State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A20-0463

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Resa Lynn Gauthier,
Appellant.

Filed March 22, 2021
Reversed and remanded
Reilly, Judge

Crow Wing County District Court
File No. 18-CR-17-3966

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

Donald F. Ryan, Crow Wing County Attorney, Stephanie Shook, Assistant County
Attorney, Brainerd, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Publi c Defender, Adam Lozeau, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Reilly, Presiding Judge; Florey, Judge; and Frisch,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
REILLY, Judge
After a deputy responded to a call reporting that appellant was sleeping in her
vehicle, he searched her purse and discovered methamphetamine. The state charged
appellant with first-degree possession of methamphetamine. Appellant moved to suppress

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the evidence found in the search of her purse. The district court denied her motion. After
a trial on stipulated facts, the district court found appellant guilty. In this appeal, she
challenges the district court’s denial of her motion to suppress on the ground that the
warrantless search of her purse was not a valid protective weapons search. We agree, and
reverse and remand.
FACTS
On a September morning in 2017, a deputy responded to a call from a Holiday gas
station clerk in Garrison, Minnesota, reporting that a vehicle had been parked at a gas pump
a long time with a person either sleeping or passed out inside. When the deputy arrived at
the gas station, he pulled up behind the vehicle and activated his squad car video. The
deputy performed a cursory search of the vehicle and did not notice any weapons or
contraband in the vehicle , but he did notice appellant Resa Lynn Gauthier sitting in the
driver’s seat with her seatbelt on.
Appellant was “kind of slumped to the side” and “appeared to be sleeping,” but the
deputy could not definiti vely tell whether she was passed out, sleeping, or dead. The
deputy “checked the doors of the vehicle” and found that they were locked, so he knocked
on the driver’s window and appellant woke up. Appellant rolled down the driver’s window
halfway and after the deputy again asked her to unlock the vehicle doors, she immediately
complied. The deputy opened the door and began questioning appellant.
Appellant at first appeared confused and did not know what city she was in. As the
deputy continued to question appellant, however, she became more coherent and told him
she came “up here” to attend her uncle’s funeral service and was headed to “Garrison Motel

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Inn and Suites.” The deputy told appellant that “most people don’t sleep at a gas pump”
and she explained that she has “a bad heart,” was at the casino all nig ht, and stayed there
too long.
The deputy testified that he did not know if appellant’s confusion was from “drugs
or alcohol use, or if it was just because she was sleeping and had just woken up.” When
the deputy asked appellant if she had been using any drugs or alcohol , she stated that she
had not. But he directed appellant to step outside of the vehicle and asked to see her arms
to check for needle marks. Appellant showed the deputy her arms , which were free of
needle marks. The deputy then observed that appellant had “bloodshot, watery eyes,” but
again, did not know if appellant’s eyes were irritated “from sleeping or any other drug use
or alcohol use.” The deputy told appellant that her eyes seemed a little bloodshot and she
told him that her eyes were red because she was tired and has cardiomyopathy. The deputy
stated that he could not smell any alcohol on appellant, but asked her to take a preliminary
breath test (PBT) “just to cover that base.” Appellant cooperated and her PBT came back
negative.
After administering the PBT test, the deputy told appellant she could light the
cigarette she was holding . While peering into the vehicle, the deputy asked appellant if
she also used a vaporizer to smoke and then corrected himself after realizing that the object
he believed was a vaporizer was a butane lighter. The deputy testified that he thought that
appellant having a butane lighter “seemed kind of odd for a female.” Appellant told the
deputy she used the butane lighter to smoke. The deputy opened the vehicle door, reached
inside, and removed the butane lighter. He reached inside the vehicle for a second time,

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removed an unidentifiable object, and then reached in for a third time to search the vehicle.
After he finished searching the vehicle, the deputy asked appellant if there were any drugs
in it and she told him no.
The deputy then reached inside the vehicle for the fourth time, removed appellant’s
purse from the vehicle, handed it to her c ommenting that the purse was heavy, and asked
appellant to get her ID out. Appellant dug through her purse and placed an item, later
identified as a digital scale, in her pant pocket. While appellant dug through her purse, the
deputy asked her, “What do you have in there? Change?” The deputy then peered into the
purse and asked appellant if she had any weapons in it. Appellant told the deputy she did
not, but he took appellant’s purse away from her and told appellant that he was “gonna
reach in there and make sure.”
The deputy placed the purse on the driver’s seat of the vehicle and explained that he
was searching it because appellant’s purse was “very, very, very heavy” and that when a
purse is that heavy, he is “going to check it out.” The deputy tes tified that he “look[ed]
inside of [appellant’s] purse to look for her driver’s license, or [to] see if there was any
weapons in the purse.” He searched appellant’s purse for nearly two minutes and
commented on its contents such as “you’ve got a lot of cell phones.” He also discovered a
baggie containing methamphetamine and put appellant under arrest . The deputy did not
ask appellant her name until after he arrested her and placed her in the backseat of his squad
car.
The state charged appellant with first -degree possession of methamphetamine,
Minn. Stat. § 152.021, subd. 2(a)(1) (2016). Appellant moved to suppress the evidence

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and to dismiss the complaint for lack of probable cause. After a contested omnibus hearing,
the district court denied appellant’s motion to suppress and to dismiss. The district court
found that the warrantless search of appellant’s purse was a constitutionally valid
protective weapons search. Appellant later waived her right to a jury trial a nd proceeded
with a trial on stipulated facts. The district court found appellant guilty and sentenced her
to 98 months in prison. This appeal followed.
DECISION
Appellant argues that the district court erred by denying her motion to suppress
evidence because the warrantless search of her purse was not a valid protective weapons
search under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968). We review de novo whether
reasonable suspicion justifies a search. State v. Burbach , 706 N.W.2d 484, 487 (Minn.
2005). When reviewing the legality of a search, “an appellate court will not reverse the
[district] court’s findings unless clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” In re Welfare of
G.M., 560 N.W.2d 687, 690 (Minn. 1997).
The United States and Minnesota Constitutions guarantee an individual’s right to be
free from unreasonable searches. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. A
search conducted without a warrant is presumptively unreasonable unless the state proves
that an exception to the warrant requirement applies. State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239,
248 (Minn. 2007). Here, the deputy did not have a warrant to search appellant’s purse.
For the search to be constitutional, therefore, it “must fall within one of the well-delineated
exceptions to the warrant requirement.” State v. Munson , 594 N.W.2d 128, 135 (Minn.

6
1999). The district court found that the deputy “performed a permissible protective
weapons search of [appellant’s] purse.”
Under Terry, police may temporarily detain a person for investigatory purposes
when an officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has engaged in
criminal activity. Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-21, 88 S. Ct. at 1878-80. While detaining a person
for inv estigatory purposes, officers may “protect themselves and other[s]” by “tak [ing]
necessary measures to determine whether the person is . . . carrying a weapon” when the
officer has a justified belief that the person the officer is investigating “is armed a nd
presently dangerous.” Id. at 24, 88 S. Ct. at 1881. “[I]n determining whether the officer
acted reasonably in such circumstances, due weight must be given . . . to the specific
reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his experience.”
Id. at 27, 88 S. Ct. at 1883. Officers need not be certain that the person is armed; “the issue
is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief
that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Id.
An officer’s belief that a suspect might be armed and dangerous, however, must rest
on more than an “unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch.’” Id. Thus, an officer “must be
able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences
from those facts,” reasonably warrant the protective weapons search. Id. at 21, 88 S. Ct. at
1880. When an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous,
the officer may conduct “a carefully limited frisk for weapons.” State v. Dickerson, 481
N.W.2d 840, 846 (Minn. 1992) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S. Ct. at 1884), aff’d, 508
U.S. 366, 113 S. Ct. 2130 (1993).

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“The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow
the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.” Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 336, 373, 113 S. Ct. 2130, 2136 (1993) (quotation omitted). A protective search
thus must be strictly limited to “those areas in which a weapon may be placed or hidden.”
Flowers, 734 N.W.2d at 253 (quotation omitted); see also Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 373, 113
S. Ct. at 2136 (stating th at a protective search “must be strictly limited to that which is
necessary for the discovery of weapons” (citation omitted)). “If the protective search goes
beyond what is necessary to determine if the suspect is armed, it is no longer valid under
Terry and its fruits will be suppressed.” Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 373, 113 S. Ct. at 2136.
Here, the district court held that while the deputy “had no direct evidence to believe
that [appellant] was armed and dangerous,” he did not search appellant’s purse “based on
groundless speculation” and therefore, he performed a permissible protective weapons
search. We disagree. Nothing in the deputy’s testimony or our review of the squad car
footage reveals that he had a particularized basis to suspect appellant may have had
weapons warranting a search of her purse.
The deputy responded to a call of a person sleeping in her car at a gas station. There
was no sign that appellant would likely be armed and dangerous. This court has concluded
that, absent additional suspicious circumstances, a frisk for weapons is improper during a
routine stop for a minor traffic violation. In re Welfare of M.D.B., 601 N.W.2d 214, 216
(Minn. App. 1999). Here appellant did not commit a traffic violation —she fell asleep in
her vehicle —and the circumstances surrounding the deputy’s investigation were
nonthreatening. The deputy testified that appellant fully co operated with his requests.

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Appellant did not make any furtive or evasive movements towards a place where a weapon
could be concealed. See State v. Eggersgluess, 483 N.W.2d 94, 97 (Minn. 1992) (stating
that sudden or furtive movement towards a place where a weapon could be concealed may
justify a search). Before arresting appellant, the deputy had no reason to believe that she
had any criminal history.
And even if appellant had a weapon in her purse, after she complied with the
deputy’s direction to get out of her car, the purse was in her vehicle and beyond the area of
her immediate control. When a purse is not within the immediate control of a suspect,
police cannot search it for weapons. State v. Wynne, 552 N.W.2d 218, 222 (Minn. 1996).
Appellant did not gain control of her purse until the deputy removed it from the vehicle
and handed it to her. The deputy himself thus created any imagined threat that the contents
of the purse posed to him. The deputy cannot remedy a “self -generated dang erous
situation” by invading appellant’s privacy. Id. Simply put, no specific facts here establish
a reasonable suspicion that appellant was armed and dangerous.
Even if we concluded that the deputy had a reasonable belief that appellant was
armed and dangerous, the deputy failed to frisk appellant or her purse before conducting
his search. Under Minnesota caselaw and Terry, an officer may not search a suspect unless
the officer first performs a strictly limited frisk. See State v. Richmond, 602 N.W.2d 647,
652 (Minn. App. 1997) (holding that a search exceeded the scope of that authorized by
Terry when the officer failed to pat -search the defendant’s pocket before he reached into
the pocket); State v. Crook, 485 N.W.2d 726, 729 (Minn. App. 1992) (concluding that “the
removal of appellant’s cap from his head as an alternative to a pat search of the cap went

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beyond a Terry reasonable protective weapons search”) , review denied (Minn. Aug. 4,
1992). And “with respect to a police search, a shoulder purse is so closely associated with
the person that it is identified with and included within the concept of one’s person.”
Wynne, 552 N.W.2d at 220 (quotation omitted). Under Terry, moreover, a protective
weapons search must be strictly limited to the areas a weapon may be hidden. 392 U.S. at
29, 88 S. Ct. at 1884. The deputy did not strictly limit his search. Instead, he searched
through all of appellant’s purse for nearly two minutes.
Because the deputy did not have a reasonable suspicion that appellant was armed
and dangerous and because he exceeded his authority under Terry, we conclude that the
district court erred when it determined that the Terry protective weapons search exception
to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement authorized the deputy to search appellant’s
purse. We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Appellant also argues that because the district court incorrectly calculated her
criminal history score and thus imposed an incorrect sentence, this court must remand her
case for resentencing. Having determined that the district court erred when it found that
the deputy’s warrantless search of appellant’s purse was a valid protective weapons search
under Terry, we need not reach this issue.
Reversed and remanded.