Opinion
No. 5-953 / 05-0210
Filed February 15, 2006
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Gregory D. Brandt, District Associate Judge.
Jeffrey Baugh appeals a conviction for operating while intoxicated, asserting the speedy indictment rule was violated. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and Martha J. Lucey, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kristin Guddall, Assistant Attorney General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and James P. Ward, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Zimmer, P.J., and Miller and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
Jeffrey Baugh appeals a conviction for operating while intoxicated, asserting the speedy indictment rule was violated. We agree with his contention and, accordingly, reverse the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
On September 16, 2004, Des Moines police officer Josh Rhamy stopped Baugh for operating a vehicle that had been reported stolen. A second officer, Eric Hartman, investigated Baugh for possible intoxication. He completed a report the same evening. The report stated Baugh was under arrest for operating while intoxicated (first offense).
Baugh was transported to a hospital and, the following morning, to jail. A booking information sheet prepared by Officer Rhamy listed the charges against Baugh as first-degree theft and operating while intoxicated (OWI). A clerk booked Baugh on both charges and placed a bond on both. However, no preliminary complaint was filed on the OWI charge and the bond on that charge was subsequently dropped.
Only the OWI charge is at issue.
The State did not charge Baugh with operating while intoxicated until December 7, 2001, eighty-one days after his arrest. Baugh moved to dismiss the charge as violative of the forty-five day speedy indictment rule. Following a hearing, the district court denied the motion, adjudged Baugh guilty on the stipulated minutes of testimony, and imposed sentence. This appeal followed.
II. Speedy Indictment Rule
Iowa's speedy indictment rule provides:
When an adult is arrested for the commission of a public offense . . . and an indictment is not found against the defendant within 45 days, the court must order the prosecution to be dismissed, unless good cause to the contrary is shown or the defendant waives the defendant's right thereto.
Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33(2)( a). Applying this rule, the key questions are (1) whether Baugh was arrested on September 16 or 17, 2004 for operating while intoxicated and, if he was arrested, (2) whether the State established good cause for the delay in filing the trial information.
It is established that a trial information is encompassed within the term "indictment." Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.5(5). It is conceded that, if Baugh was "arrested" for OWI in September, the trial information was not filed within forty-five days of the arrest.
Our review of the first question is for errors of law. State v. Dennison, 571 N.W.2d 492, 494 (Iowa 1997). Our review of the second question is for an abuse of discretion. State v. Nelson, 222 N.W.2d 445, 448 (Iowa 1974).
A. Arrest.
An arrest is defined as "the taking of a person into custody when and in the manner authorized by law, including restraint of the person or the person's submission to custody." Iowa Code § 804.5 (2003). The "manner of making arrest" is defined, in part, as follows:
The person making the arrest must inform the person to be arrested of the intention to arrest the person, the reason for arrest, and that the person making the arrest is a peace officer, if such be the case, and require the person being arrested to submit to the person's custody. . . .
Id. Under established case law, an arrest requires "an assertion of authority and purpose to arrest." State v. Rains, 574 N.W.2d 904, 910 (Iowa 1998).
The State concedes Baugh was "arrested," but argues he was only arrested for theft and not OWI. The district court disagreed, stating:
[I]t would be unrealistic to say that Mr. Baugh was not placed under arrest when he was required to post a bond on the OWI charge, even if it was only for a very short period of time, and the apparent arrest was merely a clerical reporting error.
In addition to the bond-posting requirement cited by the district court, the following facts support the court's determination that Baugh was arrested for OWI. As noted, Officer Rhamy's report listed that offense as one for which he was arrested. While Rhamy testified he never told Baugh he was under arrest for OWI, the absence of such a statement only means that we must look more broadly at the surrounding circumstances. See Rains, 574 N.W.2d at 910.
Baugh specifically testified the officers told him he was under arrest for OWI. He also stated the booking clerk told him he was being booked on both charges. His version is corroborated by the booking information sheet.
The clerk testified she did not recall whether she said this.
Baugh's version is also confirmed by Officer Hartman's report which indicated an arrest for OWI. While Hartman, like Rhamy, asserted he did not believe Baugh was under arrest for OWI, his paperwork belies this assertion. See State v. Davis, 525 N.W.2d 837, 841 (Iowa 1994) ("The State should not be able to disregard the time requirements of rule [2.33(2)( a)] just because it released and said `never mind for now' to defendant after he was arrested, handcuffed, booked, and detained for two hours."). Cf. Dennison, 571 N.W.2d at 493 (concluding defendant was not arrested for OWI in part because he was not booked for OWI).
We recognize the State did not file a preliminary complaint against Baugh for OWI. See Dennison, 571 N.W.2d at 497 (finding this fact significant in concluding the defendant was not arrested for OWI). However, "[t]he lack of booking or charges being filed does not necessarily mandate a finding of no arrest." Rains, 574 N.W.2d at 910.
We are also not convinced that the officers had to wait until receipt of the laboratory report in order to arrest Baugh for OWI, as the State claims. Here, there was ample evidence of Baugh's intoxication. Cf. Dennison, 571 N.W.2d at 496 (noting officers needed toxicology report to establish Dennison was under the influence of marijuana). Officers observed significant signs of intoxication, Baugh failed a field sobriety test, and a preliminary breath test registered a breath alcohol content of .298. Therefore, a laboratory report of a specimen taken at the hospital was arguably unnecessary to establish probable cause for an arrest. See Davis, 525 N.W.2d at 840 (stating arrest "should not be done unless the peace officer or the state has probable cause to do so.").
In light of the officers' reports and booking papers citing OWI as a basis for Baugh's arrest, we conclude this case is more like Davis (finding an arrest) than Dennison and Rains (finding no arrest). We discern no error in this aspect of the court's ruling.
B. Good Cause.
We must next determine whether there was good cause to justify the State's delay in filing a trial information on the OWI charge. The district court answered yes to this question, reasoning as follows:
The only reason that the course of action for the officers changed on September 16, 2004 was due to the severe intoxication of Mr. Baugh and his last minute need for immediate medical attention. The police were on their way to the jail when the emergency arose, and the field paperwork had already been completed. The fact that Mr. Baugh consented to a urine test changed the dynamic of whether the charges would be filed immediately or after the results of the urine test. The officers in this case took the appropriate course of action in obtaining medical attention for Mr. Baugh instead of merely booking him in the jail and leaving him on his own. The period of time until the clerical error was corrected was very minimal. There was no evidence that Mr. Baugh was prejudiced in any way by the delay in the indictment that occurred because of his need for medical care. It is therefore the finding of this Court that good cause did exist in this case for the delay in the indictment.
We conclude otherwise. As noted, there was ample evidence of Baugh's intoxication without the results of the sample taken at the hospital. See Nelson 222 N.W.2d at 448 ("There is no claim the charge was sustainable only with the test, which might justify a failure to file until the result was known."). Therefore, we are not convinced that the test taken at the hospital "changed the dynamic."
We conclude the State did not establish good cause for the delay in filing the OWI trial information. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand with instructions to enter an order dismissing that trial information.