State v. Bailey

• Decision Date: 21 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-477,89-477
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Scott R. BAILEY, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 181

452 N.W.2d 181

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Scott R. BAILEY, Appellant.

No. 89-477.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 21, 1990.

Brad McCall, Newton, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Thomas S. Tauber, Asst. Atty. Gen., Michael W. Mahaffey, County Atty., and John L. Thompson, Asst. County Atty., for appellee.

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

CARTER, Justice.

Defendant, Scott Russell Bailey, appeals his conviction of OWI (second offense) in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2 (1987). He contends that the evidence against him was obtained through an improper investigatory stop of the motor vehicle that he was operating. He raised this issue in the district court by a motion to suppress evidence which was overruled. The case then proceeded to trial before the court without a jury, and defendant was found guilty.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, two witnesses testified. They were Poweshiek County Deputy Sheriff Martin Duffes and Sergeant Lawrence Bush of the Grinnell Police Department. Deputy Duffes, the officer who stopped defendant's motor vehicle, testified that he did so pursuant to a radioed request from Sergeant Bush. Although Deputy Duffes indicated in his testimony that defendant was operating his motor vehicle in a rather slow and deliberate manner, he specifically stated when cross-examined by defendant's counsel that the reason for the stop did not involve the manner in which the vehicle was driven.

Sergeant Bush testified that the reason he radioed the request to stop defendant's vehicle was "to determine whether it [defendant's motor vehicle] was relevant to [an investigation] I was working on at the time." When the prosecutor sought to develop the facts of the investigation which caused Sergeant Bush to radio this request, his questions were met with a hearsay objection by defendant's counsel. These objections were sustained by the district court.

In denying the motion to suppress, the district court based its ruling on a belief that the manner in which defendant was operating his motor vehicle produced a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The State seeks to save the conviction on that ground. We believe, however, that it cannot succeed in this pursuit. We have consistently held that in determining the validity of an investigatory stop police officers are bound by the real reasons for their actions. The stop may not be upheld based on reasons that might have existed but in fact did not. State v. Lamp, 322 N.W.2d 48, 51 (Iowa 1982); State v. Aschenbrenner, 289 N.W.2d 618, 619 (Iowa 1980); State v. Cooley, 229 N.W.2d 755, 757-59 (Iowa 1975). This rule is particularly applicable in the present case where the State is asking us, in effect, to uphold the stop based on an officer's exercise of judgment that in fact never occurred.

Because the State must establish the validity of the stop in order for certain evidence thereafter gathered to be admissible, we would ordinarily be required to reverse defendant's conviction on a record such as this. Where the issue is the validity of an investigatory stop, a reasonably founded suspicion may not be established solely by evidence of the receipt by the stopping officer of a radio dispatch. Proof of the factual foundation for the relayed message is also required. Were it otherwise, a radio message alone could parlay an absence of legally sufficient cause into a legal stop.

The Supreme Court has indicated that in order to uphold an investigatory stop based upon a communication between law enforcement officers it must be shown that (1) the officer making the stop acted in objective reliance on the communication, (2) the agency which issued the communication possessed a reasonable suspicion justifying a stop, and (3) the stop which was made was not significantly more intrusive than would have been permitted the agency issuing the communication. United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 233, 105 S.Ct. 675, 682, 83 L.Ed.2d 604, 615 (1985). See also United States v....