This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-1986
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Jesse Lee Weseman,
Appellant.
Filed August 17, 2015
Affirmed
Smith, Judge
Renville County District Court
File No. 65-CR-13-344
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
David Torgelson, Renville County Attorney; and
Scott A. Hersey, Special Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Jessica Merz Godes, Assistant
Public Defender, Adam Chandler (certified student attorney), St. Paul, Minnesota (for
appellant)
Considered and decided by Peterson, Presiding Judge; Stauber, Judge; and Smith,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
SMITH, Judge
We affirm appellant’s controlled-substance-possession and driving-while-impaired
convictions because reasonable, articulable suspicion supported the police officer’s
expansion of the traffic stop of appellant and probable cause supported the arrest of
appellant.
FACTS
During the late morning of July 26, 2013, a sheriff’s deputy observed a moving
vehicle with window tint that was darker than allowed by state law. During the period
that he observed the vehicle in motion, the deputy did not notice any driving conduct that
indicated impairment.
The deputy stopped the vehicle and identified appellant Jesse Weseman as the
driver. Weseman provided proof of insurance, but he did not have his driver’s license
with him. During the conversation, the deputy noticed that Weseman’s “hand had . . . a
tremor to it” and that Weseman’s “eyes appeared more dilated than normal during
daylight hours.” He asked Weseman to step out of the vehicle to “further [the deputy’s]
indications and his suspicion.”
Suspecting that Weseman was impaired, the deputy administered a series of four
field sobriety tests, observing indicia of impairment on three of the tests. The deputy
arrested Weseman.
During a search of Weseman’s vehicle incident to arrest, the deputy discovered “a
clear pipe which appeared to have the residue of methamphetamine on the inside of it.”
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Another deputy arrived with a dog trained to detect the presence of drugs, and the dog
indicated that drugs were present in the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the sheriff’s
office. After obtaining a warrant to search the vehicle, deputies discovered
methamphetamine in the trunk.
A preliminary breath test conducted at the law-enforcement center indicated that
Weseman was not under the influence of alcohol. After being read an implied-consent
advisory instructing him that refusal to consent to a blood test was a crime, Weseman
consented to a blood test. The blood test revealed the presence of amphetamine and
methamphetamine. After receiving a Miranda warning, Weseman admitted that “he had
smoked methamphetamine within the previous night.”
The state charged Weseman with first-degree controlled-substance possession and
second-degree driving-while-impaired. Weseman and the state agreed to a stipulated-
facts trial under Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, preserving for appeal his challenges to
the district court’s denial of his pretrial motion to suppress the evidence against him. The
district court found Weseman guilty of both charges.
DECISION
I.
Weseman challenges the district court’s denial of his pretrial suppression motion,
arguing that the deputy lacked reasonable suspicion to expand the scope of the traffic stop
by directing him to exit his vehicle and perform field sobriety tests. We review de novo a
district court’s determination of whether reasonable suspicion existed to expand a traffic
stop. State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836, 843 (Minn. 2011).
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Weseman concedes that the deputy had sufficient grounds to conduct the initial
stop, but he argues that the deputy’s direction that Weseman perform field sobriety tests
impermissibly expanded the scope of the stop. When a law-enforcement officer conducts
a traffic stop to investigate an offense, the scope of the stop “must be strictly tied to and
justified by the circumstances that rendered the initiation of the investigation
permissible.” State v. Wiegand, 645 N.W.2d 125, 135 (Minn. 2002). Investigation of
any other offense “must be justified by reasonable articulable suspicion of other criminal
activity.” State v. Fort, 660 N.W.2d 415, 419 (Minn. 2003). Although “[t]he reasonable
suspicion standard is not high[,] . . . [a] hunch, without additional objectively articulable
facts, cannot provide the basis for an investigatory stop.” Diede, 795 N.W.2d at 843
(quotations omitted). To determine if a law-enforcement officer had a reasonable,
articulable suspicion to support the expansion of a traffic stop, we consider the totality of
circumstances, “includ[ing] the officer’s general knowledge and experience, the officer’s
personal observations, information the officer has received from other sources, the nature
of the offense suspected, the time, the location, and anything else that is relevant.”
Appelgate v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 402 N.W.2d 106, 108 (Minn. 1987).
Weseman contends that the indicia that the deputy observed before expanding the
scope of the traffic stop—his dilated eyes, rapid speech, and hand tremor—were
insufficient to support a reasonable suspicion of impairment. “We have been reluctant to
rely on nervous behavior as evidence to support a reasonable, articulable suspicion of
criminal activity.” State v. Burbach, 706 N.W.2d 484, 490 (Minn. 2005). But, even
discounting Weseman’s indicia of nervousness—his hand tremor and rapid speech—the
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deputy observed that Weseman’s eyes were dilated in a manner unusual for daytime.
“[E]ven a single objective indication of intoxication may be sufficient [to constitute
probable cause], depending on the circumstances in each case.” Martin v. Comm’r of
Pub. Safety, 353 N.W.2d 202, 204 (Minn. App. 1984). And “police officers articulating a
reasonable suspicion may make inferences and deductions that might well elude an
untrained person.” State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239, 251-52 (Minn. 2007). Weseman
does not argue that dilated eyes are not an objective indicator of possible impairment.
Thus, Weseman’s dilated eyes provided sufficient grounds for the officer to investigate
potential drug impairment.
Weseman contends, however, that the particular deputy that stopped him could not
legitimately draw the inference of potential drug use because the deputy had not received
“specialized training in the recognition of controlled substance impairment.” But the
deputy testified that he had received in-house training on controlled-substance
impairment and, as an emergency medical technician, he had been trained on “some of
the signs and symptoms that we see on the body itself in regards to impairment.” Such
training justifies our deference to the deputy’s on-the-scene observations of potential
impairment. See id. Weseman also cites no authority requiring that a law-enforcement
officer receive more training than the deputy received before he can rely on observations
of dilated eyes to suspect impairment, so we conclude that the district court did not err by
ruling that the deputy had reasonable suspicion to support expansion of the traffic stop.
See State v. Wembley, 712 N.W.2d 783, 795 (Minn. App. 2006) (“An assignment of error
in a brief based on a ‘mere assertion’ and not supported by argument or authority is
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waived unless prejudicial error is obvious on mere inspection.”), aff’d, 728 N.W.2d 243
(Minn. 2007).
II.
Weseman argues that, even if the expansion of the traffic stop was supported by
reasonable suspicion, the arrest was not supported by probable cause and that the district
court should have suppressed all evidence obtained as a result of the arrest. “On appeal
from a district court[’]s finding that a police officer had probable cause to arrest, we
make ‘an independent review of the facts to determine the reasonableness of the police
officer[’]s actions.’” State v. Prax, 686 N.W.2d 45, 48 (Minn. App. 2004) (quoting State
v. Olson, 436 N.W.2d 92, 94 (Minn. 1989), aff’d, 495 U.S. 91 (1990)). The district
court’s probable-cause finding will not be reversed unless clearly erroneous. Id.
“Probable cause to arrest exists when, under the totality of facts and
circumstances, ‘a person of ordinary care and prudence would entertain an honest and
strong suspicion that a crime has been committed.’” Id. (quoting State v. Wynne, 552
N.W.2d 218, 221 (Minn. 1996)). Probable cause is “something more than mere suspicion
but something less than the evidence necessary for conviction.” Id. We accord “great
deference” to a police officer’s determination that probable cause exists to support an
arrest. Id.
Weseman contends that the deputy lacked probable cause to arrest because
Weseman passed one field sobriety test, exhibited only the “minimum number of
indicators needed to ‘indicate impairment’” on two others, and displayed indicia of
impairment on a fourth test that was “not a standardized test.” Weseman cites no
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authority, however, requiring that a law-enforcement officer observe more than a
“minimum number” of indicia of impairment or that an officer only use tests that are
“standardized.” To the contrary, the fact that a driver passes some field sobriety tests
does not preclude an arrest based on the driver’s failure of other such tests. See, e.g., id.
at 49 (upholding an arrest based on “indicia of intoxication” notwithstanding the fact that
the driver “performed well on many of the field sobriety tests”). We therefore conclude
that the deputy’s arrest of Weseman was supported by probable cause and that the district
court did not err by denying Weseman’s suppression motion.
Affirmed.
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