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Clement v. State12/10/2001
motorist's implied consent to a breath or blood test. Also, the arresting officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that the person arrested had been driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. 'The requirement of reasonable grounds is separate from the requirement of probable cause to arrest.'
Here, there is no dispute that, once Clement was stopped, the troopers had reasonable grounds to believe that he was driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated. The issue presented is whether the Department met its burden of proving that the initial stop was valid. Clement argues that in order for the initial stop to be valid, the Department had to produce foundational evidence showing the reliability and accuracy of the radar device Trooper Rodriguez operated. The Department argues that foundational evidence is not required because the radar evidence is relevant only to whether the initial stop was valid and not to whether Clement was in fact speeding.
A traffic stop is constitutional if the officer has probable cause to believe a person has violated the traffic code. Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within the arresting officer's knowledge are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe that an offense has been committed. Under the fellow officer rule, probable cause may be determined based on the information possessed by the police as a whole when they are acting in concert.
We hold that Trooper Coglizer's visual observations of Clement's car coupled, under the fellow officer rule, with Trooper Rodriguez's information that the radar showed Clement's car approaching at a speed in excess of the speed limit, were sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe that Clement was speeding. Accordingly, this evidence was sufficient to establish probable cause to justify Trooper Coglizer's initial stop of Clement's vehicle.
We reject Clement's argument that to establish the validity of the traffic stop, the Department was required to go beyond this and produce foundational evidence to support the radar reading. The Department's burden with respect to the traffic stop was to prove that the stop was valid. Here, the Department met this burden with the evidence discussed above, evidence that did not include foundational radar evidence. Once the Department met this burden, it then became Clement's burden to produce evidence showing that the stop was not valid by, for example, subpoenaing Troopers Coglizer and Rodriguez. We decline to require the Department to go beyond proving that there was probable cause to believe the motorist violated the traffic code. Where, as here, the Department can meet its burden without introducing foundational radar evidence, then the Department is not required to introduce such evidence.
We have reached similar conclusions in analogous cases. For example, where the Department meets its burden of proving that a motorist refused to take a breath test, it does not have the burden to show that the testing machine is functioning properly. Also, once the Department proves the motorist's refusal to take a breath test, the burden shifts to the motorist to prove by a preponderance of the evidence an excuse for his or her noncompliance. Courts of other states have likewise reached similar conclusions.
The lower court based its reversal of Clement's license revocation on Bokor v. Dep't of Licensing and Seattle v. Peterson. Clement argues that these cases require our affirmance of the reversal. We find that both cases are distinguishable and that neither compels us to affirm the lower court's decision.
In Bokor, the Department revoked B
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