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American Samoa Government v McDonald [2012] ASHC 5; UTC 298980 (4 March 2012)

OPINIONS

OF THE

DISTRICT COURT

OF AMERICAN SAMOA

(2012)

AMERICAN SAMOA GOVERNMENT,
Plaintiff,

v.

JOHN MICHAEL MCDONALD,
Defendant.
___________________________________

The District Court of American Samoa

UTC No. 298980

March 4, 2012

[1] The District Court has repeatedly ruled in bench decisions in D.U.I. cases that a brief detention of a motorist at a traffic stop while a trained and certified D.U.I. police officer is promptly brought to the stop scene does not on its face create an unreasonable seizure of the motorist. If the officer initiating the traffic stop has an articulable basis for initiating that stop, the initial stop is constitutionally valid.

[2] After a traffic stop based on an articulable basis, if the officer develops a reasonable suspicion that the driver had consumed alcohol or other drugs and might be intoxicated, a brief detention of the driver while a certified, trained D.U.I. police officer is promptly brought to the scene to take over the case development and evaluation of factors suggesting intoxication is also reasonable under the circumstances.

[3] If a police-officer had seen a driver commit a moving violation and subsequently had articulable reasons to suspect that the driver was inebriated, a brief transport of the driver from the traffic stop scene to a safe, public location to conduct Standardized Field Sobriety Tests, when warranted by the unsafe conditions prevailing at the scene, does not generally turn the detention of the driver into an arrest.

[4] If a police-officer had seen a driver commit a moving violation and subsequently had some reasons to suspect that the driver was inebriated, transportation of the driver to a police substation, where the police officer escorted the driver inside the substation and conducted the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests therein, such practices effectively result in the driver being placed in police custody, and in the absence of probable cause for the officer to arrest, this seizure is no longer reasonable. Evidence obtained thereafter becomes inadmissible in court. Rev. Const. of Am. Samoa art I, § 5.

[5] Where officers saw a driver perform two instances of unsafe driving; and upon pulling the driver over, the driver told one officer he consumed two beers but changed his story to admitting consumption of four to six beers to the other officer; and moreover the driver’s physical state of having red, watery eyes, an odor of alcohol on his breath, an inability to stand outside his vehicle without using the vehicle for support, and difficulty in pulling out his wallet to present identification—all of this indicates under a totality of the circumstances that the officers had probable cause to seize the driver. Am. Samoa Gov’t v. McDonald