Seattle Criminal Attorney News – week of 10/24/09
One more week, one more examination of DUI cases handed down by the Washington Courts of Appeals on the Seattle criminal attorney blog. As a Seattle criminal attorney, it is important to stay on top of this information so you can be wholly prepared to contend your client’s cause. This week we have two cases of importance: one is a Supreme Court case that discusses the exploration of a automobile incident to an arrest; the other is a case about compromise of misdemeanor as it pertains to hit and run attended charges. Both cases are interesting and worth noting, so I’ll sum up, and as typical, supply a tiny crumb of my own criminal attorney analysis.
Search Incident to seizure – State v. Patton
This is one of the foremost in a what will be a long string of cases dealing with searching automobiles after someone has been seized (also acknowledged as search incident to capture). It is one of the exceptions to police needing a warrant for capture, and lately the United States Supreme Court clarified what we Seattle DUI attorneys had known for a long while – the police were abusing this rule by searching cars incident to the detention of somebody when the apprehension formed no basis for the search. Here is the typical instance: somebody is seized for driving while their license is revoked. The human being is apprehended and placed into the cop vehicle. After that the police search the auto, “incident to the detention.” Quandary is, there is no evidence to find for driving while license suspended. The confirmation is already in the possession of the cops (the driver’s license records).
Facts of State v. Patton – Patton had an remaining felony warrant. The cops knew where he was at and where waiting for him to come out so they could seizure him on the warrant. It was nighttime, and after a bit the cop saw the dome light come on in the auto and somebody matching the account of Patton out digging around in the van. The cop pulled up with his lights activated. After telling Patton to stop, Patton pulled his cranium out of the vehicle and ran into the motorhome. After backup arrived, they went into the trailer and seized Patton. After arresting him, the cops searched Patton’s auto, discovering meth and currency. Patton was charged with custody of methamphetamine. At trial, Patton moved to eliminate the evidence for being illicitly detained. The trial court approved the motion and the State appealed. At the Court of Appeals, the court sided with the prosecution, who argued that because when Patton was approached he was beside auto that it was suitable to be searched incident to his apprehension.
Analysis – The state constitution provides that warrantless searches are per se unwarranted. For a warrantless search to be upheld the search should fall into one of a number of enumerated exceptions. These exceptions are limited to the circumstances that brought them into existence. They shouldn’t be used to weaken the need for a warrant. One exception to the warrant prerequisite is the vehicle search incident to capture. That exception holds that the warrantless search of an van is permissible when the officer’s wellbeing is at issue or there is the opportunity that proof correlated to the wrong which predicated the capture will be mislaid or damaged. In this case, Patton’s argument is that the search of Patton’s car does not fall into the limited confines of the exception to the decree. He also points out that he was not arrested in his truck, but in his residence, that he was never in his car during the quarrel, and that he was detained for an unsettled warrant, for which no verification of the “crime” would exist in the car. The Court first looked to settle on when it was that Patton was under arrest. The court noted that: “an detention takes place when a duly authorized police officer of the law manifests an intent to take a person into detention and actually seizes or detains the individual. The existence of apprehension depends in each case upon an detached appraisal of all the surrounding circumstances.”
Here, the officer had apprehended Patton for all intents and purposes when he pulled up behind him in the driveway with his lights activated and told him he was under arrest and not to move. It makes sense for quite a few reasons, one of which is the Court does not want to condone running from cops to change the place of detention and the activities that are allowed pursuant to that apprehension. Because of this, the Court finds that Patton was placed under detention when he was at his automobile for purposes of the further examination.
The next question is whether or not the search incident to the capture Patton was permissible. first, a search incident to detention is not valid just because the arrest happened closely to the vehicle. A more detailed investigation is required. Case law has prescribed: [a] warrantless search [incident to detention] is permissible only to remove any guns the arrestee might seek to use in order to resist apprehension or effect an escape and to avoid annihilation of verification by the arrestee of the misdemeanor for which he or she is captured… This decree has been recently clarified by the Supreme Court in Gant where the court decided that a search incident to seizure in a car occurs “only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of search.” Investigation of these facts under the rules establishes that this search was unfair and beyond of the search incident to detention exception to the warrant requirement. Patton wasn’t in the truck when he was detained. There was no relationship between his apprehension, which was for the warrant for failing to appear in court, and a search of the automobile. Also, there were no security concerns for the cops related to anything in the truck – Patton was never in the automobile, he was captured outside of the automobile, and when the vehicle was searched Patton was no where near the truck (officer safety in a way presumes that Patton would be able to take hold of something in the automobile and use it to harm the officers).
Conclusion – the Court of Appeals decision is overturned, the trial court’s judgment is upheld, the substantiation is concealed, and the charges against Patton should be dismissed.
DUI lawyers standpoint – Clearly I think they got this one right. The officers unlawfully searched the auto, found some drugs, and then tried to get the confirmation admitted by trying to create a state of affairs that permitted their illegal search. As a Seattle DUI defense attorney these are the types of situations I see all the while that I am happy are now being handled properly. And, I must also include that I am pleased to glimpse that somebody has actually acted appropriately when dealing with the police and did not consent to a search of his truck, which period and time again gets people in trouble.
It was also thrilling to see the Washington Supreme Court effectively cancel out a lot of case law that had for years been dogging driving under the influence defense attorneys and making it tremendously challenging to get support obtained illegally from being suppressed. With the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gant, the Washington courts had no choice but to wipe out much of their case law, probably much to their disappointment. This case, like Gant, is imperative for Washington citizens, as it clarifies, for now at least, what officers can and can’t do when detaining you.
Compromise of Misdemeanor and Hit & Run Attended – Court of Appeals – State v. Stalker As background, a compromise of misdemeanor is a statutory scheme set up by the governing body to allow, in specified circumstances, citizens that have committed a wrong to take care of the misdemeanor by paying damages to the victim. If the compensation is paid, and the victim acknowledges in open court that they have received payment and they are okay with the charges being dismissed, that the charges are dismissed with prejudice. For drunk driving defense attorneys in Seattle, particularly those that deal with burglary, malicious mischief, and hit and runs, this law allows people that have made a bad decision to take care of it without having a spot on their history.
In this case, the State challenged whether or not a compromise of misdemeanor could be executed for a hit and run attended (a hit and run case where somebody was in the vehicle when it was hit, as opposed to a parked car).
Facts – Stalker was charged with DUI and hit and run attended. He plead guilty to the driving under the influence but moved to have the hit and run attended dismissed pursuant to a compromise of misdemeanor. After providing to the court proof that the victim was fully remunerated, the court dismissed the accusation pursuant to the compromise of misdemeanor statute.
Issue – can hit and run attended be compromised when the court does not have ability to instruct restoration because it is not a direct consequence of the allegation (fleeing the area after an smash has occurred)?
Analysis – Precedent counts for a lot. The legal system is founded on precedent (using previous decisions of law to form analysis of present legal questions) and precedent is not set aside nonchalantly. In this case, case law has determined that hit and run attended is suitable for compromise. This result, however, is based less on case law history and more on the language of the compromise of misdemeanor law. The compromise of misdemeanor was established to: “provide compensation to crime victims and to get out of prosecution of minor offenders.” Since court decisions handed down interpreting the compromise of misdemeanor law have determined that hit and run attended is appropriate for compromise of misdemeanor, the government has had several opportunities to expressly prohibit hit and run attended from eligibility. While the legislature has disqualified a variety of crimes from eligibility for compromise of misdemeanor, including crimes of domestic violence, they have not chosen to eliminate hit and run attended. This shows the court that they do not feel like hit and run attended should be outside the compromise of misdemeanor statute. Holding – the trial court’s judgment to allow the compromise of misdemeanor for hit and run attended is upheld.
Criminal Attorney’s Analysis – not much for a Seattle DUI attorney to say on this one. The decision is pretty unambiguous. One thing I find interesting about this, and something I stumble upon from time to while out there in the world of dui defense, are prosecutors that are opposed to a compromise of misdemeanor, like they have a say in whether or not one created or one is granted. These things were established to reduce the work load of prosecutors and give people the chance to move past a dim-witted decision without having to pay for it for a long period. Why can’t prosecutors just go with the flow when an arrangement has been reached between defendant and victim?
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