State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A18-0498

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jeremy Scott Blahowski,
Appellant.

Filed January 22, 2019
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge

Anoka County District Court
File No. 02-CR-16-7319

Keith M. Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Robert I. Yount, Assistant County
Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, John Donovan, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and deci ded by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Connolly, Judge; and Reyes,
Judge.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
CONNOLLY, Judge
Appellant stipulated to respondent’s case pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd.
4, to obtain review of the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence that resulted in his
conviction of one count of first-degree possession of a controlled substance. He challenges
his conviction on the ground that he was stopped in an area outside the jurisdiction of the
officer who stopped him. Because we see no error in the denial of appellant’s mot ion to
suppress, we affirm. In a pro se brief, appellant raises issues that are not properly before
us, and we decline to address them.
FACTS
In November 2016, an Anoka County deputy noticed a car that had one taillight
covered with red tape, a license plate that the deputy’s computer indicated was “not on
file,” and possibly expired registration stickers. The deputy followed the car from Anoka
County into Washington County, where the car changed lanes wit hout signaling. The
deputy then stopped the car. The driver, appellant Jeremy Blahowski, was holding a plastic
bag of a crystalline substance the deputy believed to be methamphetamine. Appellant got
out of the car and began running; the deputy pursued a nd eventually caught and arrested
him. Two bags of methamphetamine were seized.
Appellant was charged with first -degree possession of a controlled substance,
fleeing a police officer, and, because there was a child in the car at the time, child
endangerment. Appellant moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that the deputy

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had not noticed any illegal conduct within Anoka County and therefore lacked authority to
stop appellant in Washington County. The district court denied the motion.
Appellant stipulated to respondent State of Minnesota’s evidence on the charge of
possession of a controlled substance under Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, and the state
dismissed the other charges. The district court found him guilty and sentenced him to 128
months in prison.
Appellant challenges his conviction, arguing that the district court erred in denying
his motion to suppress the evidence and, in a pro se brief, raising constitutional and factual
issues.
D E C I S I O N
1. Motion to Suppress Evidence
Whether an officer had authority to stop a motorist outside the officer’s jurisdiction
is a legal question. State v. Tilleskjor, 491 N.W.2d 893, 894 (Minn. 1992) (reversing this
court’s determination that Minn. S tat. § 629.40, subd. 3 (1991) “‘ does not express any
legislative intent to extend the authority’ of police officers outside their jurisdictions ,”
concluding that the district court erred in suppressing breath -test results, and remanding
for trial). In Tilleskjor, a city police officer who saw a car weaving within its lane checked
the license and signaled the driver to stop; he was unsure whether he had seen the weaving
inside or outside the city limits. 491 N.W.2d at 894. A peace officer outside of his or her
jurisdiction “in the course and scope of employment or in fresh pursuit . . . is serving in the
regular line of duty as fully as though the service was within the [peace officer]’s

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jurisdiction.” Minn. Stat. § 629.40, subd. 3 (2018). Tilleskjor held that this statute “clearly
gave the officer all the authority he needed to act as he did.” 491 N.W.2d at 894.
Here, the deputy was acting within the course and scope of his employment when
he followed appellant into Washington County. The district court found that:
[The deputy’s] po lice report indicates that as he followed
[appellant’s] vehicle eastbound on Lake Drive NE, he noticed
the taillight covered in red tape, discovered that the license
plate number was not on file, and that [appellant’s] registration
might have been expired. After [the deputy made] those
observations, the report indicates that [appellant] then
continued eastbound on Lake Drive, now Highway 97, into the
City of Forest Lake. Thus, [the deputy’s] observations
regarding the fact that the license was not on file and the
possible expired registration occurred before the vehicle
entered Washington County. . . .
. . . Like the officer in Tilleskjor, [the deputy here] did not
possess reasonable articulable suspicion to stop the vehicle
until he was outside [county] limits.

Appellant argues that the “not on file” license plate and the apparently expired
registration stickers do not support the deputy’s stop of appellant because the deputy “did
not cite either of these circumstances as the reasons he continued into Washington County”
and “merely noted them as facts.” But appellant provides no support for his view that an
officer must identify a particular fact as his reason for continuing a pursuit in order to have
authority for the pursuit or a subsequent arrest. Moreover, while the reason for a stop must
be more than a hunch, insignificant violations of the law may provide an objective basis
for stopping a vehicle. State v. George, 557 N.W.2d 575, 578 (Minn. 1997) (citing State
v. Pleas , 329 N.W.2d 329 , 333 -34 (Minn. 1983) (upholding stop based on officer’s
observation of broken windshield, no front license plate, and rear plate upside down); State

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v. Barber, 241 N.W.2d 476, 477 (1976) (upholding stop based on officer’s observation that
license plate was wired on rather than bolted on)).
Tilleskjor was cited in State v. Bunde, 556 N.W.2d 917, 920 (Minn. App. 1996) for
the proposition that Minn. S tat. § 629.40, subd. 3, “requir [es] a holding that [the officer]
acted lawfully in the course and scope of his employment when he arrested [a driver], even
though he was outside his municipality at the time —and even though . . . his mission also
commenced outside [the city].” Bunde reversed a district court’s determination that a city
police officer who was patrolling three miles outside the city lacked authority to arrest the
underage, inebriated driver of a car stopped on the side of th e road. 556 N.W.2d at 919-
20. Appellant attempts to distinguish Bunde on the ground that, in that case, the state
submitted affidavits showing that the officers regularly patrolled outside the city and no
affidavits were submitted here. But this distinction is irrelevant: here, the officer’s mission
did not commence outside his jurisdiction, and there was no need for affidavits indicating
officers regularly patrol within their jurisdiction.
2. Appellant’s Pro Se Issues
Appellant’s pro se brief raises issues as to the violation of his rights under the First,
Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments, as well as to “encroachment”; he
also raises factual issues that might, or might not, have been resolved at trial. None of
these issues is properly before us, and we do not address them. See State v. Riley , 667
N.W.2d 153, 158 (Minn. App. 2003) (“[W]hen a case is submitted on stipulate d facts to
obtain review of a pretrial ruling . . . , appellate review is limited, and the defendant may

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not, on appeal, challenge the suffici ency of the evidence to support his conviction .”),
review denied (Minn. Oct. 21, 2003).
Affirmed.