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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-1321

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jordan Lee Downwind,
Appellant.

Filed May 29, 2018
Affirmed
Larkin, Judge

Yellow Medicine County District Court
File No. 87-CR-16-494

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Peter Magnuson, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Keith Helgeson, Yellow Medicine County Attorney, Granite Falls, Minnesota (for
respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Allison Lange Garrison, Special Assistant Public Defender, Norton Rose Fulbright US
LLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and Randall,
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
LARKIN, Judge
Appellant challenges his conviction of unlawful possession of a firearm, arguing
that the district court erred by denying his request to suppress evidence obtained during a
warrantless search of a vehicle that he had been driving. We affirm.
FACTS
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Jordan Lee Downwind with two
counts of felony possession of a firearm based on an officer’s discovery of a shotgun in the
back seat of a vehicle that Downwind had been driving. Downwind moved to suppress the
shotgun, arguing that it was the fruit of an illegal search.
At a hearing on the suppression motion, Upper Sioux Police Officer Shane Dalton
testified that on the nigh t of November 3, 2016, he was looking for Downwind because
there was a felony warrant for his arrest. An employee at the Prairie ’s Edge Casino
informed Officer Dalton that Downwind was at the casino . Officer Dalton went to th e
casino and stopped a vehicl e that Downwind was driving in the parking lot. Two
passengers exited the vehicle, and one ran back to the casino. Officer Dalton handcuffed
Downwind and placed him in the back seat of a squad car. The remaining passenger asked
Officer Dalton about his sweatshirt, which was in the vehicle. Officer Dalton opened the
vehicle’s door, retrieved the sweatshirt, and sent the passenger on his way. Officer Dalton
obtained the keys to the vehicle and other personal possessions from Downwind and placed
them in a bag on the front seat of his squad car.
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Officer Dalton determined that the vehicle belonged to Downwind’s grandfather .
Officer Dalton testified that he did not plan to tow the vehicle and that he and Downwind
discussed arrangements for his grandfathe r to pick up the vehicle from the parking lot .
Officer Dalton testified that he intended to release the keys to Downwind’s grandfather the
next day. But he also testified that he planned to give Downwind’s grandfather a few days
to pick up the vehicle be cause it was not busy in the parking lot and the vehicle did not
need to be moved right away. Officer Dalton testified that after he explained to Downwind
that the keys would be released to his grandfather at the jail, he told Downwind that he was
going to make sure the vehicle was locked. Officer Dalton opened the driver’s door to lock
the vehicle, using a flashlight to illuminate the door panel. When he did so, he observed a
metal tube and a plastic tube with a white powder on them in the driver’s door panel, which
he recognized as drug paraphernalia. Based on this observation, Officer Dalton decided to
search the vehicle.
Yellow Medicine County Deputy Sheriff Marshall Doyle testified that he drove to
the casino in response to Officer Dalton’s call for assistance. After Officer Dalton opened
the driver’s door to Downwind’s vehicle and observed the drug paraphernalia, Deputy
Doyle helped him search the vehicle. Deputy Doyle opened the front passenger door and
observed shotgun ammunition and a baggi e with white residue in the door’s side pocket.
He informed Officer Dalton of his discovery, and the two officers searched the rest of the
vehicle. The officers found a loaded shotgun on the floor by the back seat. They also
found a black bag with white powder, butane, and sandwich bags containing white powder
and substances made to look like methamphetamine.
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As support for his suppression motion, Downwind argued that Officer Dalton did
not have a search warrant or enough suspicion of criminal activity to justify searching the
vehicle when he opened the vehicle’s door and that all of the evidence obtained during the
search should be suppressed. The district court denied Downwind’s motion to suppress,
reasoning, in part, that the officers did not intend to search the vehicle until Officer Dalton
discovered drug paraphernalia when he opened the driver’s door to lock the car. The
district court further reasoned that Officer Dalton ’s observation of the paraphernalia in
plain view supported probable cause to search the vehicle under the automobile exception
to the warrant requirement.
Downwind moved the district court to reconsider its ruling, arguing that Officer
Dalton could have used the vehicle’s keys to lock the car and that the district court’s
findings were contradicted by video evidence from the squad car. The district court held a
hearing on the motion to reconsider. At the hearing, the district court noted that there was
no evidence in the record regarding a key fob that c ould secure the vehicle, and that even
if there had been a way to lock the vehicle remotely, that option did not preclude the officers
from opening the driver’s door to lock the vehicle via the lock ing mechanism on the door
panel.
The district court did not change its ruling , again reasoning that Officer Dalton
lawfully opened the door to lock the vehicle and observed drug paraphernalia in plain view,
which provided probable cause to search the vehicle. Downwind proceeded to trial, and
he was found guilty as charged. The district court sentenced him to serve 60 months in
prison. Downwind appeals.
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D E C I S I O N
The United States and Minnesota 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. I, § 10. “Generally, warrantless
searches are per se unreasonable.” State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn. 2008).
Evidence seized in violation of the U.S. or Minnesota Constitutions must be suppressed.
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12-13, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1875 (1968); State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d
836, 842 (Minn. 2011).
An a ppellate court reviews a district court’s ruling on constitutional questions
involving searches and seizures de novo. State v. Anderson, 733 N.W.2d 128, 136 (Minn.
2007). “When reviewing pretrial orders on motions to suppress evidence, [appellate
courts] may independently review the facts and determine, as a matter of law, whether the
district court erred in suppressing—or not suppressing—the evidence.” State v. Harris ,
590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn. 1999).
Downwind contends that “[t]he ‘search’ began, for Fourth Amendment purposes, at
the moment the officers entered [his] vehicle, i.e. invaded his reasonable expectation of
privacy.” More specifically, Downwind argues that the “start of the search” was the point
at which Officer Dalton first opened the driver’s door to the vehicle and that “Officer
Dalton ‘searched’ [his] vehicle when he opened the driver-side door.” We therefore focus
on Officer Dalton’s act of opening the door.
Whether a police intrusion constitutes a search is an issue of law that we determine
de novo. See State v. Wiegand, 645 N.W.2d 125, 129 (Minn. 2002) (stating that whether
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a dog sniff was a search presented a constitutional question, which was subject to de novo
review). A search oc curs when an officer intrudes upon an area where a person has a
reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Wiggins , 788 N.W.2d 509, 514 (Minn. App.
2010), review denied (Minn. Nov. 23, 2010).
Minnesota courts apply a two -step analysis to determine
whether a defendant has a legitimate expectation of privacy in
a particular area. At the first step , we ask whether the
defendant exhibited an actual subjective expectation of privacy
in a particular place. At the second step, we ask whether that
expectation of privacy is reasonable.

State v. Luhm, 880 N.W.2d 606, 612 (Minn. App. 2016) (quotation and citation omitted).
Generally, a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his vehicle’s interior.
State v. Goodrich , 256 N.W.2d 506, 510 (Minn. 1977). However, “the physical
characteristics of an automobile and its use result in a lessened expectation of privacy
therein.” New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 112, 106 S. Ct. 960, 965 (1986). Moreover, a
person’s conduct may demonstrate objectively that he did not have a legitimate expectation
of privacy in his vehicle’s interior. State v. Tungland, 281 N.W.2d 646, 650 (Minn. 1979).
“When determining whether a person has exhibited a subjective expectation of
privacy, cour ts should focus their inquiry on the individual’s conduct and whether the
individual sought to preserve something as private.” State v. Barajas , 817 N.W.2d 204,
213 (Minn. App. 2012) (quotation omitted), review denied (Minn. Oct. 16, 2012). “[E]ven
a reasonable expectation of privacy may be waived if a defendant’s conduct, objectively
viewed in light of the totality of the circumstances, mandates the conclusion that any
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expectation of privacy was unreasonable.” State v. Perkins, 588 N.W.2d 491, 493 (Minn.
1999) (quotation omitted).
The circumstances of this case support a conclusion that Downwind did not have a
reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle’s interior door panel s, where locking
mechanisms are normally found. Downwind had been arrested on a felony warrant. He
and Officer Dalton discussed leaving the vehicle that Downwind had been driving at the
time of his arrest in a casino parking lot so its owner coul d retrieve it. Officer Dalton
explained that he intended to release the keys to the vehicle to its owner at the jail the next
day. Given that the vehicle was going to be left unattended in the casino parking lot
overnight, Officer Dalton had good reason to lock the vehicle and opened the vehicle’s
door solely for that purpose. See State v. Ferrise, 269 N.W.2d 888, 890-91 (Minn. 1978)
(determining that an officer’s act of opening a vehicle’s passenger door to talk to a
passenger was reasonable, noting that the officer “had a good reason” for doing so).
Given Downwind’s arrest and resulting inability to secure his grandfather’s vehicle,
as well as his intent to leave the vehicle in a casino parking lot, he could not reasonably
have expected to maintain the expectation of privacy that is normally associated with a
vehicle’s interior. Surely, he must have expected that the police would lock the vehicle
before leaving it unattended in the casino parking lot as discussed. Alternatively, he must
have anticipated the risk that someone would enter the unlocked vehicle while it was
unattended in the parking lot. Either way, Downwind’s expectation of privacy in the
vehicle’s interior was compromised, and we cannot conclude that his lessened expectation
of privacy reasonably extended to the door’s interior panel s such that the police intruded
8
on a constitutionally protected area by opening the driver’s door to the vehicle to lock it.
Because Officer Dalton did not intrude upon an area in which Downwind had a reasonable
expectation of privacy, his act of opening the vehicle door and illuminating the door panel
for the purpose of locking the vehicle did not constitute a search and did not violate the
Fourth Amendment.
Once the door was open, Officer Dalton observed drug paraphernalia in plain view
in the door’s interior panel. “The seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of
privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate
the property with criminal activity.” Payton v. New York , 445 U.S. 573, 587, 100 S. Ct.
1371, 1380 (1980) . Moreover, “[w] hen probable cause exists to believe that a vehicle
contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment permits the police to search the vehicle
without a warrant.” State v. Flowers , 734 N.W.2d 239, 248 (Minn. 2007). Officer
Dalton’s observation of drug paraphernalia provided probable cause to believe the vehicle
contained contraband and to search the vehicle without a warrant. See State v. Munoz, 385
N.W.2d 373, 376-77 (Minn. App. 1986) (“Upon observing [glassine envelopes in plain
view on the p assenger side front floor mat], a warrantless search of the remainder of the
passenger compartment [was] justified.”)
In conclusion, any expectation of privacy that Downwind had in the vehicle’s
interior yielded to the extent necessary for Officer Dalton to open the door to lock the
vehicle, consistent with the plan to leave the vehicle in the casino parking lot for its owner.
Officer Dalton’s act of opening the driver’s door was therefore not a search, and it did not
violate the Fourth Amendment. Once the door was open, Officer Dalton’s observation of
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drug paraphernalia in the door panel provided probable cause to believe the vehicle
contained contraband and justified the ensuing warrantless search.1 We therefore affirm.
Affirmed.

1 Downwind asserts that the district court made erroneous factual findings regarding the
officers’ observation of contraband within the vehicle from outside the vehicle. Because
Officer Dalton did not violate the Fourth Amendment by opening the door to the vehicle
and the events that followed justified the warrantless search of the vehicle, any error in the
district court’s findings regarding the officer s’ observations prior to opening the door are
immaterial.