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THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
___________________________
Keene District Court
No. 99-576
THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
v.
DORIAN HIGHT
September 6, 2001
Philip T. McLaughlin, attorney general (Stephen D. Fuller, attorney, on the brief and orally), for the State.
Law Office of Joshua Gordon, of Concord (Joshua L. Gordon on the brief and orally), for the defendant.
Nadeau, J. The defendant, Dorian Hight, appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled drug in violation of RSA 318-B:2 (1995) after a bench trial before the Keene District Court (Tenney, J.). The defendant challenges the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a consent search conducted following a motor vehicle traffic stop. We reverse and remand.
The following facts are undisputed. At 8:40 p.m. on the evening of May 9, 1999, the defendant, an African-American male, was pulled over by an officer of the Chesterfield Police Department for going 47 MPH in a 35 MPH zone and for having a defective taillight. The defendant was accompanied in the vehicle by two Caucasian passengers.
Upon approaching the defendant’s vehicle, the officer asked the defendant to state his place of origin and destination. He responded that he had just left Boston and was en route to Landmark College in Vermont. The officer asked the defendant to produce his driver’s license and automobile registration, which he did. After determining that the defendant’s license and registration were valid, the officer returned to the defendant and asked him step out of the vehicle to answer some questions. At this time, the officer still had possession of the defendant’s license and registration.
The officer again asked the defendant to state his place of origin and his destination. The defendant again responded that he had come from Boston, where he and his passengers had been "hanging out," and that he was going to Vermont. The officer told the defendant that he thought it was a long way to drive just to "hang out." The defendant responded that they had also gone to a "frat party" while in Boston.
The officer, indicating that he was concerned the defendant had picked up drugs in Boston, asked him for permission to search the vehicle for drugs. The defendant consented to the search, which yielded no contraband. The officer then asked and was given permission to pat the defendant down for weapons and to search his person and his wallet for drugs. The officer found a container that held a small amount of marijuana in the defendant’s back pocket. He also found a package of rolling papers in the defendant’s wallet. The two passengers were not searched. Subsequently, the officer arrested the defendant for possession of a controlled drug and returned the defendant’s license and registration. The defendant was later convicted and appealed.
On appeal, the defendant argues that the officer unlawfully detained him longer than necessary to write a traffic ticket, and, therefore, his subsequent consent to search was "tainted" by the unlawful detention. We address the defendant’s claims first under the State Constitution. See State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 231 (1983). With respect to the lawfulness of an investigative stop, the State Constitution is at least as protective as the Federal Constitution. See State v. Wallace, 146 N.H. ___, ___, 772 A.2d 892, 894 (2001). Therefore, we need not engage in a separate federal analysis and look to federal cases for guidance only. See State v. Farrell, 145 N.H. ___, ___, 766 A.2d 1057, 1063 (2001). When reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the trial court’s factual findings unless they lack support in the record or are clearly erroneous. See Wallace, 146 N.H. at ___, 772 A.2d at 894. Our review of the trial court's legal conclusions, however, is de novo. See id.
"In order for a police officer to undertake an investigatory stop, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion -- based on specific, articulable facts taken together with rational inferences from those facts -- that the particular person stopped has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity." Id. (quotation omitted); see also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-21 (1968). We have applied the Terry standard to motor vehicle stops. See State v. Pellicci, 133 N.H. 523, 528-29 (1990).
There is no dispute that the officer’s stop of the defendant for speeding and a broken taillight was a lawful investigatory stop. We have previously held, however, that the scope of an investigative stop "must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification[,] must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop." State v. Wong, 138 N.H. 56, 63 (1993) (quotation and ellipsis omitted). "[A]ny expansion of the scope of [a motor vehicle] stop to include investigation of other suspected illegal activity is [constitutionally] permissible . . . only if the officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that other criminal activity is afoot." Annotation, Permissibility Under Fourth Amendment of Detention of Motorist by Police, Following Lawful Stop for Traffic Offense, to Investigate Matters Not Related to Offense, 118 A.L.R. Fed 567, 573 (1994); see also 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment