Background
Shortly before 11 p.m. on November 23, 2022, Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ben Beutler was completing paperwork in his patrol car near South River Road in West Lafayette. He noticed a vehicle parked across the road with its headlights and dome lights switching on and off and its doors opening and closing. Believing the vehicle was on property used by Evonik for a pump station, Beutler suspected trespassing and asked dispatch to contact the company. The vehicle left before he received an answer, and Beutler followed it.
After the vehicle turned onto U.S. 231, Beutler saw its passenger-side tires touch the fog line and then return to the travel lane. Seconds later, the tires crossed completely over the fog line for a short distance before returning. The road was straight and level. Beutler stopped the vehicle and identified Todd McGraw as the driver. McGraw had slurred speech, watery eyes, poor manual dexterity, and an odor of alcohol. A hospital blood test measured his alcohol concentration equivalent, or ACE, at 0.228. Beutler later learned that McGraw had not been parked on Evonik’s property but on a neighboring driveway.
The State charged McGraw with operating while intoxicated and operating with an ACE of at least 0.15. McGraw moved to suppress the evidence from the stop under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. The trial court denied the motion. Following a bench trial, it acquitted him of the Class C misdemeanor operating-while-intoxicated count but convicted him of the Class A misdemeanor ACE offense. McGraw appealed, arguing that Beutler lacked reasonable suspicion because the suspected trespass was mistaken, the first fog-line contact was disputed, and road conditions explained the second.
The Court’s Holding
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed. Chief Judge Tavitas wrote that, even without considering Beutler’s mistaken belief about trespassing, the two observed deviations supplied a particularized and objective basis to suspect impaired driving. A brief investigative stop requires reasonable suspicion under the totality of the circumstances, not certainty that a crime occurred. The panel relied on the Indiana Supreme Court’s decision in Robinson v. State, which upheld a stop after a vehicle twice moved onto the fog line on a relatively straight, flat road.
The record did not support McGraw’s contention that Beutler noticed the first fog-line contact only after reviewing video. Although Beutler omitted that contact from his report, he testified at trial that he saw both the touch and the later crossing. The trial court was entitled to credit that testimony, and an officer’s failure to document every observation does not exclude it from the reasonable-suspicion analysis. McGraw’s expert attributed the movement principally to a seam, expansion joint, and dip in the bridge, but accepting that explanation would have required the appellate court to reweigh evidence.
The court independently rejected the claim under Article 1, Section 11. Indiana uses the Litchfield framework, balancing the degree of police concern, the intrusion on ordinary activity, and law enforcement needs. Here, the repeated fog-line movement created reasonable concern about impairment; a traffic stop was a comparatively minor intrusion; and preventing drunk-driving injuries presented a strong law enforcement need. McGraw also waited until his reply brief to analyze those factors, which independently waived the state constitutional claim. His assertion that the stop was pretextual did not change the result because an objectively justified stop is valid under Indiana law despite an officer’s possible ulterior suspicions.
Key Takeaways
- Two fog-line deviations on a straight, level roadway can create reasonable suspicion of impaired driving even when neither movement independently establishes a traffic offense.
- An observation may support reasonable suspicion despite its omission from the officer’s report when credited testimony shows the officer made the observation before the stop.
- An innocent explanation for unusual driving does not defeat a stop when the total circumstances still permit a reasonable inference of impairment.
- Indiana constitutional search-and-seizure claims require a developed analysis of concern, intrusion, and law enforcement needs in the opening brief; saving that analysis for a reply risks waiver.
Why It Matters
For Indiana criminal practitioners, McGraw reinforces that reasonable suspicion can arise before an officer witnesses a discrete traffic infraction. Suppression arguments should therefore address the complete sequence visible to the officer and not rest solely on whether crossing a fog line violated a lane statute. Defense counsel should develop objective evidence about roadway geometry and conditions, but must frame it within the deferential standard governing trial-court factfinding rather than ask the appellate court to choose a competing explanation.
The decision also illustrates the practical importance of treating Article 1, Section 11 as an independent claim. Its reasonableness test differs from federal doctrine, yet the argument can be forfeited without timely application of all three Indiana factors. Prosecutors and trial courts, meanwhile, should make explicit findings about the observed driving, the degree of intrusion, and the public-safety need so the record supports both constitutional analyses.