Court: Rights violated during traffic stop

SANDPOINT — First District Judge Barbara Buchanan is suppressing evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor drug charges against a Ponderay woman because it was gained in violation of her constitutional rights.

The rulings could prove fatal to methamphetamine and marijuana possession charges against Doris Nepa Hays, who was stopped by Ponderay Police for speeding on U.S. Highway 95 on Oct. 12, 2012.

Hays, 39, confessed there was marijuana in her vehicle after a Bonner County Sheriff’s K9 unit was summoned to the scene within minutes of her being stopped, court records indicate. She ultimately consented to a search of her car, which turned up meth and drug paraphernalia.

But Hays’s defense counsel, Sandpoint attorney Paul Vogel, successfully argued that the evidence was obtained contrary to the Fourth Amendment safeguard against unreasonable searches and seizures, court records show.

Hays’s nervousness aroused Ponderay Officer Brian Koch’s suspicions that illegal activity was afoot, prompting him to call Deputy Darren Osborn to the scene before even checking the status of the woman’s driver’s license, documents show.

Vogel maintained that his client’s responses to Koch’s questioning fell short of a reasonable and articulable suspicion that she was transporting drugs and that Osborn was engaged in a “fishing expedition,” according to court documents.

Buchanan agreed in an April 5 opinion and order, finding that a lawful eight-minute traffic stop stretched unlawfully into a 28-minute interrogation that violated case law in Idaho and the U.S. Constitution.

The court held that the initial stop was lawful, but her ensuing detention was unconstitutionally extended and she uttered incriminating statements without first being advised of her constitutional rights.

Buchanan further held that Hays’s confession was more a product of coercion rather than free will.

Osborn testified at a hearing on the suppression motion that he gave Hays a boilerplate offer indicating things would go easier for her (a citation) if she admitted possessing drugs or harder (arrest) if she didn’t.

But Buchanan ruled that Hays should have been allowed to go on her way after Koch cited her for a traffic violation, a position moored by a 2009 Idaho Court of Appeals case declaring that any inquiry beyond the bounds of the initial stop was an unwarranted intrusion upon a person’s privacy and liberty.

At the time Hays made incriminating statements, the court noted Osborn was at her window and Koch possessed her license and registration. It was also nearly midnight and a K9 unit was on the scene.

“A reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have understood her position to be that she was not free to leave. Therefore, Hays was in ‘custody’ for the purposes of Miranda at that time,” Buchanan wrote.

As a result, Hays’s confession was involuntary and given before she was advised of her rights.

The state is appealing Buchanan’s ruling to the Idaho Supreme Court, the Idaho Supreme Court Data Repository indicates.