State v. Funderburg
By Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma
- Release Date: 2008-04-15
- Genre: Law
Description
{1} This appeal involves a police officers authority, after lawfully finding drugs or paraphernalia in the possession of a cars passenger, to detain and question the driver about the presence of other drugs in the car, and then ask for consent to search the car. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals held that the officer impermissibly expanded the scope of the stop because he lacked sufficient, individualized suspicion about the driver. State v. Funderburg, 2007- NMCA-021, 22, 141 N.M. 139, 151 P.3d 911, cert. granted, 2007-NMCERT-001, 141 N.M. 164, 152 P.3d 151. Judge Sutin dissented in part, finding that the officers questioning of the driver was reasonable based on the passengers possession of drugs in the vehicle. Id. 30 (Sutin, J., dissenting). We agree with the dissent, and conclude that the officers limited question posed to the driver and subsequent consensual search of the vehicle were constitutionally reasonable. We therefore reverse the Court of Appeals and hold that the district court properly denied Defendants motion to suppress.
