State v. Mose B. Coffee
2020 WI 53 (2020)
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Rule of Law:
A warrantless search of a vehicle's passenger compartment incident to a lawful arrest for Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) is permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Such a search is justified when the totality of the circumstances provides police with a reasonable suspicion that evidence relevant to the OWI offense might be found in the vehicle.
Facts:
- On August 30, 2017, Officer Timothy Skelton observed a car driven by Mose B. Coffee that did not have a front license plate and initiated a traffic stop.
- Coffee pulled into a parking lot, parking his car erratically at an angle, very close to another vehicle and over the yellow line, and immediately began to exit his vehicle.
- As Officer Skelton approached, he observed that Coffee had slurred speech, glazed and bloodshot eyes, and smelled an odor of intoxicants coming from his person or the vehicle.
- Coffee stated he was coming from a friend's house and had 'not had that much' to drink.
- Coffee performed poorly on field sobriety tests, and a preliminary breath test indicated a prohibited alcohol level of .14.
- Skelton arrested Coffee for OWI, secured him in the back of a squad car, and instructed other officers to search the passenger compartment of Coffee's vehicle.
- An officer found a cloth bag behind the driver's seat and, after digging through other items inside it, located two mason jars containing marijuana flakes.
- A subsequent search of the vehicle's trunk revealed an additional 930.7 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Procedural Posture:
- The State of Wisconsin charged Mose B. Coffee in Winnebago County Circuit Court (trial court) with multiple offenses, including possession with intent to deliver THC and OWI.
- Coffee filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained from the search of his vehicle, arguing it violated the Fourth Amendment.
- The circuit court held a hearing and denied Coffee's motion to suppress.
- Coffee entered a no-contest plea to possession with intent to deliver THC and second-offense OWI.
- Following sentencing, Coffee appealed the denial of his suppression motion to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
- The court of appeals (intermediate appellate court) affirmed the trial court's decision, holding that a lawful OWI arrest automatically makes it reasonable to believe evidence of OWI might be in the vehicle.
- The Supreme Court of Wisconsin granted Coffee's petition for review.
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Issue:
Does the warrantless search of a vehicle's passenger compartment incident to a driver's lawful arrest for Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) violate the Fourth Amendment when the search is based on a totality of the circumstances giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that evidence of the OWI might be found within the vehicle?
Opinions:
Majority - Roggensack, C.J.
No, the warrantless search of a vehicle's passenger compartment incident to a driver's lawful arrest for OWI does not violate the Fourth Amendment when supported by a reasonable suspicion based on the totality of the circumstances. The court rejects a categorical, bright-line rule that an OWI arrest automatically justifies a vehicle search, as such rules are disfavored in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Instead, the court adopts a 'reasonableness approach,' clarifying that the standard from Arizona v. Gant ('reasonable to believe evidence...might be found') is equivalent to reasonable suspicion. Here, the totality of the circumstances supported reasonable suspicion, including: 1) the odor of intoxicants, 2) Coffee's erratic parking and hasty exit, 3) his unusual talkativeness suggesting nervousness, 4) his statement that he came from a private residence where he may have brought his own alcohol, and 5) his extreme level of intoxication. These specific, articulable facts justified the search of the passenger compartment and containers within it for evidence of OWI.
Concurring - Kelly, J.
Agrees with the judgment to affirm, but disagrees with the majority's reasoning. The majority needlessly creates a 'reasonableness' test when established precedent already resolves the issue. Following Justice Scalia's concurrence in Thornton v. United States, which the Gant court adopted, the authority to search stems from the lawful arrest itself, and the only question is the scope of that search. For an evidence-gathering search, the scope extends to places where evidence of the crime of arrest might reasonably be found. Because the offense of arrest here—OWI—is intrinsically linked to the vehicle, the arrest itself supplied a sufficient basis to search the car for relevant evidence, without needing the majority's fact-intensive 'totality of the circumstances' analysis.
Dissenting - Dallet, J.
Yes, the search violated the Fourth Amendment because the State failed to demonstrate it was reasonable for police to believe evidence of OWI might be found in the vehicle. While agreeing with the majority's adoption of the 'reasonableness approach,' the facts here do not support a finding of reasonable suspicion. The majority's six supporting factors are either unsupported by the record or based on speculation. The odor of alcohol was not clearly linked to the vehicle itself; Coffee had a non-incriminating reason for his hasty exit; and his level of intoxication, by itself, does not create a particularized suspicion that he was drinking in the vehicle. Without a 'tell-tale sign' or specific fact connecting the consumption of alcohol to the car, the search was an unconstitutional exploratory search that Gant prohibits.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies Wisconsin's application of Arizona v. Gant to OWI arrests, a frequent scenario for law enforcement. The court explicitly rejects a bright-line rule allowing automatic vehicle searches post-OWI arrest, instead requiring a fact-based, case-by-case analysis. By defining the standard as 'reasonable suspicion,' the court provides a clearer benchmark than Gant's original 'reasonable to believe' language. While this holding appears to heighten the standard for police, the majority's broad application of various circumstantial facts to find reasonable suspicion may, in practice, still permit searches in a wide range of OWI cases.
