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State v. Bibbins12/1/2004
d the detainee's identification materials."
Although the State bears the burden of proof, it presented no evidence that Bauch's request fell within the traffic stop's permissible limits. In fact, the record shows the opposite. Accordingly, I find that Bauch extended the original traffic stop.
2. The question thus becomes whether this prolonged encounter was constitutionally permissible. The State does not claim that Bauch had reasonable articulable suspicion to extend the stop. Instead, it contends that the stop became a consensual encounter during which Bibbins agreed to additional questioning, as well as the search of his truck. We must consider, therefore, whether the initial detention de- escalated into a consensual police-citizen encounter not implicating the Fourth Amendment.
A consensual police-citizen encounter "has been defined as simply the voluntary cooperation of a private citizen in response to non- coercive questioning by a law enforcement official." And an encounter constitutes "voluntary cooperation" if, given all of the surrounding circumstances, a reasonable person would have believed that he was free to leave. In other words, no seizure occurs as long as a citizen feels free to disregard an officer's questions and walk away.
Although distinguishing a consensual encounter from a seizure is "`necessarily imprecise,'" our Supreme Court has found that "`an encounter initiated by a traffic stop may not be deemed consensual unless the driver's documents have been returned to him.'" We have similarly concluded that no reasonable person would feel free to leave a traffic stop before receiving his or her copy of the traffic citation.
The record shows that Special Agent Bauch sought and obtained the alleged consent before returning Bibbins' license or writing Bibbins a traffic citation. As a matter of law, therefore, Bibbins was not free to leave, and the traffic stop had not become a consensual encounter. Consequently, the continued detention, which extended the traffic stop without reasonable suspicion, was illegal.
3. The final relevant question involves the validity of Bibbins' alleged consent. As found by the Supreme Court, " ven where the driver and vehicle occupants have been illegally detained, the driver or owner of the vehicle may nonetheless voluntarily consent to a search of the vehicle." Once again, the State bears the burden of proving such consent to be voluntary, and this burden is particularly heavy when the consent follows an illegal detention. Furthermore, if an individual is illegally seized, searched or arrested, any consent obtained thereafter must be analyzed to determine both whether the consent was given voluntarily (under the totality of the circumstances test) and whether that consent was sufficiently attenuated from the unlawful seizure so that it was not the product thereof.
The trial court did not specifically address the issue of consent. But even if Bibbins voluntarily agreed to the vehicle search, I believe that, as a matter of law, the illegal detention tainted the consent because the record reflects that the purpose of the continued detention was to request such consent. Under similar circumstances, we have held consent to search to be a product of the illegal detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Precedent controls and takes note of similarities as well as sameness.
4. Having applied the analytical framework set forth in Daniel, I conclude that the trial court properly granted Bibbins' motion to suppress. The State cannot establish that Bibbins validly consented to the search of his truck. The majority's effort to find otherwise eviscerates significant case l
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