State v. Aderholdt, 95-457

Citation545 N.W.2d 559
Decision Date20 March 1996
Docket NumberNo. 95-457,95-457
PartiesSTATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. John Thomas ADERHOLDT and Christopher Craig Thaemert, Appellees.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Iowa

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Susan M. Crawford, Assistant Attorney General, Brent Symens, County Attorney, and Kathleen Selzler, Assistant County Attorney, for appellant.

John G. Sorensen, Clear Lake, and John L. Sesini of Brennan, Ramirez, Wilmouth & Sesini, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for appellee John Thomas Aderholdt.

James A. Clarity of Clarity Law Firm, Spirit Lake, and David Valentini of Valentini & Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellee Christopher Craig Thaemert.

Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and HARRIS, LAVORATO, NEUMAN, and ANDREASEN, JJ.

NEUMAN, Justice.

We granted the State's application for discretionary review to consider its challenge to an order suppressing evidence in a drug case. The fighting issue is whether state troopers lawfully impounded the defendants' vehicle or whether--as found by the district court--the impoundment and subsequent inventory search were merely "a subterfuge for further investigation." Because we believe the decision to impound reveals a reasoned exercise of discretion consistent with standardized department of public safety procedures, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

The facts giving rise to this controversy occurred on the afternoon of April 18, 1994. While traveling north on I-35 at sixty-five miles per hour, Trooper Kelly Smith of the Iowa State Patrol noticed a vehicle rapidly overtaking him. He observed that the car had no front license plate. Judging by the darkness of the vehicle's interior, he also guessed that the car had very dark tinted windows. Smith reduced his speed and the overtaking car did likewise. Not until Smith slowed to fifty miles per hour did the other vehicle pass him on the left.

As the car passed, Trooper Smith noted that the car's windows were unusually dark. Despite the dark tinting, Smith could see that neither the driver nor passenger were wearing seat belts. The violation was particularly evident on the passenger side, where the back of the front seat had been turned around and placed against the dashboard, permitting the passenger to ride facing backwards. The rear of the vehicle displayed an Arizona license plate. Smith ran a registration check. He learned that the car was registered to a woman; both occupants were men.

Smith decided to pull the vehicle over for the seat belt violation. Upon seeing the trooper's lights, the driver--defendant Christopher Thaemert--immediately pulled over. Smith asked to see his driver's license and also asked about the tinted windows. Thaemert told Smith he did not think it was illegal to have dark tinted windows in Arizona. 1 Smith asked Thaemert to accompany him to his vehicle while he issued the citation.

While writing the citation, Smith engaged Thaemert in conversation. He asked Thaemert where the two were traveling. Thaemert told Smith they were returning from Arizona following a few days' vacation. Thaemert then volunteered that he and his passenger, defendant John Aderholdt, were doctors and longtime friends who had attended school together. Thaemert stated he practiced in Minnesota, and Aderholdt in Wisconsin. He explained that they had flown to Arizona to purchase the car, a 1979 Chevy Malibu.

Thaemert's story did not make sense to Smith. The car looked dependable enough, but it had been recently--and poorly--repainted. The interior was in terrible condition. The upholstery was stained and worn, with stuffing coming out of the cushions. It did not strike the trooper as a car worth paying plane fare from the Midwest to buy and drive back.

The trooper also noticed that Thaemert was unusually nervous for a person merely being cited for a seat belt violation. He appeared agitated and "bounced" around in the car, moving his hands a lot. His speech was "very quick and stuttered," and he seemed overeager to deflect any suspicion.

Although Smith had asked to see the car's registration, the defendants instead produced the title. The document was confusing. Despite the license plate check which had shown the car registered to Rosalinda Gonzalez, the title indicated Aderholdt was the current owner. From the title it appeared there had been several intervening purchasers between Gonzalez and Aderholdt. Trooper Smith suspected "title jumping," a scheme whereby cars are bought and sold without registration and the payment of taxes and fees.

Upon securing Thaemert's signature on the citation, Smith asked if there were any drugs or guns in the car and sought permission to search it. Such requests are routine, Smith testified, and in this case his suspicions were aroused. Thaemert gave his consent to search the car.

Smith then returned to the vehicle to give Aderholdt a citation for the seat belt violation. He requested consent from Aderholdt, the owner, to search the car. Aderholdt refused and suddenly became very nervous. He protested that he had brought cars back from Arizona several times before without incident.

Smith candidly advised Aderholdt that he suspected the car contained narcotics and told him that he planned to call a drug dog to sniff around. When Aderholdt protested that he did not want a dog entering his vehicle, Smith informed him the dog would only sniff the car from the outside. Aderholdt then rolled up the car windows and shut the doors. Smith informed Aderholdt that closing up the car would concentrate the odors and help the dog to "hit" better. In a telling move, Aderholdt rolled the windows back down and opened the doors, reinforcing Smith's suspicions.

Aderholdt then offered to produce the plane tickets used by the two men. The tickets were in the trunk. Smith noticed that Aderholdt became markedly more relaxed as he approached the rear of the vehicle. Smith suspected that Aderholdt was trying to get him away from the passenger compartment. When Aderholdt opened the trunk, Smith saw that it was full of junk and debris. Smith found this unusual for a car so recently purchased.

Meanwhile, Smith was still concerned about the registration irregularity. Although it was mid-April, the title indicated that Aderholdt had purchased the car on February 5, 1994. This did not fit with the defendants' claim that the two had flown to Arizona just a few days before to make the purchase. In addition, Smith knew of no state that allows more than thirty days to register a vehicle. According to the title, more than sixty days had passed since Aderholdt purchased the car. Thus the car appeared to Smith to be illegally unregistered.

About this time Trooper Jerry Ostbloom arrived on the scene to assist. After a briefing by Smith, Ostbloom examined the title. He pointed out another problem: the title showed Aderholdt taking title on February 5, 1994, and the prior owner taking title on February 7, 1994. The implication that Aderholdt bought the car from someone who did not even own it convinced Smith that he had sufficient justification to impound the vehicle until the registration issue was settled. He called a towing service to remove the car from the highway and requested the narcotics officer to meet them with the drug dog at the towing garage.

The defendants rode in the tow truck to the garage. Once they arrived, Trooper Ostbloom told them they were free to leave or they could go into the truck stop for coffee while the troopers inventoried the car. Neither defendant was in custody or under arrest. Aderholdt gave Trooper Smith the trunk key. Pursuant to department policy, Smith, Ostbloom and Trooper Madetzke (the narcotics officer who met them at the garage) proceeded to inventory the contents of the vehicle.

Almost immediately, Trooper Madetzke found a marijuana joint in a cigarette case inside a black coat. Madetzke stayed with the vehicle to continue the inventory while Smith and Ostbloom found the defendants and placed them under arrest.

Smith and Ostbloom then rejoined Madetzke to finish the inventory. While Smith was looking under the driver's seat he noticed that the back seat was "off kilter" and appeared to be loose. Madetzke was in approximately the same position, but on the passenger's side. At that point, both Smith and Madetzke smelled a strong odor of marijuana. They lifted up the back seat, which was not bolted down, and several bags of laundry detergent containing what appeared to be bricks of marijuana fell out.

During the course of the inventory, the troopers found a total of nine pounds of marijuana. They also found a brown pill bottle containing approximately one ounce of cocaine.

I. The State charged each defendant with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, in violation of Iowa Code section 124.401(1)(c) (1995); possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, in violation of section 124.401(1)(d); failure to affix drug stamp to cocaine, in violation of section 453B.12; and failure to affix drug stamp to marijuana, in violation of section 453B.12.

The defendants each filed motions to suppress. In their motions, defendants alleged that the impoundment and subsequent inventory of the car violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

In ruling on the motion the court found, first, that the seat belt violations justified the initial stop of Aderholdt's vehicle. The court then reasoned that the resulting detention was "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place," quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 905 (1968). The court further found that, based on the following factors, the trooper had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the car contained narcotics, thereby justifying further detention while a drug dog was summoned to affirm--or dispel--a finding of probable cause: (1) the defendants' extremely nervous...

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  • State v. Ingram
    • United States
    • Iowa Supreme Court
    • June 29, 2018
    ...a warrantless inventory search where the initial stop was made because of a seatbelt violation and excessively tinted windows. 545 N.W.2d 559, 563 (Iowa 1996). Citing Bertine , we upheld the search as being conducted according to standardize procedures and not in bad faith. Id. at 564–66. A......
  • State v. Brown
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    ...the subjective motive of Officer Brandt did not matter. In support of its legal conclusion, the district court cited State v. Aderholdt , 545 N.W.2d 559, 563 (Iowa 1996), and State v. Harrison , 846 N.W.2d 362 (Iowa 2014). As a result, the district court denied the motion to suppress.18 The......
  • State v. Warren
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    • Iowa Supreme Court
    • March 5, 2021
    ...492 (2015) ). These inquiries reasonably include "asking for the driver's license and registration." Id. (quoting State v. Aderholdt , 545 N.W.2d 559, 563–64 (Iowa 1996) ); see also Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 355, 135 S. Ct. at 1615 ("Typically such inquiries involve checking the driver's lice......
  • State v. Bergmann
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    ...amount of time from the initial, lawful stop and that the stop is not unduly prolonged without a sufficient basis. State v. Aderholdt, 545 N.W.2d 559, 563-64 (Iowa 1996); accord United States v. Bloomfield, 40 F.3d 910, 916-17 (8th Cir.1994). Here, the evidence is that the dog sniff occurre......
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