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State v. Bolduc12/3/1998
Reporter of Decisions
Submitted on Briefs: October 28, 1998
The State appeals pursuant to 15 M.R.S.A. § 2115-A (1980 & Supp. 1997) from an order entered in the District Court (Augusta, Beliveau, J.) suppressing evidence that Mark Bolduc operated a vehicle under the influence of intoxicants in violation of 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411 (1996). Because there were articulable facts which warranted the investigatory stop and there was probable cause to require that Bolduc take a blood-alcohol test, we vacate the order.
On September 26, 1997, at approximately 10:00 p.m., Deputy Sheriff Eric Testerman of the Kennebec County Sheriff's Department overheard a report from the state police that a motorist had seen a "cream-colored king cab pickup" truck heading north on Interstate 95 at ninety miles per hour. According to the report, the truck was swerving from lane to lane and had almost hit the guardrail.
Upon hearing the report, Testerman positioned himself north of where the truck was last seen on the Interstate. Three minutes later, Testerman spotted a cream-colored king cab pickup-truck heading north along the Interstate at seventy four miles per hour. Testerman followed the truck, observed it pass two vehicles, and pulled it over two miles north of where he had first seen it.
When he asked the driver, Mark Bolduc, for his license and registration, Testerman could smell alcohol on his breath. Bolduc admitted that he had consumed two beers with dinner at 7:30 p.m. After checking Bolduc's license and registration, Testerman asked him to perform two field sobriety tests. When Bolduc attempted to perform the "heel-to-toe" test, he left spaces between steps and appeared to be unbalanced. Next, Bolduc counted backwards from 65 to 49. Although he counted correctly, Testerman observed that his speech was deliberate and slurred and that his eyes were glossy. Based on these observations, Testerman brought Bolduc to the police station to administer a blood-alcohol test. Bolduc filed a motion to suppress, and, after a hearing, the court suppressed all evidence obtained subsequent to the vehicle stop.
I. INVESTIGATORY STOP
An investigatory stop is valid when it is "supported by specific and articulable facts which, taken as a whole and together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the police intrusion." State v. Taylor, 1997 ME 81, 9, 694 A.2d 907, 909 (quoting State v. Hill, 606 A.2d 793, 795 (Me. 1992)). A civil violation "provides adequate specific and articulable facts." Id. (holding that officer's testimony that rear license plate was unilluminated supported a reasonable suspicion).
There were articulable facts which warranted an investigatory stop of Bolduc's vehicle. Before Testerman stopped Bolduc he had recorded Bolduc driving seventy four miles per hour. Driving over sixty five miles per hour "on the Maine Turnpike or the Interstate Highway System" is a traffic infraction. 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2074(3) (1996 & Supp. 1997). Speeding was an articulable fact which warranted an investigatory stop of Bolduc's car. See Taylor, 1997 ME 81, 9, 694 A.2d at 910. Whether a reasonable police officer would normally have stopped Bolduc for exceeding the speed limit by nine miles per hour is not important to the analysis. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813-16 (1996).
II. PROBABLE CAUSE
Probable cause to arrest for purposes of requiring a blood-alcohol test exists when "facts and circumstances of which the arresting officer has reasonably trustworthy information would warrant an ordinarily prudent and cautious police officer to believe the subject did commi
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