Opinion
No. 5-959 / 05-0387
Filed February 1, 2006
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Sioux County, Robert J. Dull, District Associate Judge.
Lisa Kay Heiliger appeals from her conviction and sentence for operating while intoxicated, second offense, following the district court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence obtained following a traffic stop. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Curtis Krull, of Roehrick Law Firm, P.C., Des Moines, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Mary Tabor, Assistant Attorney General, Melissa O'Rourke, County Attorney, and Geoffrey Roughton, Legal Intern, for appellee.
Considered by Zimmer, P.J., and Miller and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
Lisa Kay Heiliger appeals following her conviction and sentence for operating while intoxicated (OWI), second offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2 (2003). She contends that the district court erred in denying her motion to suppress evidence obtained from the allegedly unlawful stop of her vehicle. We reverse.
I. Background Facts Proceedings
At approximately 8:30 p.m. on May 20, 2004, Sioux County Deputy Sheriff Jason Bergsma was traveling south in his patrol car on Highway 60 in rural Sioux County when he observed a vehicle stop at an intersection and then proceed across Highway 60 from a county blacktop onto a gravel road. According to the deputy, the vehicle headed down the gravel road at a speed of ten to fifteen miles per hour. Bergsma believed the vehicle's rate of speed was slower than most people drive at that location, but he observed no traffic violations and did not follow the vehicle.
The record does not reveal how long Deputy Bergsma observed the vehicle.
Deputy Bergsma continued driving on Highway 60 for a few minutes and then turned off the highway. After making several turns, Deputy Bergsma came over a hill and stopped at an intersection. From that location, he observed the same vehicle parked in a farm driveway approximately one-half mile north of his location. The deputy watched the vehicle for approximately thirty seconds. No one got out of the car while he was watching it, and he could not see what the driver was doing inside the vehicle. The deputy then drove his patrol car toward the parked vehicle. As he did so, the vehicle backed out of the driveway and traveled in Bergsma's direction. Deputy Bergsma turned his patrol car around and followed the vehicle. He also ran the vehicle's license plates and determined that the vehicle was registered to Lisa Heiliger, who resided in a nearby town. The deputy assumed that Heiliger was driving the car and found it "kind of unusual" that she was parked in the driveway of a farm field.
Bergsma followed Heiliger's vehicle for two and one-half miles on the gravel road. During this time, the vehicle was traveling in a straight line at a reasonable speed. Deputy Bergsma decided to stop the vehicle because he believed it was being driven too close to the ditch. He activated his emergency lights, and the vehicle pulled over. After the stop, Heiliger failed field sobriety tests and was arrested for OWI.
Heiliger filed a motion to suppress, alleging that Deputy Bergsma did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop her vehicle. She claimed the stop violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. Following the suppression hearing, the district court found Deputy Bergsma had reasonable suspicion to stop Heiliger's vehicle and denied the motion to suppress. Pursuant to stipulation of the parties, the case was submitted to the district court for a bench trial on the minutes of testimony. The court found Heiliger guilty as charged and sentenced her on January 27, 2005. Heiliger now appeals from the district court's denial of her motion.
II. Scope of Review
Because Heiliger asserts that her constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment were violated, our review is de novo. State v. Heminover, 619 N.W.2d 353, 356 (Iowa 2000) reversed in part on other grounds by State v. Turner, 630 N.W.2d 601, 606 (Iowa 2001). We independently evaluate Heiliger's claim under the totality of the circumstances. State v. Kinkead, 570 N.W.2d 97, 99 (Iowa 1997). We give deference to the district court's assessments of credibility and findings of fact, but we are not bound by those findings. Turner, 630 N.W.2d at 606. Any evidence obtained in violation of Heiliger's Fourth Amendment rights is inadmissible and must be suppressed regardless of its probative value or relevance. State v. Schrier, 283 N.W.2d 338, 342 (Iowa 1979) (citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 1691, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 1090 (1961)).
III. Discussion
Heiliger contends the record in this case reveals no legal basis for Deputy Bergsma's decision to stop her vehicle. The State claims that Bergsma's observations gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that Heiliger was intoxicated, which warranted the stop. In the alternative, the State maintains that Deputy Bergsma was justified in stopping Heiliger's vehicle based on the "community caretaking function" of the police because the deputy's observations gave rise to a reasonable belief that a dangerous situation existed which required his intervention.
To justify a stop on the basis that reasonable suspicion existed, the State must show that Deputy Bergsma had reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity had occurred or was occurring. State v. Tague, 676 N.W.2d 197, 204 (Iowa 2004). The officer must be able to articulate something more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch in order to meet the reasonable suspicion standard. Id. We gauge the reasonableness of the stop based on whether or not the facts available to the officer at the moment of the stop would cause a reasonably cautious individual to deem the action taken by the officer appropriate. State v. Wiese, 525 N.W.2d 412, 414-15 (Iowa 1994), overruled on other grounds by Cline, 617 N.W.2d at 281.
Under the community caretaking function, law enforcement officers may also stop a vehicle without having witnessed a traffic violation or any other criminal activity if the stop is in the interest of public safety. Tague, 676 N.W.2d at 204. We review a stop based on the community caretaking function using an objective standard: "whether the facts available to the officer at the time of the stop would lead a reasonable person to believe that the action taken by the officer was appropriate." Id. Community caretaking cases require us to determine whether there was a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, whether the police conduct was bona fide community caretaker activity, and whether the public need and interest outweighed the intrusion on the privacy of the citizen. State v. Crawford, 659 N.W.2d 537, 543 (Iowa 2003).
With the foregoing principles in mind, we now address the facts in this case. At the suppression hearing, Deputy Bergsma testified that he stopped Heiliger's vehicle because of its proximity to the ditch of the gravel road. Bergsma testified that Heiliger drove continuously for two and one-half miles within one to two feet of the same line of travel near the edge of the road next to the ditch. Deputy Bergsma testified he was concerned Heiliger was going to drive into the ditch, and he mentioned that he thought it was "kind of unusual" she had been parked in the driveway of a farm field.
A report prepared by Deputy Bergsma following the defendant's arrest states that Heiliger "was driving very close to the south ditch approximately 1 to 2 feet from the ditch at some point." At the suppression hearing, Bergsma testified that he should have used "continuously" instead of "at some point" in his report.
The record reveals Heiliger's speed did not fluctuate before she was stopped. Deputy Bergsma testified that her speed of thirty miles per hour was appropriate for the gravel road on which she was driving. Heiliger drove for two and one-half miles in a straight line of travel. She did not weave within her lane or cross the centerline. Her vehicle never touched the vegetation on the edge of the road during the time that the deputy followed her. A video of the actual moment of the stop shows Heiliger driving in an appropriate manner in the right lane of the gravel road before pulling over to the edge of the road in response to Deputy Bergsma's emergency lights. The record reveals no activity at the time Heiliger was parked in the farm driveway that indicated Heiliger was engaged in criminal activity or needed any kind of assistance.
The video of the stop shows only the last few seconds before the stop because the recording device in the patrol car did not turn on until Deputy Bergsma activated his emergency lights.
We conclude the evidence we have just described does not support a finding that Deputy Bergsma had reasonable suspicion to stop Heiliger's vehicle. We also conclude that the record reveals no community caretaking justification for stopping her vehicle. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's denial of Heiliger's motion to suppress and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.