DUI Sentencing Decision - State v Timpson

The Utah Court of Appeals published an opinion regarding mandatory DUI sentencing. The case revolved around the question of whether "home confinement" met the mandatory jail provisions for people convicted three (or more) times within a ten-year period. 

The district court, over the objection from the State, sentenced defendant to serve the mandatory 62.5 days in home confinement with an ankle monitor. The State appealed and the Court of Appeals was persuaded by the State's argument that "home confinement" and "jail sentence" do not mean the same thing within the structure of the DUI statute, and therefore this was an illegal sentence. 

We often hear of courts around the state sentencing someone to home confinement instead of jail. There are provisions where this is contemplated and even allowed in the the statute. However, when there is a minimum jail sentence, this case makes clear that "home confinement" is not akin to jail, and courts may not impose those sentences in lieu of jail unless the statute allows for it. 

Here is a link to the decision: State v. Timpson

Recent SCOTUS Traffice Related Cases

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently decided a couple cases that involve traffic related matters at least tangentially. The cases are Lange v. California and Torres v. Madrid. 

My colleague Erin Inman with the National Traffic Law Center (NTLC) at NDAA did a great write up about these cases in their August newsletter. You can access Erin's very well done write-up here at this link: Between the Lines August 2021. 

NTLC has developed a ton of great resources for prosecutors. If you've never looked through their materials, I'd strongly suggest you do! 

State v. Malloy: Update to View on Officer Opening Car Door

 A new Utah Supreme Court decision was filed January 21, 2021 and its impact, while very narrow in scope, is important to understand as its a change in some established precedent to this point. The analysis of the Court of Appeals decision the Court was reviewing can be seen here, along with the facts of the case, so I will not restate those in this post. The importance of this opinion is the change in view that the Court of Appeals followed from State v. James, 2000 UT 80, 13 P.3d 576. 

In this opinion, the Supreme Court is overturning its own precedent in James based upon subsequent Supreme Court of the United States decisions. However, in doing so they do not suppress the evidence in the present case as the officer was objectively relying in good faith on controlling precedent. 

The important take away from this case is simply that the broad rule in James that the identity of the person that opened the car door was not important for 4th Amendment purposes on a traffic stop is no longer good precedent. The analysis there was essentially that because an officer may order a driver out of the car on a lawful traffic stop, and opening the door could be part of gaining compliance with that lawful order for a driver to get out of the car during the stop, that creating a rule saying the officer can't be the one to actually open the door was putting form over substance. This is what the Court addressed in this opinion, and now states that the identity of the person opening the car door MAY be a factor under the 4th Amendment going forward. While the Court did overturn the prior precedent, it's important to note that the Court did not create a rule saying that every time an officer opens a car door it is a search, let alone an unreasonable search. The holding in State v. Malloy is a very narrow holding, simply to clarify a previously held broad rule, but the Court did not analyze the current facts of the case as they were able to affirm based upon the officer's objectively good faith reliance on the prior precedent. 

This is an important point to get out to law enforcement agencies as officers may no longer rely upon the holding in James to open a car door without consent of the driver. If they do so, they should be able to articulate the reasons in their report as to why that was reasonable. How much leeway the Utah Supreme Court will give officers on this topic moving forward is an open question and will need to be litigated down the road. 

The full opinion can be found here: State v. Malloy. 

United States v. Mayville - Triple I checks during traffic stops after Rodriguez

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals published a decision in April in a traffic stop case regarding Triple I checks and the extension of the scope of the stop. 

Defendant in the case stated that under Rodriguez, running the Triple I through dispatch unconstitutionally extended the scope of the stop. 

This is a Utah case based upon a stop by UHP, record checks, and a K9 sniff while waiting for reports to come back from dispatch. There is some very helpful language in the opinion analyzing what is allowed by officers after Rodriguez. 

See the full opinion here: United States v. Mayville

Kansas v. Glover - Stops Based Upon Registered Owner Having Revoked DL

Today the Supreme Court of the United States announced an 8-1 decision upholding an officer's ability to make an investigative traffic stop after running the vehicle's license plate and finding the registered owner has a revoked driver license. The Court held when the officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is the driver of the vehicle, the stop is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Justice Thomas authored the opinion for the Court, which all other justices aside from Justice Sotomayor joined in the opinion. In addition to joining with the majority opinion, Justice Kagan authored a concurring opinion, which Justice Ginsburg joined. Justice Sotomayor authored a dissenting opinion.

Facts:
No testimony was taken at the suppression hearing, but both parties stipulated to the following facts. On the date in question, Deputy was on routine patrol when he observed a pickup truck with a Kansas plate. Deputy ran the plate through the state's file service. The registration came back to a matching 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck. Kansas Department of Revenue files indicated the truck was registered to Glover. The files also indicated that Glover had a revoked driver’s license in the State of Kansas. Deputy assumed Glover was driving the vehicle. Deputy did not observe any traffic infractions, and did not attempt to identify the driver of the truck. Based solely on the information that the registered owner of the truck was revoked, Deputy initiated a traffic stop. The driver of the truck was identified as the defendant, Glover.

The case history was that the district court granted Grover's motion to suppress based upon lack of reasonable suspicion. The Kansas court of appeals reversed, stating the deputy had reasonable suspicion. The Kansas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and held that the deputy's belief that the registered owner was driving the vehicle as nothing more than a "mere hunch" and did not give rise to reasonable suspicion.

Decision:
SCOTUS noted the "less demanding" standard of reasonable suspicion and cited much precedent that establishes that the standard requires "considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence, and obviously less than is necessary for probable cause.” SCOTUS reaffirmed that this requires a reasonableness standard based upon considerations in every day life, not that of legal technicians.

In holding that there was reasonable suspicion, SCOTUS focused on the following three facts: First, he saw a vehicle being operated; next, deputy knew that according to the license plate, the registered owner of the vehicle had a revoked license; and finally, that the vehicle matched the description on the registration. The Court noted that deputy drew a commonsense inference that the registered owner would likely be driving the vehicle, and this "provided more than reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop." The fact that people that are not the registered owners of vehicles often drive them did not negate the deputy's reasonable inference, and SCOTUS reminded us that reasonable suspicion falls far short of 51% accuracy. Additionally, SCOTUS cited references showing that people with revoked licenses often continue driving, so the fact that Grover had a revoked license had no bearing on whether deputy's inference was reasonable. 

There was a large and helpful discussion on what experience is required to come to reasonable inferences under reasonable suspicion. It was reaffirmed that officers can draw on every day experiences, and are not required to draw only on law enforcement specific training and experience as the dissent suggests. Requiring such would defy "the commonsense understanding to commonsense." To be clear, the Court is not saying specialized training and experience have no place in criminal investigations. It simply said that these are not required in every instance.

Finally, there is a discussion of the limited nature of the opinion. As with other analysis, the reasonable inference made is based upon the totality of the circumstances. An example cited would be that if the registered owner of the vehicle was a 60 year old male, and the officer observed that the driver was a young female, the stop would not be justified at its inception. Or if the stop occurred and the officer becomes aware immediately that the driver is not the registered owner of the vehicle, without some other reasonable suspicion, the stop would need to terminate.

While Justice Kagan joined in Justice Thomas' opinion, she also wrote a concurrence that analyzed the facts in more depth. She noted specifically that Kansas very rarely revokes a driver license, and when it does, it is normally for repeated violations of traffic offenses. This information possessed by an officer in Kansas would lead to a more reasonable inference that a driver might ignore the fact that his license is revoked since he has shown a propensity to ignore other traffic offenses. She contrasted this with if the license was merely suspended, as the state suspends licenses for non-traffic offenses regularly. While the concurrence goes into depth on this differentiation, the majority opinion did not adopt this analysis fully, but opted for the more broad approach of totality of the circumstances.

Ultimately the holding of this case is pretty basic: If an officer runs a license plate and sees that the registered owner has a revoked driver license, absent further information to suggest otherwise, the officer may reasonably infer that the registered owner is driving the vehicle and may make an investigative traffic stop.

You may read the full opinion here: Kansas v Glover.

State v. Higley - A follow up to Harvey

We had an important case published by the Court of Appeals recently. There isn't really any new groundbreaking law established here, but there is some follow up language that is instructive to a prior decision in Harvey. It does a couple other things that are important, one less so after the passing of HB139 this year in the legislature, however. It states unequivocally that DUI is a strict liability offense, and no mens rea is required. It also states that reckless driving is not a lesser included offense of DUI. The summary is below.


Facts:
Defendant was slumped over asleep in his car, which was parked at an intersection, in the left turn lane, with his car slightly protruding out into the intersection and his engine running. Another vehicle passed by, noticing this, and tried to yell and honk his horn to awake the defendant, to no avail. This other driver called the police and multiple officers came to the scene.

Officer 1 arrived and noticed keys in the ignition, the engine running, and the manual transmission put in neutral, with no emergency brake engaged. Officer 1 had to physically jostle defendant's arm to get him to wake up. Officer 1 noted that defendant was drowsy and "just spaced out." Defendant admitted to using Xanex, but no other substances. Officer 2 performed field sobriety tests where the defendant showed many clues, showing many signs of impairment. Officer 2 testified about the correlation these clues and tests have to driving, including the need to preform divided attention tasks. (This was important testimony, as will be seen later.) 

At trial the defendant's doctor testified that he had prescribed the substance to defendant for the last several years. The state toxicologist testified that the amount present would be in therapeutic ranges, but that the therapeutic ranges could still cause symptoms being seen by the officers. The defendant also testified about prior injuries to his ankles that have never healed that would account for the balance issues he exhibited during the field sobriety tests. The defendant asked for a lesser included offense instruction for reckless driving, which the court did not allow. Defendant was convicted of the DUI, among other charges.

Issues:
Defendant claimed he received ineffective assistance of counsel , that the court erred in not instructing the jury on the lesser included offense of reckless driving, and also made a procedural motion on Rule 23B to allow remand to supplement the record to show ineffective assistance of counsel. The Court of appeals affirmed.

Discussion:
First, defendant claimed that his trial counsel was ineffective for not filing a motion to arrest judgement on the conviction for DUI on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction. He cited the holding in Harvey to support this notion. In Harvey, the Court of Appeals had ruled that the clues exhibited by the defendant in that case were not sufficient on their own to show that defendant was incapable of safely operating a vehicle. There was some concerning language in the opinion for field sobriety tests, but when read in context, the issue was simply that the record was void of any information about why the standardized field sobriety tests are important in correlating the results to driving performance. In Harvey, the officer testified only to what was observed, not why it was important. The Court of Appeals was simply going off the record. The Court of Appeals noted the difference between the current case and Harvey by stating that Officer 2 had made the connection between the SFSTs and driving performance. Also, that the SFSTs did not stand alone in the present case due to all the other information. The biggest takeaway from this differentiation is how important it is for the officer to not only testify WHAT they saw, but WHY it is important. We must protect our records so if cases go up on appeal, the Court of Appeals has the ammunition needed to rule in our favor.

The Court of Appeals also disagreed with defendant's claim that the trial court erred for not giving the lesser included offense instruction. It noted that the elements for the offense are not the same, and therefore reckless driving is not a lesser included offense of DUI. One big differentiation made was that reckless driving requires someone to do it willfully or wantonly, whereas the Court of Appeals noted that DUI is a strict liability offense, and no mens rea is necessary. This is important language for those trial courts that have started to read an "inherent mens rea" into the law, but will also be assisted by the passing of HB139 this legislative session. The overall analysis here is helpful for any argument where a defendant is arguing a lesser included for a DUI offense.

Finally the Court rejected defendant's argument for the remand to supplement the record.

You can read the entire opinion here: State v. Higley

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Tyson

Chain of Custody - State v Moore

The Court of Appeals recently reiterated two principles articulated years ago in State v. Wynia and several other cases in regards to chain of custody. State v. Moore is a DUI case involving a blood draw where not every single person in the chain of custody was subpoenaed, and the defense was also making an argument that the blood vial was not stored properly. The two important notes are as follows:

First, that chain of custody goes to weight of the evidence and not to admissibility. This is an argument that defense attorneys regularly make even though it is very well established and settled case law.

Second, the Court of Appeals reiterates the idea that the government is entitled to a presumption that once evidence is in the hands of the state that we assume that it is handled with regularity UNLESS there is an affirmative showing of bad faith or tampering by the defense. I'm sure we have all had cases where it feels like this threshold showing is a burden upon us as prosecutors, but that is not the case. Our burden is to make a sufficient showing that an exhibit is in the same condition as it was when it was collected, and if we can do that, the presumption is that the evidence/exhibit was handled with regularity. The court cited previous decisions that have stated that the party proffering evidence is not required to eliminate every conceivable possibility that evidence may have been altered. The fact remains that if the defense is going to make the argument that the evidence was mishandled or tampered with, they have to have evidence or information showing why they believe that. Simply not having one of the links in the chain of custody is not sufficient to make that argument.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision in allowing the evidence to be presented at trial.

The defendant in this case was sentenced incorrectly for their traffic violation, and the case was remanded for the limited purpose of imposing sentence as an infraction instead of a class C misdemeanor. You can read the entire opinion here: State v Moore