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STATE v. PRATER5/22/1998
In this case, we expand upon a point we previously noted without elaboration in Mix v. State, 893 P.2d 1270, 1273 (Alaska App. 1995): in certain circumstances, relevant information known to a police dispatcher may be "imputed" to a police officer who conducts an investigative stop and so may be considered for purposes of evaluating whether the stop was supported by a reasonable suspicion of imminent public danger.
The state charged William L. Prater with felony driving while intoxicated, a class C felony because Prater had been twice convicted within the past five years, and with driving while license revoked, a class A misdemeanor. AS 28.35.030(n); AS 28.15.291.
According to the police reports to which the parties acceded for purposes of Prater's suppression motion, on the evening of August 20, 1996, Reserve Officers Lammot and Lissner heard an Alaska State Troopers' dispatch
that a "REDDI" report had been received regarding an intoxicated driver. The report described a white Ford Escort with Alaska license plate number CYT 249 traveling toward Palmer on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Moments later, Lammot and Lissner spotted the car and performed a traffic stop. The driver, Prater, then failed field sobriety tests and was arrested for driving while intoxicated and driving while license revoked.
The REDDI report had contained additional details that had not been broadcast to the officers in the police dispatch. The caller who had made the report, a male, had added that the drunken driver in the described car at the described location had not possessed a driver's license and had been arrested before for driving while intoxicated; the caller had stated that he knew this information because he personally knew the driver, who had just left the residence. The caller gave the driver's name as William Prater and spelled out the last name. The caller did not identify himself, but the 911 log recorded the telephone number of the caller.
Prater moved to suppress the evidence resulting from the traffic stop, arguing that it had not been justified by reasonable suspicion. Superior Court Judge Beverly W. Cutler granted the motion and suppressed the evidence. Judge Cutler ruled that any information from the REDDI report that had not been communicated to the officers could not be considered in evaluating whether the stop was justified; the judge ruled that the dispatcher could not be considered part of the "police team" or as a "fellow officer," so his or her information could not be imputed to the officers who stopped Prater. In her decision, Judge Cutler relied on language from this court's recent opinion in Mix v. State, 893 P.2d 1270 (Alaska App. 1995). She stated:
The potential problem with imputing to the arresting officers other background information that the anonymous caller had conveyed to the dispatcher is noted in Mix: "if a dispatched `locate' could by itself create reasonable suspicion, an officer prompted not by a tip at all, but only a hunch, could relay a description and license number through the dispatcher and thereby effectuate a lawful stop." Mix at 1272-73.
(Alteration omitted by Judge Cutler but included in Mix.) Excluding the information known to the dispatcher but not broadcast to the officers, Judge Cutler went on to rule that there was insufficient information to justify the stop:
The arresting officers in this case did not receive sufficient details from the dispatcher to establish "specific and articulable facts which create a reasonable suspicion that imminent public danger exists." Coleman [v. State, 553 P.2d 40,] 46 [(Alaska 1976)]. Nor did they make such observations themselves.
Page 1 2 3 4 Alaska DUI Attorneys
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