ID: Hearing officer’s findings of fact on DL suspension entitled to deference on appeal

The hearing officer’s determination of factual cause for the stop was entitled to deference, and the trial court erred in substituting its own judgment for that. In the Matter of Driver’s License Suspension of Trottier v. State, Transportation Dept., 2013 Opinion No. 34, 304 P.3d 292 (2013).*

Email “meth check alert” came to the police from a Wal-Mart that somebody bought too much pseudoephedrine. “[T]he circuit court concluded that the e-mail generated by the National Precursor Law Enforcement Exchange Program and sent to [the officer] was analogous to an anonymous tip that did not provide a sufficient basis to conduct an investigatory stop on the vehicle in which Pollard was riding.” The trial court suppressed, and the state appealed. The state did not raise the question of the legality of defendant’s stop below, but the court gives the state a pass on that because the record has enough: Namely, the officer ran the LPN and came back with a warrant on the owner of the vehicle and that justified the stop. State v. Pollard, 2012 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 130 (December 14, 2012)* [Yes, this opinion is six months old and just on Lexis.]

Defendant was arrested for DUI after an officer got a report that someone was breaking in to cars in a high crime area. Defendant’s stop was not supported by any factual justification that he was doing anything wrong. No traffic offense; no suspicion; no hunch. State v. Hahn, 2013 Ohio 2308, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 2234 (5th Dist. June 3, 2013).*