City of Platteville v. Travis Jon Knautz, 2024AP1291 & 1292, 12/5/24, District IV (1-judge decision, ineligible for publication); case activity
In this drunk driving forfeiture case, the city appeals an order granting Knautz’s motion to suppress all of the evidence that police obtained after an investigatory traffic stop. The COA affirms, concluding that the city failed to show that there was reasonable suspicion for the stop.
An officer saw Knautz in his vehicle, which was running and had the headlights on, parked at a closed business at 11:50 p.m. and decided to watch. (¶4). He could not see what Knautz was doing in the vehicle, so he drove to a parking lot directly across the road. At that time, Knautz backed out and headed toward a highway ramp. The officer pulled Knautz over on the highway ramp. (¶¶6-7).
As the officer did not see Knautz doing anything specific, no one else entered or exited his vehicle, and the testimony about prior break-ins in the area was extremely vague, the COA distinguishes the three unpublished cases the city relies on. (¶¶20-21). Two of the cases involved businesses or well-defined areas that had recent histories of break-ins known to the investigating officer. See State v. Able, No. 2009AP2777-CR, unpublished slip op. (WI App Apr. 14, 2010); State v. Beckman, No. 2010AP2564-CR, unpublished slip op. (WI App June 29, 2011). In the third, the defendant had entered a closed business after 3 a.m. See State v. Parker, No. 2012AP245-CR, unpublished slip op. (WI App July 12, 2012).
The court concludes that the city failed to clear the “low bar” of reasonable suspicion and instead relied on what was, at most, “a mere hunch” by the sergeant regarding the possibility of an active or imminent break-in or other property crime. See State v. Genous, 2021 WI 50, ¶8, 397 Wis. 2d 293, 961 N.W.2d 41. (¶18). Given that it was unusual to see a parked car at that time and location, an officer “could reasonably entertain a professional interest in the parked car, . . . . [b]ut it would be a leap to go from what made the circumstances here ‘unusual’ to anything resembling the specific and articulable facts warranting a reasonable belief that criminal activity was afoot.” (¶23).
