State of Minnesota, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A18-0114

State of Minnesota,
Appellant,

vs.

Nathan William Quast,
Respondent.

Filed June 4, 2018
Affirmed
Rodenberg, Judge

Rice County District Court
File No. 66-CR-17-1551

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

John Fossum, Rice County At torney, Terence Swihart, A ssistant County Attorney,
Faribault, Minnesota (for appellant)

Mark D. Nyvold, Fridley, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Halbrooks, Presiding Judge; Cleary, Chief Judge; and
Rodenberg, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
RODENBERG, Judge
The state appeals from the district court’ s order granting respondent Nathan William
Quast’s motion to suppress ev idence and respondent’s deriva tive motion to dismiss the
controlled-substance charges. The district court concluded that the automobile exception

2
to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requireme nt did not permit the warrantless search of
the backpack in respondent’s car, in which police found methamphetamine and oxycodone
pills. We affirm.
FACTS
Fairbault Police Officers To llefson and Alexander responded to a report of
shoplifting at a gas station and convenience st ore on June 22, 2017. Officer Tollefson
spoke with a store employee who told her that a woman, later identified as E.W., who was
then standing by a white car outside the stor e, took items from the st ore and put them in
her purse without paying for them.
Officer Alexander spoke to E.W. and to respondent, her companion, in the parking
lot, while Officer Tollefson spoke to the store employee. Officer Alexander told E.W. that
they were responding to a theft report and that she was a suspect. He asked her if she had
any items that she wanted to return. E.W. said that she did, and asked if she could get them
from the nearby car, which was late r determined to belong to respondent. E.W. went to
the front seat of the car and retrieved a Gatorade, a Red Bull, and a Monster energy drink.
Officer Alexander placed these items on the hood of the car as E.W. produced them.
Officer Alexander asked E.W. if those thre e beverages were the only stolen items.
E.W. said that she thought so . But the employee informed Officer Tollefson that there
were still some unrecovered items. One bottle of Gatorade and some small Rain-X
packages were still missing. Officer Alexander suspected that the remaining stolen items
were still inside the car. He asked Officer Gramling, who had just arrived on-scene, to
search the car for the other items.

3
Officer Gramling testified at the evidentiary hearing that he found E.W.’s purse on
the driver’s seat of the car. Officer Gramling searched the purse and found a second bottle
of Gatorade and multiple packets of Rain-X wipes. Officer Gramli ng paused his search
and reported these discoveries to Officer Alexander. Officer Alexander then asked Officer
Gramling to continue searching the car. During this time, Officer Gramling believed that
police were still waiting to hear from the gas station staf f regarding what items were
missing. Staff at the store were looking at surveillance footage and checking store
inventory. Officer Gramling “never knew for su re exactly all the items that were taken,
and [he] didn’t know if [police] recovered all of them either.”
In response to Officer Alexander’s request, Officer Gramling then went to the car a
second time. He searched the area around th e driver’s seat. He found an open bottle of
Malibu rum, a broken glass pipe with burnt marijuana residue, and several knives and other
tools that he believed could be used for thef ts and burglaries. These items were “on the
floor underneath what would be kind of a middle seat.” Officer Gramling also searched a
zipped backpack which he believed “was of sufficient size that it could contain items from
the store.” Inside the back pack, he found prescription bo ttles bearing respondent’s name
and a pouch containing items c onsistent with drug use. The officers then arrested
respondent. Officer Gramling testified that he only searched areas where he believed stolen
store items could be located and that the primary reason he continued to search was because
he “found items and tools in the vehicle that are consistent with burglaries and thefts.” He
stated, “When we’re investigating a theft and I find tools that are used for thefts, if there’s
other information that support[s] the theft in general, we w ould continue a search.” The

4
contents of the backpack were later determ ined to include methamphetamine and some
oxycodone pills.
The state charged respondent with two counts of fifth-degree controlled-substance
possession. Respondent moved to suppress the drug evidence obtained from the search of
the backpack in his vehicle and, derivatively, for dismissal of the complaint. After hearing
testimony from the officers at an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted respondent’s
motion to suppress and dismissed the complaint.
This appeal followed.
D E C I S I O N
I. The district court’s suppression order ha s a critical impact on the prosecution.
The state “may appeal as of right” to this court “in any case, from any pretrial order.”
Minn. R. Crim P. 28.04, subd. 1(1). “W hen the state appeals from a pretrial order
dismissing a criminal charge, this court will reverse only if the state clearly and
unequivocally demonstrates that the district court erred and that the error, unless reversed,
will have a critical impact on the outcome of the prosecution.” State v. Gradishar , 765
N.W.2d 901, 902 (Minn. App. 2009) (quotation omitted). “Cr itical impact is a threshold
showing that must be made in order for an appellate court to have jurisdiction.” Id. The
critical-impact test is satisfied when the distri ct court’s order “bars further prosecution of
a defendant.” Id. The district court dismissed th e complaint against respondent after
suppressing the drug evidence found in the car. Therefore, the critical-impact test is met,
permitting the state’s appeal.

5
II. The district court did not err in dete rmining that the warrantless search of the
backpack in respondent’s car was unlawful.

The state argues that Officer Gramling’s se arch of the car and of respondent’s
backpack located inside the car were lawful under the automobile exception to the warrant
requirement.1
When reviewing a pretrial order suppre ssing evidence, we “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. Klamar, 823 N.W.2d 687, 691 (Minn. App.
2012) (quoting State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn. 1999)). “We review the district
court’s findings of fact under a clearly e rroneous standard, but we review its legal
determinations de novo.” Id. We defer to the district c ourt’s credibility determinations.
Id.
“Warrantless searches are per se unreaso nable under the fourth amendment unless
the search falls within one of several specific exceptions.” State v. Search, 472 N.W.2d
850, 852 (Minn. 1991). The automobile exception permits law enforcement to “search a
vehicle without a warrant, including any closed containers within the vehicle, if [officers]
have probable cause to believe the search will result in a discovery of evidence or
contraband.” Id. (citing United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 824, 102 S. Ct. 2157, 2172
(1982)).

1 There is no dispute that Officer Gramling va lidly searched E.W.’s purse. Additionally,
the parties agree that the reso lution of whether the automobile exception to the warrant
requirement applies to the second search controls the outcome on appeal.

6
We review a district court’s probable-cause determination de novo and its findings
of fact for clear error. State v. Burbach , 706 N.W.2d 484, 487 (M inn. 2005). Probable
cause to search a vehicle exists when “there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence
of a crime will be found in” that vehicle. State v. Wiley , 366 N.W.2d 265, 268 (Minn.
1985) (quoting Illinois v. Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 23 8, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 2332 (1983)).
Probable cause is an objective inquiry, dependent upon the to tality of the circumstances.
State v. Lester , 874 N.W.2d 768, 771 (Minn. 2016). The totality of the circumstances
includes “reasonable inferences that police officers draw from facts, based on their training
and experience, because police officers may interpret circumstances differently than
untrained persons.” Id. We give due weight to the re asonable inferences drawn by the
police and to the district court’s findings concerning the reasonableness of these inferences.
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699-700, 116 S. Ct. 1657, 1663 (1996).
Here, the district court found the followi ng facts concerning what occurred after
E.W., in response to questioning by Office r Alexander, produced one Gatorade, one Red
Bull, and one Monster energy drink:
Officer Tollefson spoke with [the employee], who reported
what the missing items were. The missing items included two
blue Gatorades, one Red Bull, one Monster Energy Drink, and
multiple packages of Rain X gl ass wipes. Officer Tollefson
then relayed to Officers Alexander and Gramling that there
were still missing items. Officer Gramling testified that he had
probable cause to believe there was additional stolen property
in [E.W.]’s purse, which was located on the front driver’s seat.
Upon conducting the search of the purse, Officer Gramling
found multiple Rain X wipe pa ckages and the other blue
Gatorade. Officer Gramling test ified that Officer Alexander
then asked him to continue se arching for additional stolen
property.

7
The district court concluded that Officer Gr amling lacked probable cause to continue
searching the vehicle after he seized the items in E.W.’s purse because, at that point, “All
the missing items were accounted for, there by terminating any probable cause law
enforcement had to continue the search.” In other words, the district court determined that,
once all missing items had been recovered, th e officers had no probable cause to believe
that further evidence of crime would be found in the car.
The state argues that the district court incorrectly applied California v. Acevedo, 500
U.S. 565, 111 S. Ct. 1982 (1991). The state quarrels with the district court’s statement that
“[l]aw enforcement may search a container within a vehicle when there is probable cause
to believe there is evidence w ithin that container, however, that authority to search does
not expand to the entire vehicle.” The state is correct that the Supreme Court in Acevedo
reaffirmed its prior Ross holding that:
The scope of a warrantless search of an automobile . . . is not
defined by the nature of the container in which the contraband
is secreted. Rather, it is defined by the object of the search and
the places in which there is prob able cause to believe that it
may be found.

Acevedo, 500 U.S. at 579-80, 111 S. Ct. at 1991 (alteration in original) (quoting Ross, 456
U.S. at 824, 102 S. Ct. at 2172). The S upreme Court concluded that the automobile
exception allows police to “searc h an automobile and the cont ainers within it where they
have probable cause to believe contraband or evidence is contained.” Id. at 580, 111 S. Ct.
at 1991.
At oral argument, the state relied on State v. Schinzing , 342 N.W.2d 105 (Minn.
1983), for the proposition that, once an officer finds evidence or contraband in a vehicle,

8
the officer may then continue searching the vehicle to look for ad ditional evidence or
contraband. But the supreme court in Schinzing stated that “ordinarily probable cause to
search a vehicle will constitute probable cause to search the entire vehicle with at least
some intensity,” but “this is not inevitabl y the case.” 342 N.W.2d at 110 (emphasis
omitted) (quoting 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 7.2 at 533 (1978)). Rather, “police
officers ‘may conduct a search of a vehicle th at is as thorough as a magistrate could
authorize in a warrant particularly describing the place to be searched.’” Id. (quoting Ross,
456 U.S. at 800, 102 S. Ct. at 215 9 (internal quotations omitted)). In Ross, the United
States Supreme Court stated that:
When a legitimate search is un der way, and when its purpose
and its limits have been precis ely defined, nice distinctions
between . . . glove compartments , upholstered seats, trunks,
and wrapped packages, in the case of a vehicle, must give way
to the interest in the prompt and efficient completion of the task
at hand.

Ross, 456 U.S. at 821, 102 S. Ct. at 2171. Bu t “this does not mean that any time police
have probable cause, they are justifie d in searching the entire vehicle.” Schinzing, 342
N.W.2d at 111.
In Acevedo, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the pr inciple that “[p]robable cause to
believe that a container placed in the trunk of a [vehicle] contains contraband or evidence
does not justify a search of the entire [vehicle].” 500 U.S. at 5 80, 111 S. Ct. at 1991. It
stated that probable cause to believe that a paper bag in the trunk of a car contained
marijuana, justified a search of that bag. But, because the record contained no facts
supporting probable cause to believe that contraband was hidden in other parts of the car,
the officers could not search th e entire car without a warrant. Id. Under Acevedo, the

9
automobile exception allows police to search a car and cont ainers within it when there is
probable cause to believe that evidence or contraband will be found, but the search is
limited in scope by where and to what the probable cause extends. Id. If law enforcement
has probable cause to believe that evidence or contraband will be found in a specific
container within a car, a warrantless search of that container is permitted, but the scope of
the search does not necessarily extend to other containers or to the entire vehicle. See id.
Here, the district court correctly applie d well-established cons titutional law. The
district court found that the police had probable cause to search only E.W.’s purse, but not
the entire car, for the specific ite ms stolen from the convenience store. The district court
explained that “law enforcement had probable cause to believe there was stolen property
in the purse based on the statements made by the employee, statements by [E.W.], and that
she had already produced some of the stolen property.” The district court found probable
cause to believe that the stol en property was in E.W.’s purs e, limiting the scope of their
search to that location; implicit in the district court’s order is a determination that there was
not probable cause to search the car itself, precluding a se arch of any other containers
within the car.
On this record, the district court properly concluded that the officers had probable
cause to believe that the stolen items would be found in E.W.’s purse. The district court
found as fact that the police officers respo nded to a shoplifting call, saw E.W. and a car,
both of which had been described in the call, and respondent came out of the gas station
while the officers were talking to E.W. Th e store employee said that she watched E.W.
place into her purse some items from the store including two blue Gatorades, one Red Bull

10
drink, one Monster ener gy drink, and packages of Rain-X glass wipes. She left without
paying for those items. Meanwhile, Officer Alexander asked E.W. if she wanted to return
any stolen merchandise. E.W. sa id that she did, said that th e items were in her vehicle.
She retrieved one Gatorade, one Red Bull, and one Monster dr ink. Because a few items
remained unrecovered, Officer Gramling sear ched the purse and found a Gatorade and
multiple packages of Rain-X gl ass wipes. Officer Alexander then told Officer Gramling
to keep searching the car, and a number of items linked to controlled substances were
eventually discovered in respondent’s backpack. These findings of fact are supported by
the record.
The state also argues that probable cause extended to the full car and its containers
because Officer Alexander did not know whet her E.W. produced the initial stolen items
from her purse or from somewhere else in the car.
Regardless of whether the officers had prob able cause to search the vehicle when
they arrived, the district court determined th at they lacked probab le cause to continue
searching the vehicle after Officer Gramling found the second Gatorade and Rain-X wipes
because, at that time, “All the missing items were accounted for, thereby terminating any
probable cause law enforcement had to conti nue the search.” The state does not dispute
that all of the items reported missing from the store were recovered after Officer Gramling
searched E.W.’s purse. 2 Officer Gramling testified that, after he told Officer Alexander

2 At oral argument, the state contended that the specific number of Rain-X wipes that E.W.
had stolen was unknown, and the police therefore had a basis for believing that there might
still be unrecovered stolen merchandise in respo ndent’s car. First, this was not argued to
the district court. See Roby v. State , 547 N.W.2d 354, 357 (M inn. 1996) (stating that
appellate courts generally will not consider matters not argued to and considered by the

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about the items he had found in the purse, Officer Alexander asked him to continue
searching the car. While “looking around the immediate area of the driver’s seat,” Officer
Gramling discovered an open alcohol cont ainer and the controlled substances in
respondent’s backpack.
The state cites to State v. Armstrong, 291 N.W.2d 918 (Minn. 1980), and State v.
Schultz, 271 N.W.2d 836 (Minn. 1978), for the pro position that an officer’s discovery of
some contraband in a car provides probable cause to search for more contraband. It is true
that “[t]he discovery of marijuana in a car gives law enforcement probable cause to search
for more anywhere in the car where one might reasonably expect to find marijuana.” State
v. Thiel, 846 N.W.2d 605, 611 (Minn. App. 2014) (citing Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d at 110),
review denied (Minn. Aug. 5, 2014). Even the officer’s detection of an odor of marijuana
from a car can provide probable cause to search the entire car for marijuana. See State v.
Pierce, 347 N.W.2d 829, 833 (Minn. App. 1984). Minnesota case law authorizes a broad
search of a vehicle when law enforcement has probable cause to believe that there are drugs
in it.
But Armstrong, Schultz, Thiel, and Pierce do not apply here. Those cases discuss
searches for marijuana, which law enforcement is trained to detect. In Thiel, we stated that,
even when a suspect provides law enforcement with some evidence of marijuana and
denies the presence of other marijuana or cont raband in the car, law enforcement is “not
obligated to believe [the suspect]’s asserti on that there [is] no more marijuana in the

district court). More importantly, there is no testimony in the record to support that police
were motivated by this uncertainty concerning the precise number of Rain-X packets when
Officer Gramling returned to search the car and its contents a second time.

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vehicle.” 846 N.W.2d at 611. But cases involving searches of vehicles for marijuana seem
always to involve unknown amounts of the drug, and seem never to involve police knowing
for certain how much marijuana is in a car they are searching. Here, however, the officers
were looking for a finite number of specifica lly identified items that were taken from the
store. The legitimate object of their search was those items. On ce those items were
recovered, which the district court found they had been, the officers had no probable cause
to believe that there would be further evidence or contraband in the vehicle. And, unlike
Thiel, the officers here had been told by a disinterested third party that all stolen items had
been recovered after Officer Gramling searched E.W.’s purse. See id.
Officer Gramling’s lack of personal kno wledge of what was stolen makes no
difference. The gas station employee told at least Officer Tollefson the specific items that
were missing. “[T]he officer who conducts th e search is imputed with knowledge of all
facts known by the other officers involved in the investigation, as long as the officers have
some degree of communication.” State v. Lemieux, 726 N.W.2d 783, 789 (Minn. 2007).3
The officers here acted in con cert and spoke to one another. After all of the stolen items
had been recovered, there was no further proba ble cause to believe that there would be
other contraband or evidence in the car. While Officer Gramling testified that he was not
told what items were missing, “[a]ctual communication of information to the officer
conducting the search is unnecessary.” Id.

3 The supreme court stated this rule in a ssessing the reasonableness of an emergency-aid
search, but it applies with equal force in other law-enforcement scenarios. See, e.g., State
v. Riley, 568 N.W.2d 518, 523 (Min n. 1997) (using this colle ctive-knowledge approach
when reviewing a warrantless arrest); State v. Conaway, 319 N.W.2d 35, 40 (Minn. 1982)
(same).

13
This is not a case where the suspects or the car had been reported as being involved
in other thefts or robberies, nor is it a case where the officers sm elled marijuana or had
probable cause to believe that there were other drugs in the car. Instead, police were called
about a person who had stolen a finite numbe r of specified items, which the officers
recovered. On these facts, the district court did not err in determining that the automobile
exception does not apply to the continued se arch of the car, once Officer Gramling
recovered all of the stolen items. Had police, after recovery of the stolen items, applied to
a magistrate for a search warrant to continue searching, there would not have been probable
cause to support its issuance. See Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d at 110 (quoting Ross, 456 U.S.
at 800, 102 S. Ct. at 2159) (stating that a warrantless search under the automobile exception
may only be as extensive as one that a magistrate could authorize in a warrant).
III. The district court did not err in suppre ssing the evidence obtained from the car
and respondent’s backpack.

Evidence discovered by an illegal search must be suppressed under the fruit-of-the-
poisonous-tree doctrine “unless the state can show that the subsequently obtained evidence
has been purged of the primary taint.” State v. deLottinville, 877 N.W.2d 199, 202 (Minn.
App. 2016) (internal quota tions and citations omitted), aff’d, 890 N.W.2d 116 (Minn.
2017). In determining whether the evidence is fruit of the poisonous tree, courts consider:
“(1) the purpose and flagrancy of the mi sconduct; (2) the presence of intervening
circumstances; (3) whether it is likely that the evidence would have been obtained in the
absence of the illegality; and (4) the temporal proximity of the illegality and the evidence
alleged to be the fruit of the illegality.” State v. Olson, 634 N.W.2d 224, 229 (Minn. App.
2001), review denied (Minn. Dec. 11, 2001).

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The district court thoroughly addressed each of these factors in its order and
memorandum. It determined that the evidence of methamphetamine, oxycodone, and drug
paraphernalia was fruit of the poisonous tree and therefore inadmissible. The state does
not challenge the district court’s analysis of these factors, and argues only that the search
of the entire car was lawful. But, because no warrant or exception to the warrant
requirement justified the search of the car and backpack, all evid ence seized from that
search must be suppressed.
IV. The district court did not err in di smissing the charges against respondent.
The district court found that, without the drug evidence from respondent’s
backpack, no probable cause supports the two charges of fifth-degree controlled substance
possession, and it therefore dismissed the complaint. The state concedes in its brief that it
cannot prove the charges without the drug evidence. Because that evidence was properly
suppressed, the district court did not e rr when it dismissed th e complaint against
respondent.
Affirmed.