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Euteneier v State (09/14/2001) ap-1764
Euteneier v State (09/14/2001) ap-1764
NOTICE
The text of this opinion can be corrected before the
opinion is published in the Pacific Reporter. Readers are
encouraged to bring typographical or other formal errors to the
attention of the Clerk of the Appellate Courts:
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E-mail: corrections@appellate.courts.state.ak.us
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
STATE OF ALASKA, )
) Court of Appeals No. A-7602
Petitioner, ) Trial Court No. J 371042 CR
)
v. )
) O P I N I O N
MATTHEW RYAN EUTENEIER, )
)
Respondent. ) [No. 1764 - September 14, 2001]
)
Petition for Review from the District Court,
First Judicial District, Juneau, John W. Sivertsen, Jr., Magistrate.
Appearances: W. H. Hawley, Jr., Assistant
Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals,
Anchorage, and Bruce M. Botelho, Attorney General, Juneau, for
Petitioner. No appearance for Respondent.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and
Stewart, Judges.
COATS, Chief Judge.
On October 31, 1999, Juneau police officers responded to
a loud party call and discovered minors consuming alcoholic
beverages. When police were denied entry into the house they
obtained a search warrant that authorized them to look for evidence
of minors consuming or in possession of alcoholic beverages. [Fn.
1] Pursuant to the search warrant, the police entered the house and
contacted Matthew Ryan Euteneier, a minor, who appeared to be
intoxicated. Euteneier submitted to an Intoximeter 3000 test, which
showed that his breath alcohol content was .119 percent. Euteneier
was charged with consuming alcohol as a minor. [Fn. 2]
Most offenses defined in Title 4 are class A misdemeanors.
[Fn. 3] However, the legislature has designated the offense of
consuming alcohol as a minor as a "violation." [Fn. 4] The only
penalty for this offense is "a fine of not less than $100." [Fn. 5]
Based on this fact, Euteneier asked the district court to
suppress all evidence seized under the authority of the search
warrant. Relying on the language of AS 12.35.020(4), Euteneier
asserted that search warrants can only be issued to investigate
"crimes" not "violations." Euteneier therefore argued that the court
had lacked authority to issue the search warrant in his case
because the warrant purported to authorize a search for evidence of
a violation. Magistrate John W. Sivertsen, Jr., agreed with
Euteneier and suppressed the evidence.
The question presented here is whether the language of AS
12.35.020(4) prohibits a court from issuing a search warrant to look
for evidence of a "violation" as opposed to evidence of a "crime" (a
misdemeanor or a felony) that carries a potential jail sentence.
We conclude that the supreme court's decision in State v. Clayton
[Fn. 6] answers this question: search warrants may validly be
issued to investigate violations.
In Clayton, the district court quashed a series of arrest
warrants issued when motorists failed to appear for their traffic
cases or failed to mail in their fines. The district court ruled
that, because the motorists' offenses were merely "infractions"
(offenses punishable solely by a fine), [Fn. 7] their traffic cases
were really civil in nature. Thus, the court concluded, the
enforcement procedures normally available in criminal cases (such
as the issuance of arrest warrants) were not available in the
motorists' traffic cases. [Fn. 8]
The supreme court disagreed. The court concluded that "a
prosecution for a traffic infraction is a quasi-criminal proceeding
to which certain criminal procedures including the issuance of
warrants are applicable." [Fn. 9] While acknowledging that the
legislature had labeled infractions "non-criminal," the supreme court
concluded that the legislature had done this to remove the criminal
stigma from traffic offenses but had intended to keep criminal
procedures available to the traffic laws. The court ruled that the
legislature had "created a class of quasi-criminal offenses which,
while they are not serious, are to be disposed of within the
criminal justice system." [Fn. 10]
The supreme court noted that there was no express
legislative declaration that it intended to affect the traditional
use of criminal procedures in traffic cases. Rather, the court
concluded that the wording of AS 28.35.230(d) made no change in the
"traditional mode of proceeding in criminal matters with the
exception of its declaration that a person cited with an infraction
does not have a right to trial by jury or to court-appointed
counsel." [Fn. 11] Thus, the supreme court found that the
legislature intended to continue to enforce traffic offenses
(including "infractions") with all the traditional criminal
procedures.
Recently, in State v. Dutch Harbor Seafoods, Ltd., [Fn.
12] the supreme court reaffirmed its central holding in Clayton in
the context of the noncriminal commercial fishing offenses defined
as "violations" in AS 16.05.722: "Clayton recognized that, regardless
of the legislative designation of such offenses as non-criminal,
violations and infractions are minor criminal offenses in substance
and are to be enforced and adjudicated using criminal procedures."
[Fn. 13]
In light of the supreme court's analysis and decisions
in Clayton and Dutch Harbor Seafoods, we conclude that the
"violations" defined in Title 4, like the "infractions" defined in
Title 28 and the "violations" defined in Title 16, are "a class of
quasi-criminal offenses which, while they are not serious, are to
be disposed of within the criminal justice system." [Fn. 14] We also
conclude that these violations can be enforced by traditional
criminal procedures, including the use of search warrants.
The decision of the district court is REVERSED. This case
is remanded for further proceedings on the complaint.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1:
District Court Judge Peter B. Froehlich issued the warrant.
Footnote 2:
AS 04.16.050(a).
Footnote 3:
See AS 04.16.180(a).
Footnote 4:
AS 04.16.050(b).
Footnote 5:
Id.
Footnote 6:
584 P.2d 1111 (Alaska 1978).
Footnote 7:
See AS 28.35.230.
Footnote 8:
See Clayton, 584 P.2d at 1113.
Footnote 9:
Id.
Footnote 10:
Id. at 1114.
Footnote 11:
Id. at 1113.
Footnote 12:
965 P.2d 738 (Alaska 1998).
Footnote 13:
Id. at 746.
Footnote 14:
Clayton, 584 P.2d at 1114; see also Dutch Harbor Seafoods, 965
P.2d at 745.
