State v. Caldwell

529 N.W.2d 282 (1995)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Officers Harrington and Meyer were on duty, in uniform, and on patrol in their marked car. They received a telephone message tip. The officers decided to locate D. Being familiar with D and his vehicle, they spotted him driving his vehicle within fifteen minutes of beginning their search. D pulled into and parked in the parking lot of a convenience store where D was reporting to work. The officers then followed the D into the parking lot. Harrington and D got out of their vehicles and exchanged a brief greeting. Harrington then grabbed D's lower left arm and asked him to place his hands on the side of D's vehicle. D turned toward his vehicle and placed his left arm on the vehicle. Harrington observed nothing in D's left hand but could not see D's right hand. D broke away and ran toward the rear of the vehicles and away from the convenience store. Meyer chased after him and yelled back to Harrington to stay with the vehicles. They ran across the street into a railroad yard. While he was chasing D, Meyer observed a white object cupped in D's right hand. Officer Meyer testified that he never lost sight of D during the chase. D stumbled a couple of times, and Officer Meyer caught him. After he caught D, D threw an object which landed in an area of dirt, grass, and weeds close to a fence. D was taken into custody and placed inside a patrol car. It was dark and Meyer could not see the object that he said D had previously thrown but estimated that D had thrown the object about ten feet. Meyer and two officers searched the area. Sergeant Ann Meyer, Meyer's wife, located an object and pointed it out. Meyer picked up the object, a plastic baggie filled with an off-white substance, and put it in his pocket. Meyer located D's car keys on the ground next to the vehicles in the convenience store parking lot. Meyer testified that he thought D had the plastic baggie in his pants pocket before he put it in his hand, but D testified he was wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt, neither of which had any pockets, at the time he was taken into custody. D testified that he did not have anything in his hands throughout the incident, except his car keys. He explicitly denied having possession of any crack cocaine or throwing any object away from himself. D claimed he ran because the car he was driving did not have insurance on it. The baggie contained cocaine and no fingerprints were recovered. D called three witnesses to testify concerning Officer Meyer's alleged reputation for untruthfulness. The district court refused. Each of the witnesses' testimony was based on comments made by persons who had had adverse contact with Officer Meyer in connection with his police duties and thus failed to satisfy the foundational requirement that reputation testimony be based upon the comments of a general cross-section of the community. D was convicted and appealed.