Appeals court overturns drug convictions

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A state appeals court has ruled that a state trooper lacked probable cause to initiate a traffic stop in Pemiscot County that resulted in a woman being sentenced to 14 years in prison on drug charges.

The ruling, issued Friday by a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District, reverses Veronica Mendoza's convictions for possession of a controlled substance and drug trafficking in the first degree.

Dunklin County Associate Circuit Court Judge Dan J. Crawford found Mendoza guilty of the charges following a bench trial. Crawford had overruled Mendoza's motion to suppress the evidence used against her. Mendoza claimed the evidence resulted from an illegal traffic stop.

On the evening of Jan. 5, 2000, Mendoza and a friend were driving on Interstate 55 in Pemiscot County when they were stopped by Sgt. Jeffrey L. Heath of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

During a search of Mendoza's vehicle, a drug-sniffing dog led Heath and other officers to the discovery of 111 pounds of marijuana.

At Mendoza's trial, Heath testified that he stopped the vehicle, driven by Mendoza's friend, because it was traveling in the left-hand lane as it went by his patrol car, which was parked on the shoulder, but was not passing a slower-moving vehicle. State law requires vehicles to travel in the right-hand lane, except when passing or preparing to make a left-hand turn.

Mendoza said the driver moved to the left lane to give the trooper a wide berth, a common motorist courtesy that state lawmakers are currently considering making a requirement.

Heath acknowledged at trial that motorists sometimes move to the passing lane when they notice him parked on the shoulder. He said the vehicle in this instance didn't "cause a traffic hazard in any way" by traveling in the left lane.

Mendoza claimed the stop was merely a pretext to search for drugs and that the trooper had racially profiled her and her companion because they were Hispanics traveling in a vehicle with California license plates.

Because the appeals court found that Heath lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion for a stop simply because the vehicle was in the passing lane, it didn't address the racial profiling claim.

mpowers@semissourian.com

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