CITY OF ROSWELL V. HUDSON,
2007-NMCA-034, 141 N.M. 261, 154 P.3d 76
CITY OF ROSWELL,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
HIRAM HUDSON, JR.,
Defendant-Appellant.
COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW MEXICO
2007-NMCA-034, 141 N.M. 261, 154 P.3d 76
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF CHAVES COUNTY, Ralph D.
Shamas, District Judge
Released for publication March 27, 2007
Pittman & Dierlam, P.C., Judy A.
Pittman, Roswell, NM, for Appellee
Hiram Hudson, Jr., Roswell, NM, Pro Se Appellant
MICHAEL E. VIGIL, Judge. WE CONCUR: JAMES
J. WECHSLER, Judge, IRA ROBINSON, Judge
{1} This case requires
us to determine whether Defendant was obstructing a police officer acting in
the lawful discharge of his duties by simply refusing to produce his
identification. We conclude he did not and therefore reverse.
{2} Officer Trujillo
was on patrol duty in Roswell, New Mexico, when she received a call on her cell
phone from one of her neighbors who said a vehicle was parked in their
neighborhood for the last thirty minutes, which did not belong to anyone in the
neighborhood. It was not unusual for neighbors to contact her or other police
officers on their cell phones to report suspicious activity because Roswell is
an active Neighborhood Watch Community, and the neighbors watch out for each
other. There had been recent burglaries in the neighborhood, and such
neighborhood vigilance often leads to solving burglaries.
{3} Officer Trujillo
called Officer Kuepfer at approximately 11:30 p.m. and asked him to investigate
because he was already in the vicinity. Due to the history of burglaries in the
area, Officer Kuepfer decided to complete a field investigation card, which
describes personal and descriptive information about the people at the scene.
The information on the cards can then be used to locate possible suspects if
any crime is subsequently reported in the area.
{4} When Officer
Kuepfer arrived, a vehicle occupied by the driver and Defendant was parked on
the street. Officer Kuepfer parked behind the car, shined his spotlight into
the car, and ran a check on the license plate. The license plate first came
back as not on file, but after subsequent discussions with the driver and
Defendant, Officer Kuepfer determined that this was due to an error at the
motor vehicle department.
{5} Officer Kuepfer
approached the car and started questioning them about their purpose for being
parked on the street. The driver told the officer that he lived in the house
the car was parked in front of, and Officer Kuepfer asked the driver for his
identification to verify his address. When the address on his driver's license
did not match where they were parked, the driver stated that it was really
Defendant who lived in the house. Officer Kuepfer then asked Defendant for his
identification. Defendant told Officer Kuepfer his name and address but refused
to produce his identification, stating he did not have to give the officer his
identification. Officer Kuepfer testified that he asked again and after another
refusal said, "well, right now you're obstructing me. I'm . . . in the
middle of an investigation here getting some information from you making sure
that . . . you are who you say you are."
{6} Defendant refused
an additional request to produce his identification, and Officer Kuepfer
arrested Defendant for obstructing an officer in violation of Roswell City Code
Section 10-48 (1999). After handcuffing Defendant, Officer Kuepfer reached into
Defendant's pocket and removed his wallet. He then searched through the wallet,
and retrieved Defendant's driver's license which provided a positive
identification of Defendant. Shortly thereafter, Officer Trujillo arrived at
the scene and told Officer Kuepfer that she knew Defendant and that he lived in
the house where the car was parked. Nevertheless, Officer Kuepfer issued
Defendant a citation for obstructing an officer in violation of Section 10-48.
Defendant was convicted in the Roswell municipal court of obstructing an
officer in violation of Section 10-48 because he refused to present his
identification to Officer Kuepfer after being ordered to do so. A de novo
appeal to the district court again resulted in a conviction, and Defendant
appeals, arguing that the evidence is insufficient to support the guilty
verdict. Rule
8-703 NMRA (providing that an aggrieved party may appeal from a
final order of the municipal court to the district court, that trials upon
appeals from the municipal court to the district court are de novo, and that an
appeal from the final order of the district court to the New Mexico Supreme
Court or Court of Appeals is permitted as authorized by law).
{7} Roswell City Code,
Section 10-48 makes it illegal to resist or obstruct an officer, and provides
in pertinent part that "[o]bstructing an officer consists of [r]esisting,
obstructing, or abusing any . . . peace officer in the lawful discharge of his
duties." In reviewing the verdict for sufficiency of the evidence, our
role is to assess whether the fact finder could determine beyond a reasonable
doubt the essential facts necessary to prove these elements.
State v. Garcia,
2005-NMSC-017, ¶ 12,
138 N.M. 1,
116 P.3d 72. In doing so, we view the evidence
in the light most favorable to the verdict, considering that the City had the
burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Id.
{8} The Fourth
Amendment to the United States Constitution protects persons against
unreasonable searches and seizures. While a police officer does "not need
any justification to approach a person and ask that individual questions,"
State v. Jason L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 14,
129 N.M. 119,
2 P.3d 856, when a
police officer restrains the person's freedom to walk away, by either physical
force or a show of authority, he has "seized" that person.
State
v. Lopez,
109 N.M. 169, 170,
783 P.2d 479, 480 (Ct. App. 1989) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). Therefore, if all of the circumstances
surrounding the encounter establish that a reasonable person would believe he
is not free to leave, the encounter must be scrutinized for its reasonableness
under the Fourth Amendment.
Id. We therefore first determine whether
Defendant was seized when Officer Kuepfer demanded his identification. While we
defer to the district court's factual determinations for substantial evidence,
the question of whether Defendant was free to leave, and therefore seized, is a
legal question, which we review de novo.
State v. Patterson,
2006-NMCA-037, ¶ 18,
139 N.M. 322,
131 P.3d 1286.
{9} Lopez
teaches that when determining whether a reasonable person would feel free to
leave, courts should look at all of the factual circumstances, and specifically
consider: "(1) the conduct of the police, (2) the person of the individual
citizen, and (3) the physical surroundings of the encounter." 109 N.M. at
171, 783 P.2d at 481. We have continued to adhere to this analysis.
See
Patterson,
2006-NMCA-037, ¶ 20;
State v. Affsprung,
2004-NMCA-038, ¶
12,
135 N.M. 306,
87 P.3d 1088;
Jason L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 15.
{10} In
Patterson,
a police officer observed a car drive into the parking lot of a closed business
at approximately 10:40 p.m.
2006-NMCA-037, ¶ 2. Thinking this behavior was odd,
and because there had been several burglaries in the twenty-block area, the
officer pulled his patrol car behind the car to investigate why it was stopped
at that location.
Id. The car was occupied by the driver, the defendant
in the front passenger seat, and a passenger in the backseat.
Id. A
fourth person was standing outside an open rear passenger door on the driver's
side.
Id. The officer asked the person outside what they were doing
there, and the person said that they were there to pick up a truck from a
friend, whose name he did not know.
Id. ¶ 3. The officer saw that there
was no truck in the area, and found the answer suspicious.
Id. As he
spoke with the person outside, he saw an open can of beer on the backseat
floorboard behind the driver's side of the car.
Id. For officer safety,
he conducted a pat-down search of the man he was speaking to and discovered
contraband.
Id. After the officer handcuffed and secured him in the
police car, another officer arrived on the scene.
Id. The original
police officer then asked the defendant and other occupants of the car for
identifications to check for warrants for arrest, to see "who he was
dealing with," and to give him "a point of reference" if there
were any burglaries later that evening.
Id. ¶ 4 (internal quotation
marks omitted). We held that the defendant was seized at the moment when he was
asked for identification.
Id. ¶ 21. We based our conclusion on the
totality of the circumstances, including: (1) the officer had clearly
identified himself as a police officer, although he had not engaged his
emergency equipment; (2) the officer had just demonstrated his authority by
conducting a pat-down search of the man outside; (3) the request for
identification could only be viewed as an integral part of the officer's
ongoing investigatory detention of the occupants of the vehicle; and (4) the
officer had an explicit purpose in asking for the identification.
Id.
{11} In
Affsprung,
the defendant was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by a police officer
at 12:43 a.m. in a residential area for a faulty license plate light.
2004-NMCA-038, ¶ 2. The officer did not observe any other illegal or suspicious
activity before he pulled the vehicle over using his emergency equipment.
Id.
The officer asked the driver for his driver's license, and after informing the
driver of the violation, asked the defendant for identification, because it was
his routine practice to do so.
Id. The defendant did not have a driver's
license or any other form of identification on him, but orally gave the officer
his name, date of birth, and social security number.
Id. The officer
used this information to run a "wants and warrants check" on the
defendant while writing the driver the citation.
Id. Through this
process, the officer learned that there was an outstanding warrant for the
defendant's arrest.
Id. ¶ 3. After backup arrived, the defendant was
arrested, and contraband was subsequently discovered inside a cigarette box in
one of his pockets.
Id. We recognized that under the circumstances a
reasonable passenger would not feel free to leave and refuse the officer's
request for identification, and that an officer would not likely tolerate a
passenger's refusal to give the information followed by the passenger leaving
the area.
Id. ¶¶ 15-16. We therefore held "that an ordinary vehicle
stop for a traffic violation with a concomitant investigation in which the
officer requests both the driver's and the passenger's identification in
connection with the violation and nothing more than a generalized concern about
officer safety is a seizure within the Fourth Amendment as to the passenger
whose identification is obtained."
Id. ¶ 18.
{12} Finally, in
Lopez,
the defendant and his companion were lawfully parked in a pickup on a dead-end
street, facing away from the dead end. 109 N.M. at 171, 783 P.2d at 481. While
they were parked, a gray van carrying four police detectives drove up and
parked at an angle directly in front and about a car length away from the
pickup.
Id. Four police detectives got out of the van and went toward
the defendant's vehicle, with at least two of the detectives displaying their
police badges at shoulder height.
Id. One of the officers went to the
passenger's side, and while standing outside, said he saw contraband inside the
pickup on the seat between the defendant and his passenger.
Id. We
concluded the evidence supported a finding that the officers used both a show
of force and a show of authority to restrain the defendant and that a
reasonable person in defendant's position would not have believed he was free
to leave.
Id. at 173, 783 P.2d at 483. Thus, the defendant was seized
under the Fourth Amendment before the detective stood next to his vehicle and
saw the contraband inside.
Id.
{13} In this case,
Defendant was sitting in the passenger side of a car at approximately 11:30
p.m. when Officer Kuepfer arrived in a marked police unit, parked behind the
car, and shined his spotlight into the car. As in
Lopez, Defendant and
the driver were legally parked and not engaged in any illegal or suspicious
activity. They were simply sitting in the vehicle.A police car coming behind
them, stopping, and shining its spotlight at them at that hour of the night
constituted a show of police authority. Officer Kuepfer then walked up to the
car in his police uniform, identified himself as a police officer, and started
asking the occupants why they were parked on the street. During this
interrogation, he demanded identification from the driver, and it was produced.
After thus demonstrating his authority as a police officer, Officer Kuepfer
then demanded that Defendant produce identification.These circumstances
conveyed the message that compliance with his request was required.
See
Jason L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 14 (noting that while a police officer does not
need justification to approach a person and ask questions, the officer may not
convey the message that compliance with his request is required). As in
Patterson,
Officer Kuepfer's demand for identification can only be viewed as an integral
part of his ongoing investigatory detention of the vehicle, and to complete a
field investigation card to use in case any burglaries were
later
committed in the neighborhood. Finally, Defendant was a passenger in the vehicle,
and like the passenger in
Affsprung, a reasonable passenger in
Defendant's position would not feel free to simply get out of the car, leave,
and refuse Officer Kuepfer's demand for identification. The fact that Officer
Kuepfer arrested Defendant for refusing to produce identification establishes
that he did not tolerate Defendant's refusal and that he would not have allowed
Defendant to leave.
{14} Given the totality
of the circumstances, when Officer Kuepfer demanded identification from
Defendant, he was detained in such a way that a reasonable person would not
feel free to leave.
See Patterson,
2006-NMCA-037, ¶ 18;
Affsprung,
2004-NMCA-038, ¶ 6. We therefore hold that Defendant was seized under the
Fourth Amendment when Officer Kuepfer demanded that Defendant produce
identification.
INDIVIDUALIZED REASONABLE SUSPICION
{15} In "appropriate
circumstances" a police officer may detain a person to investigate
possible criminal activity consistent with the Fourth Amendment even if there
is no probable cause to make an arrest.
State v. Galvan,
90 N.M. 129,
131,
560 P.2d 550, 552 (Ct. App. 1977). "Appropriate circumstances"
arise from a "reasonable suspicion" that the law is or has been
broken.
Id. In order for the suspicion to be "reasonable," it
must be based on specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences
from those facts, that a particular person, the one actually detained, is
breaking, or has broken, the law.
State v. Watley,
109 N.M. 619, 624,
788 P.2d 375, 380 (Ct. App. 1989). "Unsupported intuition and inarticulate
hunches are not sufficient."
State v. Cobbs,
103 N.M. 623, 626,
711
P.2d 900, 903 (Ct. App. 1985). Whether a police officer acts with a reasonable
suspicion is judged by an objective standard: "Would the facts available to
the officer warrant the officer, as a person of reasonable caution, to believe
the action taken was appropriate?"
Galvan, 90 N.M. at 131, 560 P.2d
at 552. Finally, the police officer must have a reasonable suspicion at the
inception of the detention.
See State v. Eli L.,
1997-NMCA-109, ¶ 11,
124 N.M. 205,
947 P.2d 162. We reiterated and applied the foregoing principles
and authorities in
Jason L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 20, but cite the older
cases to emphasize that these principles are embedded and well settled in
Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
{16} The City agrees that
Officer Kuepfer was required to have a reasonable suspicion to detain Defendant
and demand identification from him. Again, while we defer to the district
court's factual determinations if they are supported by substantial evidence,
whether Officer Kuepfer acted with a reasonable suspicion presents us with a
legal question, which we review de novo.
Eli L.,
1997-NMCA-109, ¶ 6;
Jason
L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 20.
{17} In this case, the
City contends that Officer Kuepfer had a reasonable suspicion to detain
Defendant for the following reasons: (1) a neighbor reported to Officer
Trujillo that an unknown vehicle was parked in their neighborhood; (2) there
had been recent burglaries in the neighborhood; (3) when Officer Kuepfer
arrived to investigate at approximately 11:30 p.m., he found two men sitting in
a parked vehicle on the street in that neighborhood; (4) the license plate on
the car was initially reported as not on file; (5) the driver claimed that he
lived in the house the vehicle was parked in front of; (6) the address on his
driver's license did not match the address his car was parked in front of; and
(7) the driver then changed his story and said that Defendant was the one who
lived there. The totality of these circumstances fails to establish a
reasonable individualized suspicion that Defendant was breaking or had broken
the law when Officer Kuepfer demanded Defendant's identification.
{18} We stress the
importance of the need for
individualized suspicion, which focuses on
the specific conduct of the person who is detained. If a police officer lacks
individualized suspicion, "the government's interest in crime prevention
will not outweigh the intrusion into the individual's privacy" and the
detention violates the Fourth Amendment.
Patterson,
2006-NMCA-037, ¶ 16.
{19} The only facts
specific to Defendant are that he was sitting in the vehicle under the
circumstances we have described. A general suspicion arising from the fact that
a car in which Defendant was a passenger was parked for thirty minutes on a
street late at night in a neighborhood where recent burglaries, but none that
night, had occurred does not give rise to an individualized suspicion that
Defendant was committing or had committed a crime.
See id., ¶¶ 2-4,
27-28 (concluding there was no reasonable suspicion entitling the police
officer to demand identification from the defendant who was a mere passenger in
a car pulling into an empty commercial parking lot at 10:40 p.m. in an area
where recent burglaries had occurred).
{20} The initial
information that the license plate number on the car was not on file with the
motor vehicle department fails to establish a reasonable suspicion concerning
Defendant. Before he demanded Defendant's identification, Officer Kuepfer
learned that there was no problem with the car's registration. To the extent
that the driver's other actions contributed to a reasonable suspicion that the
driver had committed or was committing a crime, those actions alone cannot be
converted into a reasonable suspicion that Defendant was committing or had
committed a crime.
See id. ¶ 28 (concluding that the state's argument
did not point to any facts particular to the defendant that would lead to
individualized suspicion he was violating the law, although there was
individualized suspicion that another passenger in the car was or had been
violating the law by possessing an open can of beer in the car);
Jason L.,
2000-NMSC-018, ¶ 22 (affirming that a police officer could not rely on the
behavior of the defendant's companion to establish individualized suspicion to
search the defendant).
{21} The City fails to
identify any specific crime it asserts Officer Kuepfer had a reasonable
suspicion that Defendant had committed or was committing. Furthermore, Officer
Kuepfer's own testimony negates the City's general assertion that he was
motivated by a reasonable, individualized suspicion in detaining and demanding
identification from Defendant. Before reaching the scene, Officer Kuepfer
decided to fill out a field investigation card because there had been a problem
"with criminal damages in that area."In order to fill out the card,
Officer Kuepfer needed identification from the occupants of the vehicle. On the
other hand, he had no intention of arresting Defendant that night, and he
acknowledged that "there was no crime at that point that [he] could
determine." Nevertheless, Officer Kuepfer continued demanding to see
Defendant's identification because he wanted to "put it on a little
card" for possible use in the future if a crime was reported later that
night. Even though Defendant exhibited no indication that he was lying, Officer
Kuepfer insisted on the identification "[b]ecause it wouldn't have been
the first time that anyone's ever lied to [him] about who they are" as
people do it "regularly." We therefore conclude that Officer Kuepfer
did not have a reasonable suspicion that justified detaining Defendant and
demanding his identification.
{22} The United States
Supreme Court held in
Brown v. Texas, 433 U.S. 47 (1979), that the
defendant could not be punished for failing to identify himself in the absence
of reasonable suspicion permitting the officers to request that he identify
himself.
Id. at 53. Under the circumstances of this case, in which no
officer safety or public safety considerations have been raised, we similarly
conclude that Defendant should not have been convicted for refusing to give the
officer his driver's license.
{23} The evidence fails
to establish that Defendant's passive refusal to produce his identification
obstructed or prevented Officer Kuepfer from performing his duties as a police
officer in the circumstances of this case.
{23} Defendant's
conviction is reversed.