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Hampton v. Director Of Revenue7/18/2000
Appeal From: Circuit Court of Henry County, Hon. Wayne Patrick Strothmann
Opinion Vote: AFFIRMED. Ellis and Howard, J.J., concur.
Opinion:
Respondent Roy Hampton was arrested for driving while intoxicated and, pursuant to Section 302.505 RSMo. Cum. Supp. 1996, the Director suspended his driving privileges. Mr. Hampton appealed that suspension. Following a trial at which the Director attempted to prove that Mr. Hampton was arrested upon probable cause to believe that he was driving while intoxicated, the trial court entered judgment for Mr. Hampton. It found that, based on the circumstantial evidence before it, the Director had failed to prove that Mr. Hampton was the driver of the truck which the police found on the side of the road 40 yards from the porch where Mr. Hampton was standing, and, therefore, the Director had failed to make its case against Mr. Hampton. The Director appeals, arguing that the uncontroverted evidence permitted only one conclusion -- that the arresting officer had probable cause to believe that Mr. Hampton was driving while intoxicated, that he had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, and that we should reverse and remand with directions to enter judgment for the Director. Because we find that there was substantial evidence to support the court below's determination that the Director failed to meet its burden of proving that the officer had probable cause to believe that Mr. Hampton was driving the truck in question while intoxicated, or that he was in fact driving the truck at all, we affirm.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The facts adduced below, viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's judgment, are as follows: On January 28, 1998, at approximately 1:30 a.m., Officer Mark Pitts of the Windsor Police Department was on routine patrol when he noticed a red pick-up truck pull up behind him at the intersection of Tebo and Washington, in Windsor, Missouri. Officer Pitts kept driving on Tebo to the next intersection. As the officer began to make a left turn, he noticed the truck pull off to the side of the road. After completing the turn, the officer again proceeded to the next intersection, but waited there so he could look behind him to see whether the truck had pulled off the road because of alcohol use by the driver or because the driver was picking up someone at a nearby residence.
When the officer saw that the truck remained pulled off onto the side of the road, he went around the block and came back up Tebo and stopped next to the truck. He said that he lost sight of the vehicle for approximately 30 seconds as he went around the block. By the time he got back to the truck, there was no one in it. He got out of his patrol car and looked around, and saw Mr. Hampton just reaching the porch of a residence some 40 yards away from the pick-up truck. Not seeing anyone else in the area, the officer asked Mr. Hampton to come over and talk with him. Mr. Hampton did so.
Officer Pitts did not ask Mr. Hampton whether he lived in the house with the porch where the officer had first seen him, whether he was the owner of the truck, or whether he had been driving the truck. Instead, according to the officer's trial testimony:
I asked why he went in the ditch, if he was going to talk to somebody. Mr. Hampton said, "Yes, I was going to talk to some friends. I pulled off to the side of the road to talk to them, but they left."
Mr. Hampton said nothing else indicating whether he had been driving the red truck in particular or whether it was his truck, and the officer had not seen another vehicle or pedestrian leaving the area of the red truck. But, believing Mr.
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