State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-1160

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Brian Alan Taylor,
Appellant.

Filed May 14, 2018
Affirmed
Schellhas, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-16-22567

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Jeffrey W. Lambert, Wayzata City Attorney, Wayzata, Minnesota (for respondent)

Lee R. Wolfgram, The Wolfgram Law Firm, Ltd., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Schellhas, Pres iding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Stauber,
Judge.
*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SCHELLHAS, Judge
Appellant challenges his conviction of driv ing while impaired (DWI), arguing that
the stop of his vehicle was unconstitutiona l because it was not supporte d by reasonable
articulable suspicion of criminal activity. We affirm.
FACTS
Officer Andrew Sharratt of the Wayzata Po lice Department was on patrol in the City
of Wayzata when he overhear d a radio transmi ssion from the Orono Police Department
regarding a domestic disturbance in the City of Mound. The transmission indicated that the
Orono Police Department received information from dispatch that a male individual “had
shown up at a female’s residence” and that a “verbal altercation” ensued. The female reported
that she “believed the male was intoxicated” because he made “unusual” comments about
wanting to kill Donald Trump. The female identified the male as appellant Brian Taylor, and
stated that he left her residence in a red Jeep and would be “traveling on Highway 12.”
After hearing the radio tran smission, Officer Sharratt positioned his squad car along
Highway 12, and a “couple of minutes” later, obs erved a red Jeep driv e past his location.
Officer Sharratt followed the Jeep and checked its license plate. The license check revealed
that Taylor was the registered owner. Officer Sharra tt initiated a traf fic stop because he
believed that Taylor was involved in the reported domestic disturbance and may have been
intoxicated.
During the stop, Officer Shar ratt identified the driver as Taylor, observed indicia of
intoxication, required Taylor to perform thr ee field sobriety tests, and administered a

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preliminary breath test (PBT). The PBT registered an alcohol concentration of 0.115. Officer
Sharratt arrested Taylor and charged him with DWI under Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 1(1)
(2016).
Taylor filed a pretrial motion, which the district court construed as a suppression and
dismissal motion for lack of probable cause. The court denied the motion, concluding that the
radio transmission fr om the Orono Police Depa rtment provided Offi cer Sharratt with
sufficient information to reasonably suspect that Taylor was driving while impaired. To obtain
review of the court’s suppression ruling, Taylor stipulated to respondent State of Minnesota’s
case under Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, and the district court found him guilty of the
charged offense.
This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Taylor challenges the district court’s de nial of his suppression motion. When
reviewing such orders, this court reviews the district court’s factual findings for clear error.
State v. deLottinville , 890 N.W.2d 116, 119 (Minn. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 377
(2017). But the district court’s determination of reasonable suspicion presents a question
of law that is subject to de novo review. State v. Morse, 878 N.W.2d 499, 502 (Minn. 2016).
The United States and Minn esota Constitutions guarantee “[t]he right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. 1, § 10. A search or seizure that is
conducted without a warrant is presumptively unreasonable. State v. Lugo , 887 N.W.2d
476, 486 (Minn. 2016). One exception to the warrant requirement that permits police to

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“conduct a brief, investigatory stop” occurs when police have “a reasonable, articulable
suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 120 S. Ct.
673, 675 (2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1884−87 (1968)).
“Reasonable suspicion must be based on spec ific, articulable facts that allow the
officer to be able to articulate that he or she had a particularized and objective basis for
suspecting the seized person of criminal activity.” Morse, 878 N.W.2d at 502 (quotations
omitted). “The reasonable-suspi cion standard is not high.” Id. (quotation omitted). “A
trained police officer is entitled to draw inferences on the basis of all of the circumstances
. . . inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.” Id. (quotations
omitted). “[T]o justify such an investigatory stop, the police must only show that the stop
was not the product of mere whim, caprice or idle curiosity, but was based upon specific
and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,
reasonably warrant that intrusion.” State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818, 823 (Minn. 2004)
(quotations omitted).
Taylor argues that the stop of his vehicl e was unconstitutional because it was “based
on a hunch developed after overhearing radio traffic of another department, and not based
on any observations of the officer or facts known to him that would create a reasonable
articulable suspicion that [Taylor] was involved in criminal activity.” But the factual basis
needed to maintain a routine traffic stop need not arise from an officer’s personal
observations; it may also be supplied by information acquired from another person,
including an informant. Marben v. State, Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 294 N.W.2d 697, 699 (Minn.
1980). An officer properly stops a motor vehicle in reliance on a telephone tip when the

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caller identifies herself and states that a driver of a vehicle has just been nearby and appears
to be intoxicated. See, e.g., City of Minnetonka v. Shepherd , 420 N.W.2d 887, 890 −91
(Minn. 1988) (stating that stop was proper when based on identified gas-station attendant’s
tip regarding intoxicated driver); Magnuson v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety , 703 N.W.2d 557,
560–61 (Minn. App. 2005) (s tating that sufficient reasona ble suspicion supported stop
based on personal observations of an identified citizen that driver was drunk).
Here, the record reflects that Officer Sharratt properly stoppe d Taylor’s vehicle
based on information provided in a radio tr ansmission from a neighboring jurisdiction
regarding a domestic disturbance. Taylor argues that Officer Sharratt did not properly rely
on the dispatch to the Orono Police Department because he was an officer with the Wayzata
Police Department. Taylor offers no legal authority that supports his argument, and we can
find none. We conclude that the district court did not err by denying Taylor’s suppression
motion.
Affirmed.