A Cole County sheriff's deputy never had probable cause to make a traffic stop, so Justin Cardwell's DWI conviction and 45-day shock-treatment imprisonment never should have happened, a three-judge appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.
The attorney general's office said Tuesday afternoon it's "reviewing the ruling" and hasn't decided if it will ask the appeals court to reconsider its decision or to have the state Supreme Court hear the case.
Although the appeals court must consider any case it gets, the seven-judge Supreme Court has no obligation to hear a case.
Cardwell, now 32, was stopped about 1 a.m. Sept. 16, 2011, on Kautsch Road, a gravel road in western Cole County.
In the five-page ruling, Judge Victor Howard noted sheriff's Sgt. Dane Huffman testified he was on his way to assist another officer "when he observed a vehicle in front of him traveling "very slow.'"
Noting Kautsch Road is "not a very wide road," Huffman testified in a 2013 trial "that he quickly caught up with the vehicle, which was traveling in front of him and going in the same direction." Huffman testified the vehicle then stopped in the right hand lane and the driver motioned for him to go around.
Instead Huffman chose to "check on the driver, make sure everything was okay," so he turned his lights on so Cardwell would know it was a deputy and as a warning beacon to anyone else.
Asked for his driver's license, Cardwell told the deputy "he was fine," but that Huffman testified he "could smell alcohol coming from inside the vehicle."
Huffman ultimately arrested Cardwell, prosecutors charged him with driving while intoxicated as a persistent offender - a Class D felony carrying a possible prison sentence "not to exceed four years."
After Judge Pat Joyce sentenced Cardwell to three years in prison, but suspended the execution of the sentence and placed him on five years' supervised probation following a 45-day shock detention.
Cardwell's appeal challenged Joyce's rulings before and during the trial overruling his motions to suppress Huffman's evidence obtained after the traffic stop.
Howard's opinion for the three-judge appeals court panel noted: "It is not disputed that after the police stopped and made contact with Cardwell, the officer testified that he observed Cardwell to have watery, bloodshot eyes, could smell the odor of alcohol from his car, and Cardwell admitted to the officer that he had been drinking.
"However, the propriety of Cardwell's detention, which led to his subsequent arrest, turns on whether the police legally stopped his vehicle in the first instance."
Huffman had testified that he had not observed Cardwell's vehicle commit any traffic offense before the stop, the judges noted.
After reviewing the case record, the appeals court determined: "There is nothing in the record indicating that Sergeant Huffman had reasonable suspicion that illegal activity had occurred or was occurring. Circumstances that may stimulate mere curiosity are insufficient to permit an investigatory stop."