State v. Aschenbrenner, 63248

Decision Date19 March 1980
Docket NumberNo. 63248,63248
Citation289 N.W.2d 618
PartiesSTATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Howard ASCHENBRENNER, Appellant.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

Stephen J. Rapp of Gottschalk & Gilliam, Cedar Falls, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Richard L. Cleland, Asst. Atty. Gen., and David H. Correll, Black Hawk County Atty., for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and HARRIS, McCORMICK, ALLBEE and McGIVERIN, JJ.

McCORMICK, Justice.

The question here is whether police officers who stopped defendant's pickup truck prior to his arrest for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OMVUI) under § 321.281, The Code, had reasonable cause for stopping the vehicle. Defendant moved to suppress all evidence subsequently obtained, alleging the stop was an unlawful seizure under U.S.Const. amend. IV and Iowa Const. art. I, § 8. After hearing, the trial court overruled the motion to suppress. Defendant was later convicted in a trial to the court on stipulated evidence. In this appeal, he contends the court erred in overruling his motion to suppress.

This case is difficult on the facts but not on the law. The governing constitutional principles are well settled. An officer must have reasonable cause to stop a vehicle. State v. Cooley, 229 N.W.2d 755, 759 (Iowa 1975). In order to establish reasonable cause when the grounds are challenged, the State must show that the officer had specific and articulable cause to support a reasonable belief that criminal activity may have occurred. State v. Reese, 259 N.W.2d 793, 795 (Iowa 1977); Cooley, 229 N.W.2d at 760. Officers are bound by their true reason for making the stop. They may not rely on reasons they could have had but did not actually have. Cooley, 229 N.W.2d at 757-59; People v. Bower, 24 Cal.3d 638, 647, 597 P.2d 115, 120, 156 Cal.Rptr. 856, 861 (1979). If the State fails in its burden, evidence taken as a result of the stop must be suppressed. Reese, 259 N.W.2d at 796; Cooley, 229 N.W.2d at 761. Because a constitutional challenge is involved, we review the evidence de novo. Kellogg v. State, 288 N.W.2d 561 (Iowa 1980).

At approximately 1:45 a. m. on November 11, 1978, two part-time officers of the Evansdale police department were parked in a police car in a shopping center parking lot, operating radar on vehicles traveling east and west on adjacent Lafayette Street. Michael Wilson was the driver of the police car, and Mark Isley, a new officer, was a passenger in it. They observed a green and white pickup truck enter the street from the direction of a tavern across the street and proceed east.

The pickup truck was being driven by defendant Howard Aschenbrenner. He was accompanied by Joanne Wilson, former wife of Officer Wilson. At the time of the incident involved here, Michael did not know the dissolution decree had been obtained.

Three witnesses testified in the suppression hearing, Officers Wilson and Isley for the State and Joanne Wilson for defendant. The officers on one side and Joanne on the other gave opposing versions of the events which preceded the stop of defendant's vehicle. The State's version tends to show two relatively inexperienced part-time officers attempting in good faith to do their duty and adequately doing so; Joanne's version tends to show a jealous man using the color of his office to harass a woman to whom he thought he was still married who was out drinking with another man.

We first recite the police version. Michael and Isley saw the rear of the pickup run over a curb on the access road it used while entering Lafayette Street. Michael drove the police car onto the street to follow the pickup from four or five car lengths to the rear. He did not recognize the occupants, although he saw they were a man and woman sitting close together. Isley did not know either of them. He asked Michael if he knew who was in the pickup, and Michael said he did not. The pickup made a quick, late stop at a four-way stop sign, then continued east. It was weaving back and forth in its lane of travel, and at one or two points the right wheels went onto the shoulder. When it reached an intersection with Lawrence approximately two and one-half blocks from the point it entered Lafayette, it turned south and stopped on the right-hand side of the street after traveling fifty or sixty feet. Believing the pickup occupants had arrived at their destination, the officers drove past it, only to discover it was following them about half a car length behind. Approximately two and one-half blocks further, Michael turned right at a stop sign to head west on Central. At that point the officers saw defendant make a U-turn in the intersection of Lawrence and Central, hitting the curb in doing so, and head back to the north on Lawrence. Isley remarked to Michael that the driver was not doing a very good job of driving. At that point Michael decided to stop the pickup to talk with the driver. He turned around, caught up with it and pulled it over.

Michael went up to the driver's side of the pickup and asked to see defendant's driver's license. He smelled the odor of alcoholic beverage on defendant's breath. Defendant asked Michael why he had been stopped, and Michael said it was for an improper U-turn. When he recognized his former wife was the passenger, Michael told defendant to stay in the vehicle and asked Joanne to come back to the police car to talk to him. In the meantime, Isley was standing behind the pickup in accordance with standard procedure.

Back at the police car, Michael and Joanne got into an argument and scuffle. Joanne was intoxicated and eventually ended up in handcuffs. Other officers were called to assist. A full-time officer named Millard was called to the scene to put defendant through field sobriety tests and the implied consent procedure. This was necessary because Michael and Isley did...

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