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Holtslag v. State4/9/2003
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT
No. 4685
Pursuant to his plea of no contest, Joseph F. Holtslag was convicted of one count of misdemeanor driving while intoxicated. He preserved his claim that state troopers had no justification for stopping him while he was driving his snow machine on private property - a stop that yielded evidence that he was intoxicated. We conclude that, viewing the record objectively, the troopers had justification to stop Holtslag. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's decision denying Holtslag's motion to suppress.
Facts and proceedings
Holtslag was charged with driving while intoxicated. Before trial, he moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that he had not been lawfully stopped. District Court Judge Jane F. Kauvar held an evidentiary hearing during which Trooper Michlyn Contreras, one of the troopers involved in the stop, testified.
According to Trooper Contreras, in the early morning hours of April 15, 2001, Holtslag was driving a snow machine at Summit Lake, Alaska during an annual event called the Arctic Man Ski and Sno-Go Classic competition. This event took place over a weekend, attracting approximately 20,000 people. To accommodate this large number of spectators and participants, the organizers of the event had set up various cul-de-sacs for camping and had given these areas "block" numbers. The campers included people in motor homes, trailers, and tents. There were a number of roadways throughout the grounds that provided access to these various camping areas and to the Richardson Highway. The area covered two to three miles. The campground and roadways were on private property. Because of the size of this annual event and based on past experiences involving public safety issues, the troopers set up a command post in the campground's main area, and for four days they staffed the post twenty-four hours a day.
At approximately 5:45 a.m. on April 15, Bill Maxium, a camper in the area, contacted the troopers at the command post. Maxium reported that a white male on an Arctic Cat snow machine was driving recklessly through the campsites in block 700. The state troopers responded to Maxium's complaint.
On their way to the 700 block, Trooper Contreras and another trooper (driving a marked patrol vehicle) saw a white man - later identified as Holtslag - driving a snow machine on a roadway that had been cleared by the event organizers. The troopers followed the snow machine and determined that Holtslag was traveling at 35 miles per hour. Trooper Contreras testified that the event organizers had for safety purposes posted signs that prohibited snow machines from this road and limited the speed of other traffic to 10 miles per hour. Snow machines were required to travel on trails alongside the roadway. When patrolling this event, troopers would contact individuals driving snow machines on the roadway and have them move onto the trails.
Contreras and her partner decided to contact Holtslag because he was in the vicinity of the reported reckless driver, and because they wanted to tell him to move his snow machine off the roadway and onto the trail. In an effort to stop Holtslag, they activated their vehicle's emergency lights and siren. Holtslag refused to stop. As the troopers drove alongside Holtslag, he suddenly braked his snow machine and then turned left in an effort to cut behind the troopers' vehicle. The troopers, however, also slowed down. As a result, Holtslag turned and struck the rear of the troopers' vehicle. The troopers then contacted Holtslag. During this contact, they detected evidence that Holtslag was intoxicated.
As noted above, before tri
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