ME: Consent sought at safety checkpoint could only be understood to be for safety purposes; broad search suppressed

In a vehicle safety checkpoint stop, the officer asked defendant to pull over to a secondary checkpoint because he did not have his seatbelt on. Defendant was told it was a safety checkpoint. The request for consent to search would only be understood as a search for safety purposes, so the broad search of a shaving kit was suppressed. State v. Sargent, 2009 ME 125, 2009 Me. LEXIS 128 (December 17, 2009).

Alaska declines to adopt a different standard than the Fourth Amendment for trash pulls. The defendant had no expectation of privacy in his trash because the Alaska Supreme Court in 1975 refused to adopt a different standard. Beltz v. State, 221 P.3d 328 (Alas. 2009).*

State’s argument that defendant subjectively would have stopped anyway made it so that he was not “stopped” for Fourth Amendment purposes is rejected. On these facts, he objectively was stopped. People v. Cash, 396 Ill. App. 3d 931, 922 N.E.2d 1103 (2009)*:

The State’s contention also appears to cover a scenario in which neither defendant nor Castronovo submitted to the show of authority because they subjectively intended to remain at the spot regardless of any actions undertaken by the agents. In such a situation, they did not submit to the show of authority, because it had no impact upon their intentions and their actions. Under the State’s analysis, they were not seized, because they were not submitting to the show of authority. Further, when the agents request that defendant and Castronovo exit the car, they still were not seized, because this was a noninvestigative encounter between the agents and defendant and Castronovo. When Castronovo and defendant opened the car doors and exited, the agents smelled a particularly strong odor of marijuana, giving them probable cause to seize defendant and Castronovo, and it was only after this point, according to the State’s argument, that the men were seized. The problem, however, with the State’s contention is that it sweeps too broadly. If the target of the investigative stop flees, then he or she is obviously not submitting to the show of authority. If, however, the target does not flee, then he or she is still not submitting to the show of authority, because it was his or her intent to stand his or her ground regardless of the police presence. The fly in the ointment, however, is the fact that submission appears to be exactly the same as refusing to submit. The target stays put. If such behavior denotes both submission and refusal to submit, then our inquiry is removed from the objective reasonable person and focuses on the target’s subjective intent, and this would both be contrary to the law as it has developed and disturb any predictability in search-and-seizure law. The State’s argument, then, cannot be accepted.