citizens certain rights, including the right to counsel through all stages of a prosecution. That right entitles an accused to consult with counsel while in police custody. In Pirtle v. State , our Court relied on our State Constitution to require an advisement of rights prior to police obtaining consent to a search from a person in custody. So far, that requirement has been understood to apply only to searches of homes and vehicles. Field sobriety tests, chemical breath tests, blood draws, and cheek swabs have all been found to be searches not requiring an additional advisement of rights prior to consent. Here, we address whether our Pirtle requirement extends to Drug Recognition Exams ("DRE"); in other words, whether an advisement is necessary before police can obtain a person's valid consent to a DRE. We find that no advisement is required. A DRE is not the type of search that calls for a Pirtle advisement.
Facts and Procedural History
On January 8, 2016, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department ("IMPD") officers responded to a 911 call about a dispute on the road. Monica Dycus had allegedly been following her ex-boyfriend, El-hadj Barry, who was picking up a female friend at her school. Barry's friend called 911 because Dycus was tailgating Barry's vehicle, swerving between lanes, and pulling up next to them at stoplights to shout obscenities.
When IMPD Officer Christopher Cooper ("Officer Cooper") arrived on the scene, he saw the two vehicles stopped at a red light. Dycus had one foot out of her vehicle and was observed yelling at the car in front of her. Officer Cooper approached Dycus and asked for identification. He also spoke with Barry to find out what had happened.
After checking Barry and Dycus's identification, Officer Cooper told Barry that he could leave. Officer Cooper continued to detain Dycus because he suspected that she was driving with a suspended license. While speaking with Dycus, Officer Cooper noticed an odor of marijuana coming from Dycus's breath. Officer Cooper called for back up from Officer Christopher Winter ("Officer Winter"), an IMPD officer who was certified to conduct DREs. Officer Cooper continued to question Dycus as they waited for Officer Winter's arrival. In the course of that questioning, Dycus admitted to Officer Cooper that she had smoked marijuana with her mother "about an hour" prior to the encounter.
When Officer Winter arrived, Dycus was asked to submit to various field sobriety tests. She passed the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which indicated that she was not under the influence of alcohol. However, Dycus failed the walk-and-turn and the one-legged stand tests. Based on the field sobriety test results, Officer Winter believed that Dycus was intoxicated. He offered to administer a certified breath test, which would test for the presence of alcohol. Dycus consented.
Officers transported Dycus to an IMPD office located approximately four miles from the initial stop to conduct the test. The results came back negative for the presence of alcohol in Dycus's system. However, while conducting the test, Officer Winter noticed a green, leafy substance in Dycus's mouth and "a green streak going down her tongue." (Tr. Vol. 2, p. 130). These signs were indicative of marijuana consumption.
Officer Winter then offered Dycus a DRE. He explained that he wanted her to submit to a DRE because her signs of impairment were not consistent with negative alcohol results. Dycus again consented. The exam took approximately thirty minutes to complete and involved a variety of measurements and observations that were assessed in a seven-category evaluation matrix, known as a "drug symptom matrix." After entering all observations and results of Dycus's DRE into the "drug symptom matrix," Officer Winter determined that Dycus was under the influence of marijuana.
Dycus consented to a blood draw, to be administered at Eskenazi Hospital. At the hospital, two vials of blood were obtained from Dycus, which were eventually sent for testing to National Medical Services, an accredited laboratory located in Pennsylvania. The lab results revealed that Dycus's blood tested positive for Delta-9 THC, an active metabolite of marijuana with psychoactive effects.
The State charged Dycus with Count I, Class A misdemeanor Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated. Later, the State added Count II, Class C misdemeanor Operating a Vehicle with a Schedule I or II Controlled Substance or its Metabolite in the Body. At trial, Dycus objected to the admission of evidence regarding the DRE, arguing that she should have been given a Pirtle advisement before being asked if she consented to the exam. Dycus also argued that the admission of the chain of custody forms and shipping documents for her blood samples violated her constitutional right to confrontation. The trial court rejected both objections and Dycus was found guilty as charged. At sentencing, the trial court vacated Count II. Dycus was then sentenced to 365 days for the remaining count, with 361 days suspended to probation.
Dycus appealed, making the same arguments she made at trial: (1) that the officer's testimony regarding the DRE was inadmissible because she should have been given a
Pirtle
advisement prior to being asked to consent to the exam, and (2) that the admission of chain custody forms for toxicology documents violated her right to confrontation under the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals found that there was no confrontation clause violation, but reversed Dycus's conviction because a
Pirtle
advisement had not been given prior to the DRE consent.
Dycus v. State
,
The State sought transfer, which we now grant, thereby vacating the Court of Appeals' opinion. Ind. App. Rule 58(A).
Standard of Review
A trial court has broad discretion in ruling on admissibility of evidence.
Turner v. State
,
Heaton v. State
,
Discussion and Decision
Today, we are asked to decide whether, prior to obtaining consent to a DRE, police must advise a person in custody of her right to consult with counsel-a question that is grounded in protections offered by our State Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" from unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV. It requires police to obtain a search warrant from a neutral, detached magistrate prior to undertaking a search of either a person or private property.
Katz v. United States
,
Although the wording of Section 11 is almost identical to that of the Fourth Amendment, our State Constitution's search and seizure clause is given an independent interpretation and application.
Myers v. State
,
Whether our advisement requirement extends to a DRE-in other words, whether police are required to advise a person in custody of her right to consult with counsel before obtaining consent to perform the exam-is at issue in this case. The State asks us to affirm the trial court's determination that police need not specifically advise a person in custody of her right to consult with counsel before obtaining consent to a DRE. Dycus, on the other hand, argues that the Court of Appeals correctly held that without such advisement, evidence obtained through a DRE is inadmissible. We agree with the State and find that a Pirtle warning, as such advisement has come to be known, is not required to obtain valid consent to a DRE from a person in custody.
Pirtle v. State
, (1975)
Pirtle challenged the admission of evidence recovered as a result of the search. Our Court held that a person in police custody is entitled to the presence and advice of counsel prior to consenting to a search, and that the right, if waived, must be explicitly waived.
Id. at 29,
Since
Pirtle
, we've addressed the advisement requirement only a handful of times. In
Larkin v. State
, (1979)
However,
Pirtle
,
Larkin
,
Sims
, and
Sellmer
all dealt with searches of homes or vehicles. In
Garcia-Torres v. State
,
A threshold question in
Garcia-Torres
was whether a DNA cheek swab should be deemed a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and our State Constitution.
As for the central question-whether a
Pirtle
warning was required prior to consent-we noted that "
Pirtle
and the ensuing cases ... applied this rule only to the weightiest intrusions."
As mentioned above, our Court of Appeals had already considered
Pirtle
's extent several times before we decided in
Garcia-Torres
that
Pirtle
did not apply to cheek swabs. As a general matter, those cases stand for the proposition that
Pirtle
does not apply to what the court has described as minimally intrusive searches. For example, in
Wilkerson v. State
,
In deciding whether
Pirtle
advisements are necessary for a particular search, such as a DRE, we need not contemplate whether a person has a legitimate expectation of privacy, nor whether the State's intrusion was unreasonable. After all, those questions go to whether police must obtain a warrant-a question not at issue here. Moreover, a person may freely consent to even the most unreasonable of intrusions; where such consent is valid, no warrant is required. Rather, our concern in
Pirtle
, and in the ensuing cases, was that consent to certain weighty intrusions carries a great risk of involuntariness. This is especially true, as described by the Court of Appeals in
Ackerman
,
We need not look further than
Pirtle
to find a situation where a person failed to appreciate the extent of rights he was waiving when consenting to a search. The defendant in
Pirtle
was arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle. Nothing in his initial arrest necessitated the search of his home. It wasn't until later, when police
began to suspect that he had been involved in a murder, that a search of the defendant's home became of interest to police. But as our Court noted in
Pirtle
, had Pirtle refused consent to the search, officers would have had to make a showing of probable cause to a neutral, detached magistrate.
Pirtle
,
We find that a DRE is not the type of search that requires a Pirtle advisement. The exam consists of various field sobriety tests as well as a check of a person's blood pressure and body temperature. Officers also examine the person's arms and look into the person's mouth and nose. Parts of the procedure take place in a dark room, but the entire procedure lasts only about thirty minutes. Once the measurements are taken from the various components of the exam, the results are put into a "drug symptom matrix" which helps the officer determine whether the suspect is under the influence of a drug.
None of the components of a DRE, either individually or cumulatively, have a strong likelihood of uncovering inculpatory evidence of something other than what caused officers to conduct the DRE in the first place. Each component of the exam-the use of the oral thermometer, the examination of the mouth and nasal cavity, the check for the person's blood pressure-is narrow in scope. We do not have concerns that a person in custody will fail to appreciate the magnitude of the rights they forgo when consenting to a DRE. By conducting the DRE, officers were only going to find evidence of Dycus's intoxication-nothing more. We find that a DRE is specific enough to eliminate the risk of involuntary consent. No additional advisement is needed before a person in custody consents to a DRE.
Conclusion
For the aforementioned reasons, we find that consent to a DRE does not require an advisement of rights under Pirtle . The trial court correctly determined that the evidence obtained as a result of the exam was admissible. Accordingly, we affirm Dycus's conviction.
Rush, C.J., and Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Monica DYCUS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
- Cited By
- 18 cases
- Status
- Published