Division III of the Court of Appeals goes on record to narrow the definition of pretext stops by law enforcement. Pretext stops occur when a police officer stops a car in order to investigate criminal activity and not for the falsely stated purpose of enforcing the traffic code. Courts suppress all evidence following a stop if the officer conducted a pretext stop. Citizens in other state’s suffer this sort of police interference because they don’t have the privacy protections provided in Washington’s Article I Section 7. Washington doesn’t allow roadblocks, for example, while other states permit such baseless invasions of people’s privacy.
Division III rules against Mr. Weber in this case finding that there was not pretextual stop by Washington State Patrol Trooper Steve Shiflett. Pretext issues are factually based so lets review the facts as outlined by the appellate court:
Washington State Patrol Trooper Steve Shiflett saw Bryan J. Weber drive his car out of an apartment complex at about 2:53 a.m. He noticed that the car entered the street without stopping before crossing over a sidewalk. Trooper Shiflett then paced Mr. Weber’s car for about three blocks. Mr. Weber drove 47 m.p.h. in a 35 m.p.h. zone.
Trooper Shiflett pulled the car over. Mr. Weber’s eyes were bloodshot and watery and he smelled like alcohol. Mr. Weber agreed to perform field sobriety tests, but did not perform them well. The trooper arrested him for driving under the influence (DUI) and transported him to the jail. Breath tests showed Mr. Weber’s breath alcohol level to be .115 and .118. Trooper Shiflett cited Mr. Weber for DUI, but did not cite him for the traffic infractions.
Particular to this decision is that the appellate courts (both Court of Appeals and Superior Court) both overturned the district court’s discretionary ruling. The normal pattern in appellate practice is for the upper courts to support the discretion of the lower courts, particularly in matters of this type. The lower court, for example, assigned significant weight to the fact that the officer failed to issue a traffic infraction ticket. This showed lower court that the officer was not really stopping the car for the infraction but in fact was looking to get his nose in the car to smell for alcohol and investigate a DUI instead of the traffic infraction.
The court’s review was of the, 1) subjective intent of the officer, and 2) whether the stop was reasonable. These are classic “judgements,” of which the lower trial courts are often given large discretion to make decisions. Appellate courts typically uphold such judgements, but apparently police interference on matters of privacy are an exception in the Third Division of the Court of Appeals.
Here the Third Division narrows the two prior Washington Supreme Court decisions on pretext stops, State v. Ladson (1999) and State v. Nichols (2007).
Rule of Weber – Ladson and Nichols are good law but there meaning is narrowed Division III.
State v. Bryan J. Webber, Court of Appeals of Washington, Division III. 247 P.3d 782 (Feb. 2011)