Judge finds state violated discovery law, dismisses DUI charge

A Gallatin County judge dismissed a misdemeanor DUI charge after finding the state failed to comply with its discovery obligations and that an investigator lacked probable cause to support the charge.

The defendant in the case, a 57-year-old Park County man, had been accused of driving while intoxicated in Gallatin Gateway on May 24, 2024. A state trooper had found the defendant among a group of people changing a tire on a gold-colored Toyota SUV in a school parking lot. This was shortly after a 911 caller claimed to have seen a drunk man emerge from a bar with a companion, get into a gold Toyota SUV, drive away in an erratic manner, and stop in a school parking lot. The trooper had received contradictory descriptions of the driver, suggesting the companion may have been driving. The trooper didn’t determine who had been driving and therefore lacked probable cause to conclude the defendant had driven while intoxicated, the judge found.

The judge in the case was Gallatin County Justice of the Peace Bryan Adams, who had ordered the state to disclose information requested by one of the defendant’s attorneys. In the American criminal justice system, defendants generally have the right to discover information being used against them by the government. In this case, a defense attorney filed a motion to obtain such evidence. Adams granted that discovery motion last May and ordered prosecutors to “provide all materials known or discovered by it pertinent to this case” and “all material in the State’s possession or in the State’s knowledge between now and the time of trial.”

Discovery dispute leads to dismissal

Eight months later, the county attorney’s office still hadn’t complied with the court order. In the meantime, the defendant filed a freedom of information request and obtained dispatch logs showing someone with whom he was in litigation had called 911 on him shortly before the other caller. This first, undisclosed 911 caller had alleged the defendant had been drinking at a bar in violation of his release terms in a separate, pending criminal accusation. The investigating trooper denied knowing anything about this first 911 caller. Prosecutors argued the two callers didn’t know one another.

One of the prosecutors in the case argued the state didn’t have to disclose the existence of the first 911 caller because that information wasn’t relevant or material to the case. In a Feb. 13 legal memorandum, the prosecutor cited a 1995 Montana ruling in State v. Hatfield as precedent. The first 911 caller wasn’t a witness the state planned to use, wouldn’t be material to guilt or punishment, and wouldn’t affect the outcome of the case, according to the prosecutor. Disclosing information about the caller “falls outside the scope of required disclosure,” the prosecutor wrote.

“As the Defendant cannot demonstrate materiality, prejudice, or any basis for relief under the authorities cited above, dismissal is not warranted,” the prosecutor wrote, responding to the defendant’s motion to dismiss the case.

Adams disagreed, calling the prosecutor’s arguments “a misstatement of the law.”

“It is not up to the State or its agents to determine whether any such material or information is inculpatory or exculpatory,” Adams wrote in his analysis. “The legislature has left that decision to the defendant.”

The “plain language” of state law 46-15-322 imposes a mandatory duty on the prosecution “to disclose all material and information listed whether inculpatory or exculpatory,” Adams wrote.

Adams found that a proper remedy for the state failing to abide by its discovery obligations – and his order – was a dismissal of the case. Adams also ruled that dismissal was warranted because the trooper lacked sufficient cause to seek a criminal charge against the defendant.

Trooper lacked legal authority to arrest defendant, judge finds

By the time the trooper encountered the group of people changing the tire, he had spoken to the second, disclosed 911 caller/informant. He also had verified the SUV’s license plate relayed to him by the informant was registered to the defendant. But as he encountered the group of people, the trooper didn’t try to determine who had been driving the vehicle and received conflicting descriptions of what the driver had been wearing.

The dispatcher had told the trooper that a man wearing a blue plaid shirt was seen drunkenly driving the gold SUV that had a flat tire. This description was reportedly based on the informant. The informant later told the trooper the driver wore an orange plaid shirt and was accompanied by a man in a blue plaid shirt. The informant also sent prosecutors a May 25, 2024, email stating that the SUV’s driver wore a brown/orange plaid shirt.

The details provided to authorities by the second caller were, “at best, minimally corroborated,” Adams wrote. Instead of verifying the information from the caller, the trooper had “simply relied on that information to immediately initiate a DUI investigation upon contacting Defendant,” according to Adams.

The trooper didn’t ask anyone on scene who was driving the vehicle, nor had the trooper seen anyone driving the vehicle.

“He was therefore unable to corroborate any claims regarding the driving behavior witnessed by the informant,” Adams wrote.

After the trooper arrived on scene at the parking lot of Gateway Elementary School, he saw a man in an orange plaid shirt underneath the SUV removing a spare tire to replace the flat tire, according to the prosecutor's memorandum. This man later was identified as the owner of the vehicle.

“A man with a blue plaid shirt and a man in a black t-shirt were also present and assisting with replacing the flat tire with a spare,” reads the judge’s analysis.

According to the judge, the first thing the trooper did upon approaching the group was to ask the man in orange whether he bore a certain name, which is here omitted because the man faces no charges in this matter. The man, later the defendant in this case, confirmed his identity to the trooper, whereupon the trooper asked him to step away from the SUV and stand by the MHP patrol vehicle. The trooper asked the defendant whether there was anything in his mouth, to which the defendant denied. The trooper said he was there to investigate a report that the defendant may have been drunk driving.

After the defendant failed a sobriety test, the trooper obtained a warrant for a blood draw, and a sample taken at a hospital measured 0.168 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, according to the prosecutor.

The trooper had “detected a very strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from” the defendant, according to the prosecutor’s memorandum.

“The Defendant’s eyes were bloodshot and watery, and his demeanor was standoffish and confrontational,” the prosecutor wrote. “The Defendant immediately denied driving the vehicle and stated he would not perform any tests.”

According to Adams’ analysis, bloodshot eyes and an odor of alcohol would not be clear on video evidence, and those observations alone, “do not supply particularized suspicion” that an offense had been committed.

The trooper asked the defendant to walk to the front of the MHP patrol vehicle, inquired as to whether the defendant had any weapons, and checked the defendant’s mouth for foreign objects, according to the prosecutor.

Adams found that the trooper didn’t ask the people on scene where they were coming from or confirm that any of them had been drinking at the bar, nor did the trooper ask where the keys to the SUV were. The judge noted that he’d heard testimony stating the keys had been removed from the scene by the time the trooper arrived.

"The trunk to the vehicle was lifted, and there was, therefore, no visual confirmation of the license plate information provided by the informant,” Adams wrote. “The video evidence does not show Defendant staggering or stumbling in his gait, nor does the audio pick up any evidence Defendant was slurring his words. The following are the only details which could have been corroborated at this time: (1) there was a man wearing a blue plaid shirt, and a man wearing an orange plaid shirt; and (2) a vehicle was pulled over in a school parking lot, where the reported gentlemen were replacing a flat tire with a spare. The Court adds that changing a tire is not an illegal or inherently suspicious activity warranting police investigation.”

Adams made his findings and conclusions based on a review of the case record and a hearing held before him on Feb. 13 at the Gallatin County Justice Center in Bozeman. In his March 3 order, he dismissed the case with prejudice based on the discovery violation and suppressed all evidence gathered by the trooper.

One of the defendant’s attorneys, Karl Knuchel, of Livingston, explained that there are various remedies available when a party to litigation fails to abide by a court order. For example, a litigant can file a motion for a show cause hearing to give the other party a chance to argue why he or she should not be held in contempt of court.

“I didn't ask for that,” Knuchel said. “I just wanted the case dismissed.”