Failure to Stop at the Command of Police Officer - Mens Rea Reiterated

 The Court of Appeals released an opinion regarding Utah Code 76-8-305.5. This is a river floating case where a state parks ranger was attempting to stop some kayakers that were not wearing life jackets, however, the analyis applies to any other type of offense in this category, including some of our traffic offenses. 

The Court not only made clear that there is a mens rea to this offense, but that the fleeing must be to avoid an arrest. This case is a follow up to prior cases on these topics and reiterates the importance of establishing those elements that coincide with the mens rea requirements on this offense and also 41-6a-210. 

You can review the full opinion here: State v. Nelson

Officer's Prior Knowledge of Suspended DL Not Enough for RAS

The Utah Court of Appeals recently gave a ruling on the topic of whether an officer's prior knowledge that a driver had a suspended driver license was sufficient for reasonable articulable suspicion for a detention of that driver. 

The ultimate holding goes as follows: 

"This appeal asks us to decide whether an officer’s knowledge that Correa did not have a valid driver license two months before the stop created a reasonable suspicion that Correa still didn’t have a valid license and was therefore driving impermissibly. We hold that it did not."

It is important to note that at the evidentiary hearing, the officer testified that he learned that it was about two months prior that the defendant had been driving that truck with a suspended license, and maybe even three. This information was obtained via dispatch and also from other officers prior to the detention. There was no records check on the DL done, just information passed along from other people. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that this can be an ongoing crime, but there has to be some temporal boundaries put on it, and based upon the information presented, it was not reasonable to assume that because someone was driving with a suspended DL two to three months prior, that it was reasonable articulable suspicion to assume the person was driving with a suspended DL on this occassion. The officer would need more. 

The Court contrasts this ruling to that in West Valley City v. Temblador-Topete, 2020 UT App 64, 463 P.3d 721 where an officer ran a plate and the insurance check came back "not found." This case was different because the insurance database was updated multiple times each month and the officer was doing a current check of that database. In the present case, this was just stale knowledge of a citation issued for driving on a suspended DL from months prior, without more. 

For a lawful detention to occur, officers will need more than just two to three month old information that a person was cited for driving on a suspended DL. See the full case here: State v. Correa. 

 Temblador-Topete