State v. Christian
State v. Christian
Opinion
*186 In this appeal, a Court of Appeals panel reversed Daniel J. Christian's convictions and sentences, holding he did not properly waive his right to a jury trial. But the panel also provided guidance on remand about Christian's motion to suppress evidence seized after a police officer unconstitutionally detained him. The panel applied the attenuation doctrine, concluding the district court could admit the evidence. The panel's holding rests mainly on its determination that a police officer's discovery of an expired tag on Christian's vehicle presented an intervening circumstance that attenuated the taint of the officer's unconstitutional seizure of Christian.
*187
State v. Christian
, No. 116,133,
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Christian lawfully parked his car on a public street and sat there for a period of time. An unidentified caller contacted police to report a suspicious car in front of her house. A Hutchinson police officer responded and saw a car matching the one described by the caller. The car's driver-later identified as Christian-ducked down as the officer drove past. The officer parked his patrol car perpendicular to the rear of Christian's car, activated his emergency lights, and got out to make contact. As he approached the car, he noticed its license tag had expired. The officer asked Christian for his driver's license and proof of insurance. Christian produced a valid driver's license but did not have proof of insurance. The officer told Christian to exit the vehicle, and he arrested Christian for failure to provide proof of insurance.
Christian tried to take his keys with him, but the officer instructed him to put them on the car's roof. Another officer then arrived and asked Christian about a small silver container on Christian's key chain. Christian responded he kept pills in it and, when asked, consented to a search of the container. It contained a "[g]reen leafy vegetation" consistent with marijuana. The first officer then placed Christian under arrest for possession of marijuana, and the officers searched Christian's vehicle. The search revealed two digital scales, some marijuana, and methamphetamine. A search of Christian's person also revealed a clear baggie inside his pocket.
The State charged Christian with possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing officers obtained it as the result of an unlawful seizure. The State asserted the first officer had reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop and the discovery of the expired tag justified continuation of the detention. The State argued Christian consented to the search of the container on his key ring and the discovery of marijuana provided probable cause to arrest and reasons to believe the officers would find additional evidence of the crime in the vehicle. The State claimed the automobile exception based on probable cause plus exigent circumstances justified the officers' search of Christian's vehicle. The State further asserted the evidence in the wallet and container was admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine because officers had arrested Christian, would have the vehicle towed, and would conduct an inventory search of the vehicle and a search of Christian's personal property upon intake at the jail.
The district court held an evidentiary hearing, following which it issued a written decision denying Christian's motion. The district court found officers seized Christian when the first officer pulled behind the vehicle and activated his emergency lights. The district court noted "[t]he State [employed] the shotgun approach in presenting its position. The questioning and answers of the officer were tailored to support a number of different legal theories supporting the search." But the district court determined the pertinent inquiry was whether the officer had reasonable suspicion for the stop and found it was a "close yes." It denied the motion to suppress, holding:
"When the officer observed the expired tag, the custody then expanded beyond the stage of reasonable suspicion. The lack of insurance justified an arrest. [Christian] consented to a search of the container on the key chain. The car was going to be towed and therefore the vehicle would have been inventoried."
The court accepted Christian's waiver of a jury trial and convicted him of all charges at an evidentiary bench trial. Christian filed a timely notice of appeal, raising three issues. The Court of Appeals reversed his convictions and sentence, holding he did not properly waive his right to a jury trial.
Even though that holding reversing his convictions rendered the other issues moot, the panel addressed the merits of Christian's suppression motion because the issue could arise again on remand. See
*188
Christian
,
Christian timely petitioned for this court's review on the attenuation and criminal history issues. This court granted Christian's petition only on the suppression issue. This means the criminal history issue argued by Christian is not before us. See Supreme Court Rule 8.03(i)(1) (2019 Kan. S. Ct. R. 53).
Our jurisdiction is proper under K.S.A. 20-3018(b) (petition for review of Court of Appeals decision).
ANALYSIS
Christian's petition presents a narrow issue about whether Strieff ' s attenuation doctrine analysis applies to allow the admission of the evidence. Some background helps put this issue in perspective because, while the issue is now narrow, it began before the district court with the broader question: Did the officers violate Christian's rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and, if so, should the court exclude any evidence derived from the seizure and search?
The Fourth Amendment provides: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." U.S. Const. amend. IV. By prohibiting "unreasonable" searches and seizures, the Fourth Amendment inferentially allows "reasonable" ones. Reasonable searches and searches include those supported by a valid warrant or by one of the warrant-requirement exceptions defined by the United States Supreme Court.
State v. Doelz
,
The district court found the officer seized Christian when he pulled behind Christian's vehicle and activated his emergency lights. But the district court applied one of the well-delineated exceptions to the requirement that a warrant justify a seizure, finding the officer had reasonable suspicion that a crime had been, was being, or was about to be committed. See
Terry
,
The State did not cross-petition for review of that ruling, so it is not properly before this court. See Rule 8.03(b)(6)(C)(i) and (iii), (c)(3) ;
State v. Gray
,
Suppression results from applying the exclusionary rule under which a court may suppress the "primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure" and "evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality," the so-called " 'fruit of the poisonous tree' " if it finds officers obtained evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Segura v. United States
,
*189
State v. Deffenbaugh
,
The United States Supreme Court has recognized several exceptions to the exclusionary rule. Some of these "exceptions involve the causal relationship between the unconstitutional act and the discovery of evidence."
Strieff
,
No bright-line rule defines when the attenuation doctrine applies. Rather, courts must examine the particular facts of each case and determine whether those circumstances attenuate the taint of illegality.
Brown
,
To aid a district court's weighing of the facts, the United States Supreme Court in
Brown
,
"First, we look to the 'temporal proximity' between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of evidence to determine how closely the discovery of evidence followed the unconstitutional search. Second, we consider 'the presence of intervening circumstances.' Third, and 'particularly' significant, we examine 'the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.' "136 S. Ct. at 2062 .
No one factor controls, and other factors may be relevant to the attenuation analysis. See, e.g.,
Brown
,
In this case, our analysis differs from most cases in which we review a district court's application of the attenuation doctrine because the district court did not address the issue. Rather, it was first considered in the panel's decision. The panel thus had to take the findings made by the district court and fit them into factors the district court had not considered. And while the State asked the panel to consider the doctrine, it never argued why the Court of Appeals could consider the doctrine for the first time on appeal. For good reason, we usually will not consider issues for the first time on appeal, especially those that involve issues of fact like the attenuation doctrine. See
State v. Brown
,
Within those limitations, for guidance on remand, we discuss the panel's analysis of the three attenuation doctrine factors.
*190 Temporal proximity
In discussing the temporal proximity of the search to the unconstitutional seizure, the panel stated:
"As to the first factor, if a substantial amount of time passes between the illegality and the discovery of evidence, such a fact supports not suppressing the evidence.136 S. Ct. at 2062 . While it is true that an exact time between the illegal stop and the discovery of the evidence is not apparent from the record, we do know that the officer discovered Christian's expired license plate before he began his encounter with Christian." Christian ,2017 WL 3947406 , at *9.
We are not entirely certain how the panel weighed this factor. But nothing in the record suggests a significant lapse in time between the unlawful seizure and the discovery of evidence. The first factor does not "[favor] attenuation unless 'substantial time' elapses between an unlawful act and when the evidence is obtained."
Strieff
,
Intervening circumstances
For the attenuation doctrine to apply, there must be a sufficient intervening event to break the causal connection between the illegal seizure and the discovery of evidence. See
Brown
,
The
Strieff
Court limited its holding to "the discovery of a valid, preexisting, and untainted arrest warrant."
Strieff
,
The
Strieff
Court emphasized that " '[a] warrant is a judicial mandate to an officer to conduct a search or make an arrest, and the officer has a sworn duty to carry out its provisions.' "
Strieff
,
Christian's arrest did not result from the officer fulfilling his duty to execute a preexisting arrest warrant. Instead, the panel found the officer had
discretion
to arrest Christian for no proof of insurance. See
Christian
,
*191
In addition, unlike a valid, preexisting warrant
unrelated
to the stop, the bases relied on to detain-the expired tag-and arrest Christian-the lack of proof of insurance-arose from and were directly related to the unlawful initial detention. Granted, these facts supported probable cause that crimes had been committed. But all of the officer's actions flowed from and were tainted by the unconstitutional seizure. To rule otherwise would allow derivative evidence to attenuate the initial illegality. But that is not the attenuation doctrine's purpose. See
Brown
,
In
United States v. Gaines
,
The Tenth Circuit held the officers unconstitutionally seized the defendant. It then turned to the government's arguments about the attenuation doctrine. One of the arguments considered was whether the discovery of the open container and the smell of PCP provided probable cause that would trigger the attenuation doctrine. The Tenth Circuit rejected the argument because "even if probable cause existed, it would have flowed directly from the seizure.... So the discovery of evidence would still be traced directly to the possible Fourth Amendment violation.... Given this direct causal connection, the eventual development of probable cause would not trigger the attenuation doctrine."
Gaines
,
The same conclusion applies here. Discovering evidence of a crime when that discovery flows directly from the unconstitutional seizure does not attenuate the taint of the Fourth Amendment violation.
Flagrancy
The third factor-the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct-focuses on the primary purpose of the exclusionary rule-deterring police misconduct. See
Strieff
,
"[P]urposeful and flagrant misconduct is generally found where: '(1) the impropriety of the official's misconduct was obvious or the official knew, at the time, that his conduct was likely unconstitutional but engaged in it nevertheless; and (2) the misconduct was investigatory in design and purpose and executed "in the hope that something might turn up." ' United States v. Simpson ,439 F.3d 490 , 496 (8th Cir. 2006) (quoting Brown ,422 U.S. at 605 [95 S.Ct. 2254 ] )." United States v. Fox ,600 F.3d 1253 , 1261 (10th Cir. 2010).
We also noted that this court has found flagrant misconduct where an officer knowingly detains someone without authority. See
State v. Cleverly
,
Here, the Court of Appeals panel held:
*192 "Finally, as to the purpose and flagrancy of the police conduct,136 S. Ct. at 2062 , we see nothing in the record that suggests this stop was related to a systemic or recurrent police misconduct. The officers were responding to a complaint about a suspicious vehicle. There was nothing to suggest that the officers' goal was to search Christian for drugs." Christian ,2017 WL 3947406 , at *9.
Christian does not dispute this. But we note he conceded only "the Court of Appeals' finding that nothing suggested the stop was related to a systemic or recurrent problem with police misconduct." The panel did not directly discuss the other types of flagrancy discussed in
Strieff
and
Fox
. But it indirectly did so when it considered whether the search-separated from the taint of the seizure-was constitutional. The panel at least implied that the search of Christian's vehicle was a proper search incident to arrest for no proof of insurance. See
Christian
,
This conclusion conflicts with the permissible scope for the search of a vehicle under
Arizona v. Gant
,
The panel's discussion was thus partially incorrect and narrow, lacking a discussion of the officer's subjective good faith.
CONCLUSION
Even though we cannot fully evaluate the flagrancy factor, the other factors weigh heavily toward a determination that there was no attenuation of the taint of the illegal seizure and the district court should have suppressed the evidence derived from the search. Even if nothing in the record revealed flagrancy, the attenuation doctrine does not allow the admission of the evidence here.
We thus disagree with and disapprove of the panel's guidance on the suppression issue. This does not change the Court of Appeals' holding that the waiver of jury trial was improper or its decision to reverse Christian's convictions and sentence for that reason. Nor does it change the Court of Appeals' conclusion that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion for the initial detention and, thus, the district court erred on that point. All we decide is that, at least on the facts before us, the attenuation doctrine does not apply.
The guidance judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the district court on the single issue subject to our review is reversed. Judgment of the district court is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Daniel J. CHRISTIAN, Appellant.
- Cited By
- 5 cases
- Status
- Published