Opinion
22-1866
10-25-2023
STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JOSHUA LORREN JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellee.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Kyle Hanson, Assistant Attorney General, and Braden Bennett, Law Student, for appellant. Jane M. White of Gribble Boles Stewart & Witosky, Des Moines, for appellee.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Guthrie County, Virginia Cobb, District Associate Judge.
The State appeals the district court's suppression of evidence uncovered from a K-9 drug sniff. REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Kyle Hanson, Assistant Attorney General, and Braden Bennett, Law Student, for appellant.
Jane M. White of Gribble Boles Stewart & Witosky, Des Moines, for appellee.
Heard by Greer, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
AHLERS, Judge.
Around 9:40 p.m. on an April evening, a deputy sheriff attempted to stop a pickup truck being driven without its taillights illuminated. The pickup's driver slowed in response to the flashing emergency lights but continued driving for nearly two minutes before turning on to a gravel road and stopping. The officer then approached the driver, Joshua Johnson. The officer testified that he immediately noticed that Johnson was slow to respond to the officer's interactions with him; had a "dazed and confused" look about him; had bloodshot and watery eyes; and his words "kind of jumbled together" when speaking. The officer suspected drug impairment. After asking about his driver's license, registration, and insurance on the vehicle, the officer learned that Johnson had none of those things. The officer also discovered that the license plates on the pickup were fraudulent in that they belonged to a different vehicle, which caused suspicion that the pickup may be stolen. The officer reported the pickup's vehicle identification number (VIN) to dispatch. While waiting for a response about whether the pickup had been reported stolen, the officer used his K-9 dog to sniff the outside of the pickup. The dog alerted, indicating the presence of illegal drugs. Based on the K-9 alert, the officer searched the pickup. The search turned up a baggie of marijuana and a pipe. The officer arrested Johnson and took him to the jail, where the officer further investigated his suspicion that Johnson was impaired.
Johnson was eventually charged with possession of marijuana and operating while intoxicated (OWI), third offense. Before trial, Johnson moved to suppress evidence, claiming the officer violated his rights under the Iowa and United States Constitutions by unlawfully extending the stop beyond what was necessary to complete his investigation. See U.S. Const. amends. IV, XIV (protecting people from unreasonable searches and seizures); Iowa Const. art. I, § 8 (same); Howsare v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 986 N.W.2d 114, 116-17 (Iowa 2023) ("The Fourth Amendment is applicable to the states under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."); State v. Warren, 955 N.W.2d 848, 859 (Iowa 2021) (noting evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution is inadmissible at trial). Johnson claimed all evidence obtained after the alleged prolonging of the stop, including the marijuana and pipe, should be suppressed.
The district court initially denied Johnson's suppression motion, primarily reasoning that the marijuana and pipe would inevitably be discovered. Johnson filed a motion to reconsider. The district court confirmed its prior ruling denying the motion to suppress regarding other claims, but it changed course on the search issue and granted Johnson's "motion to suppress any evidence found pursuant to the illegal inventory search."
The State sought discretionary review, which the supreme court granted before transferring the case to our court. The State argues the K-9 sniff was permissible because it did not prolong the traffic stop and the court misunderstood its inevitable-discovery argument when ruling on the motion to reconsider. Because we find the K-9 sniff did not prolong the traffic stop, we need not address whether the evidence would inevitably have been discovered.
As Johnson claims his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by both our constitutions was violated, he raises a constitutional issue. We review constitutional issues de novo. State v. Jackson, 878 N.W.2d 422, 428 (Iowa 2016). "We examine the entire record to independently evaluate the totality of the circumstances based on each case's unique situation." State v. Price-Williams, 973 N.W.2d 556, 561 (Iowa 2022). We give deference to the district court's findings of fact because it is in the best position to assess witness credibility, but we are not bound by those findings. Id.
Neither party contests the legality of the traffic stop for the nonworking taillights. See Warren, 955 N.W.2d at 860 ("Generally, police officers have probable cause to stop a motorist if they witness the motorist commit a traffic violation."); Iowa Code §§ 321.384 (2021) (requiring lighting on vehicle from sunset to sunrise), .387 (requiring rear lamps to be a red light plainly visible from five hundred feet to the rear of the vehicle). When an officer legally stops a motorist for a traffic violation, the officer may make inquiries reasonably related to the purpose of the stop. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 355 (2015); State v. Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d 572, 578 (Iowa 2019). Authority for stopping the motorist ends once the officer has completed or reasonably should have completed the tasks related to the stop. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354; Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d at 579. An officer may make inquiries unrelated to the traffic stop and unsupported by reasonable suspicion so long as it does not measurably prolong the stop. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 355; Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d at 579.
Upon stopping Johnson, the officer learned that Johnson had no driver's license or vehicle registration. He took Johnson's name and went back to his patrol car to find information about Johnson and the truck. Johnson asks us to say that the officer's reasonable queries ended once he determined Johnson had no valid license or registration. But officers may inquire more expansively than that. "An officer may run[] a computerized check of the vehicle's registration and insurance; run[] a similar check of the occupants' identification documents and criminal histories; prepar[e] the traffic citation or warning; and ask[] the occupants about their destination, route, and purpose." Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d at 580 (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Murillo-Salgado, 854 F.3d 407, 415 (8th Cir. 2017)).
Johnson's argument also ignores two important points. First, the officer was still investigating Johnson's suspected impairment. That suspicion was reasonable given Johnson's failure to stop in response to the officer's lights initiating a traffic stop and his "dazed and confused" affect. Second, because Johnson did not have a driver's license or vehicle registration, it was reasonable for the officer to investigate the traffic infraction by looking up information about Johnson and the truck. That investigation led him to discover that the truck's plates were fraudulent. This logically caused him to suspect it might be stolen. An officer's reasonable investigation can be expanded if suspicions of unrelated criminal activity arise based on information learned from the initial inquiries. Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d at 578. The discovery of fraudulent plates expanded the mission of the stop to include determining ownership of the vehicle. To resolve this suspicion, the officer provided the truck's VIN to dispatch. While he waited for dispatch to determine whether the truck was reported stolen, he brought a K-9 to the truck to perform a K-9 sniff around the exterior of the truck. Because a K-9 sniff around the outside of a vehicle is not a search, the officer did not need any reason to conduct one. Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 409 (2005); State v. Bergmann, 633 N.W.2d 328, 334-35 (Iowa 2001). The K-9 alerted, indicating the presence of illegal drugs in the truck, giving the officer probable cause to search it. State v. Stevens, 970 N.W.2d 598, 602 (Iowa 2022) ("[A] positive alert from a reliable drug dog establishes probable cause to search a vehicle, including containers capable of concealing contraband."). By the time the officer returned the K-9 to his patrol car, he had yet to hear from dispatch about ownership of the truck.
Regardless of whether the officer had reasonable suspicion to believe Johnson had drugs in the truck, the K-9 sniff was permissible because it did not prolong the stop. See Bergmann, 633 N.W.2d at 335 (providing a K-9 sniff may be conducted during a traffic stop so long as it does not measurably prolong the stop). The officer lawfully detained Johnson while investigating ownership of the truck and Johnson's suspected impairment. As the dog sniff occurred during the time Johnson was detained pending completion of those investigations, the dog sniff did not prolong the stop. See State v. Lavenz, No. 21-1062, 2023 WL 1814289, at *2-3 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2023) (finding the stop was not prolonged when the stopping officer "asked dispatch to check [the driver]'s license and the VIN, and he was awaiting that information when [the K9 deputy] arrived"); State v. Arrieta, No. 21-1133, 2023 WL 152494, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 11, 2023) (finding the stop was not prolonged because the dog sniff occurred while officers investigated the commercial driver's logbooks and "resolve[d] the issue of whether the truck was stolen"); State v. Britcher, No. 20-1142, 2021 WL 2452069, at *5 (Iowa Ct. App. June 16, 2021) (finding the stop was not prolonged when the officer "called for a drug dog while waiting for verification of [the driver's] registration information" and the sniff occurred while the officer processed traffic warnings); State v. Apfel, No. 18-0440, 2019 WL 156645, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 9, 2019) (finding the stop was not prolonged when "[t]he officer was still actively investigating an ongoing violation-the ownership of the vehicle and the wrong license plates on the vehicle-past the arrival of the canine unit"); State v. George, No. 15-1736, 2016 WL 6636750, at *2-3 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 9, 2016) (finding the stop was not prolonged when the dog sniff occurred "[w]hile waiting to learn if [the driver] had the owner's consent to operate the vehicle" and while officers investigated the driver's suspected impairment).
Because the K-9 sniff did not prolong the traffic stop, the district court erred in suppressing the evidence of the resulting search. We reverse that part of the district court's order suppressing evidence and remand for further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS.