North Dakota Supreme Court Highlights
By Michael J. Morley
Authors’ s Note and Caveat: The following cases of interest were recently decided by the North Dakota Supreme Court. Because the following contains the author’ s summary of the decisions, the reader is encouraged to read the entire published decision to determine its precedential value, if any, in a given case.
State v. Bell, 2017 ND 157
In October 2016, a law enforcement officer stopped a vehicle for failing to operate with headlights during the evening hours. An assorted cast of somewhat unsavory characters occupied the vehicle. When stopped, the driver gave the officer a false name. After discovering the driver’ s true identity, the officer found there was an outstanding warrant for her. The officer also learned the driver and the back seat passenger were on probation for controlled substance offenses. Because of the headlight violation, the officer decided to issue a written warning. While issuing the warning, the officer requested the assistance of a drug detecting dog, which arrived within five minutes of the request. Upon arriving, the dog detected the presence of illegal drugs in the vehicle. The vehicle was subsequently searched, and meth and drug paraphernalia were found. The defendant, the front seat passenger, was charged with possession of meth, drug paraphernalia, and ingesting a controlled substance. She moved to suppress the evidence obtained through the search of the vehicle, arguing she was unreasonably detained beyond the time required for the initial traffic stop and the officer did not have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity on her part to justify her continued detention, and that once the driver was arrested and detained on a bench warrant, there was no reason to detain the defendant any longer. As said, the defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained through the search of the vehicle. The District Court denied the motion. She appealed the District Court’ s judgment after entering a conditional plea of guilty to the charges, arguing to the Supreme Court that the evidence found in the vehicle should have been suppressed and she should not have been convicted of the crimes. The Supreme Court rejected her arguments and affirmed the District Court’ s judgment of conviction. The Supreme Court stated that the defendant was detained as a passenger in the vehicle only for the duration of the traffic stop. The traffic stop ended when the driver was placed under arrest on her outstanding warrant. The defendant presented no evidence at the suppression hearing showing she was not free to leave after the driver’ s arrest and a review of the record did not suggest otherwise.
The Supreme Court stated the defendant urged them to assume she was not free to leave after the driver was arrested. The Supreme Court declined to do so. The Court stated the defendant was not seized during the time the dog was sniffing the car and, therefore, her Fourth Amendment rights were not implicated or violated. Apparently, the defendant had a window of time between the time the driver was placed under arrest and while the dog was sniffing for drugs in the vehicle. She could have walked away during that window of time. She instead voluntarily remained at the scene during this time and chose not to leave. Because she was not detained during that time, her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were not implicated or violated. Therefore, she could properly be found guilty for possession of the drugs in the vehicle after the dog detected them. The moral of this story: When the canine comes a-callin’, you’ d best be a haulin’!
State v. Hedstrom, 2017 ND 156
This case is interesting primarily because bounty hunters are apparently still alive and well. In this case, some bounty hunters, around midnight one night, kicked down the defendant’ s front door and entered his home. The bounty hunters requested law enforcement secure a perimeter outside the home and be available should a physical confrontation break out between the bounty hunters and anyone inside the home. Because the police officers did not have a search warrant for the home, they told the bounty hunters they would not assist them in the search but would only form an outside perimeter to ensure everyone’ s safety. While finding no one inside the home, the bounty hunters did find several large growing plants of certain illicit controlled substances. When they left the house, they showed the police officers photographs they took inside and described the marijuana plants they saw. The police officers used this information to obtain a search warrant of the home. The defendant was charged with manufacturing and possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence during the search of his home, arguing the bounty hunters’ search was in fact a governmentsanctioned warrantless search in violation of his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court rejected his arguments and allowed the evidence to be used against him in criminal proceedings. He entered a conditional plea of guilty to charges of manufacturing and possession of marijuana, arguing on appeal that the District Court erred in denying his motion to suppress the drugs, etc., as evidence against him.
The Supreme Court rejected the defendant’ s arguments on appeal and affirmed the criminal judgment. The Supreme Court said the Fourth Amendment limits only governmental action and is wholly inapplicable to a search conducted by a private individual, even an unreasonable one, unless the private individual acted either as an agent of the government or with the participation or knowledge of any government official. The Supreme Court held that even though the law enforcement officers were present and acquiesced in the
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