David, J.
Will Thomas was found guilty of Class A felony dealing in a narcotic drug, and now appeals his conviction under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the reasons discussed herein, we find Thomas’s arrest was lawful and the evidence recovered was admissible. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s conviction.
… On April 7, 2014, the Joint Effort Against Narcotics (“JEAN”) Team Drug Task Force … received a tip from a credible confidential informant that two men from Chicago were travelling to Grant County to sell drugs. The informant told JEAN officers that the two men were driving a white minivan with a temporary Illinois license plate, and could be found at the Comfort Suites in Marion, Indiana.
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Detective Stefanatos followed the van and observed it illegally change lanes without properly signaling. Detective Stefanatos then called for a uniformed police officer, Joseph Martin (“Officer Martin”), to initiate a traffic stop. He also called for a canine unit on the scene, which arrived within a minute or two.
Officer Martin initiated the stop and approached the vehicle with Detective Stefanatos. Officer Martin walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle and spoke with Christmas while Detective Stefanatos spoke with Thomas, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. …
Simultaneous to the traffic stop, officers ran a certified narcotics canine around the vehicle with the occupants still inside. … When the canine reached the driver’s door, it alerted officers to the presence of narcotics. Officers removed Thomas and Christmas from the vehicle and conducted a pat-down search for officer safety. No drugs or weapons were found in the course of the pat-down.
Christmas then gave officers permission to search the vehicle. The canine was brought into the vehicle’s interior, but it no longer detected the presence of narcotics. No narcotics or contraband were found in a subsequent search of the vehicle’s interior. …
Christmas and Thomas were each asked whether they would consent to a strip search at the police station. Christmas agreed and was transported to the county jail where no drugs were found on his person. … Thomas, on the other hand, declined the search. Given Thomas’s refusal to consent, officers applied for a search warrant. In the meantime, they transported Thomas to the Marion Police Station where he would await the results of the search warrant request. …
Upon arrival at the station, Thomas was placed in an interview room, which was equipped with video monitoring equipment. … Moments later, Thomas was seen removing something from his jacket pocket and placing it in his mouth. Officers re-entered the room to retrieve what Thomas had placed in his mouth. When Thomas refused to comply, officers forced his mouth open and retrieved a small plastic baggie containing 8.5 grams of a gray, crumbly, rock-like substance. The substance later tested positive for heroin.
Thomas was charged with Class A felony dealing in a narcotic drug and Class B misdemeanor battery. Prior to trial, Thomas moved to suppress evidence recovered at the police station, alleging officers lacked probable cause to detain him. The trial court denied Thomas’s motion. After a two-day jury trial, Thomas was found guilty of dealing in a narcotic drug, but not guilty of battery. Thomas appealed.
In a published opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed Thomas’s conviction, finding that police violated Thomas’s Fourth Amendment rights when they detained and transported him to the police station to await a search warrant. Thomas v. State, 65 N.E.3d 1096, 1103 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), transfer granted, opinion vacated, 2017 WL 1160999 (Ind. Mar. 23, 2017). The Court of Appeals further found that the trial court erred in not excluding evidence obtained during that detention.
The State then sought transfer. …
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Thomas does not dispute the legality of most activities carried out by law enforcement on the day of his arrest. …
Instead, Thomas argues that officers lacked probable cause to transport him to the police station because, although a positive canine alert undoubtedly gives officers probable cause to search a vehicle, it does not create probable cause to search any of the vehicle’s occupants or to detain them.
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… Whether probable cause to search the vehicle gave officers probable cause to search the occupants is irrelevant. Aside from a roadside pat-down that Thomas concedes was lawfully administered, Thomas was not searched. … Thus, the pertinent question is more accurately framed as whether probable cause to detain Thomas and transport him to the police station arose at any point during the traffic stop. …
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… Given the nature of the encounter between Thomas and officers, we turn to the Fourth Amendment, which regulates all nonconsensual encounters between citizens and law enforcement officials. Finger v. State, 799 N.E.2d 528, 532 (Ind. 2003). … The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies not only to searches and seizures of property, but also to physical apprehension of persons, such as arrests. Roberts v. State, 599 N.E.2d 595, 598 (Ind. 1992). … Thus, to lawfully seize Thomas at the traffic stop, transport him to the police station, and detain him in the interrogation room pending the search warrant request results, officers needed probable cause to believe he possessed contraband.
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In searching through our own jurisprudence, we find our Court has also not yet addressed the question directly. …
The Court of Appeals, on the other hand, has addressed the question twice, although in each instance they have reached opposite results. The latest decision on the issue happens to be the case before us. There, the Court of Appeals cited a lack of probable cause for the arrest as the reason for finding the evidence inadmissible. Prior to that, in Richard v. State, 7 N.E.3d 347, 349-50 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014), our Court of Appeals found that probable cause existed.
The facts in Richard are substantially similar to the ones presented here. Officers conducted a traffic stop when they observed a vehicle in front of them repeatedly cross the center line. Two occupants were seated in the front of the vehicle –… the defendant, Charla Richard, sat in the passenger side. … When she was asked to raise her right arm, a small tin containing meth fell out of her shirt and onto the ground. Richard was arrested and she moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search under both the federal and state constitution. The trial court denied the motion, and she was subsequently convicted.
The Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction, finding, in part, that the canine’s alert provided probable cause to believe there were drugs in the vehicle. Id. at 349-50.
The State contends that we should heed the reasoning of our Court of Appeals in Richard and adopt a rule that allows for the arrest of a vehicle’s occupants where there is probable cause to believe that the occupants possess drugs. To the extent that this is the rule in Richard, we are inclined to agree with the State, but we depart from the Richard panel on the amount of evidence needed to establish probable cause. … In fact, we believe it is unlikely that any of the facts presented here would have, on their own, armed officers with the probable cause necessary to conduct a lawful arrest. The case we are presented with, however, offers much more than a single canine alert to support a probable cause finding.
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… We agree that the canine alert, by itself, may not have been enough to give officers probable cause to arrest Thomas. … What occurred here is an example of good policing in a difficult situation. …
The totality of the circumstances presented here convinces us that officers had probable cause to believe Thomas was in possession of narcotics. Therefore, transporting him to, and detaining him at, the police station to await the results of the search warrant request did not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. … Any evidence recovered in that instance cannot be said to be “fruit of the poisonous tree,” and its admission did not violate Thomas’s Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s decision to admit the evidence and we reinstate Thomas’s conviction.
Rush, C.J., and Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.