State v. Legg

• Decision Date: 06 September 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-0225.,00-0225.
• Citation: 633 N.W.2d 763
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Linda Lou LEGG, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

633 N.W.2d 763

STATE of Iowa, Appellee,
v.
Linda Lou LEGG, Appellant

No. 00-0225.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

September 6, 2001.

Rehearing Denied October 3, 2001.

633 N.W.2d 765

James A. Sinclair of Sinclair & Associates, P.C., West Des Moines, for appellant

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Karen Doland, Assistant Attorney General, Judson L. Frisk, County Attorney, and Susan Christensen, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

TERNUS, Justice.

The appellant, Linda Legg, appeals her conviction for operating while intoxicated. See Iowa Code § 321J.2 (1999). Her only claim of error is the district court's denial of her motion to suppress. Legg asserts her rights under the Fourth Amendment were violated by a police officer's warrantless entry into her garage, which resulted in her subsequent arrest for operating while intoxicated.¹ See U.S. Const.Amend. IV. We affirm.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Because this case was tried on the stipulated minutes of testimony, the facts are largely undisputed. At approximately 12:55 a.m. on February 27, 1999, Logan police officer Jeff Killpack observed the defendant's vehicle run a stop sign in the town of Logan without even slowing down. Killpack pursued the defendant and caught up with her a block later. At that time, he activated his top lights and "wigwags" located inside the grill. The defendant did not stop, however; rather, she accelerated her car and ran another stop sign.

Killpack continued to follow the defendant's vehicle and, while doing so, noticed that the defendant's car was weaving slowly from curb to curb. After running the second stop sign, the defendant drove another half block before turning into an alley and stopping near a garage. The officer pulled his vehicle in behind the defendant's car, his tops lights and "wigwags" still on. As the officer got out of his car, Legg exited her vehicle and headed toward a door leading into the garage. Following closely behind her, Killpack yelled for the defendant to stop. Legg did not stop and instead opened the door to the garage and went inside. Killpack followed Legg into the garage, taking three steps inside. Throughout this entire incident, Killpack never lost sight of the defendant.

Once inside the garage, Killpack asked Legg to come outside so that he could speak with her. She repeatedly stated, "I'm home." Killpack noticed that her breath smelled of alcohol. He then gently pulled on her coat to "coax" her out of the garage. At that point he could see that her eyes were bloodshot and watery. In addition, Legg had difficulty keeping her balance and her speech was extremely slurred. When Killpack asked to see her license, Legg became angry and attempted to push the officer away from the door so she could go back inside. Killpack then told the defendant he was concerned about

633 N.W.2d 766

her intoxication and asked her to go with him to the law enforcement center. When she refused to cooperate, he placed her in handcuffs and informed her she was under arrest for operating while intoxicated (OWI). Once they arrived at the law enforcement center, Legg refused to perform field sobriety tests and refused to take a preliminary breath test

Legg was charged with OWI, first offense, and interference with official acts, both serious misdemeanors.² See Iowa Code §§ 321J.2, 719.1. In addition, she was ticketed for failure to stop. See id. § 321.256. Legg's pre-trial motion to suppress was denied. The misdemeanor charges then proceeded to a bench trial on the stipulated minutes of testimony. The court found the defendant guilty of both crimes. Legg was sentenced to seven days in jail and fined $1000 for the OWI offense. On the conviction for interference with official acts, the court sentenced Legg to one day in jail to be served concurrently with the prior sentence. The court then suspended five days of the OWI sentence and placed the defendant on conditional unsupervised probation for one year.

Legg appeals. She raises only one issue: whether the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress. Legg argues Killpack's warrantless entry into her garage violated the Fourth Amendment, requiring suppression of any evidence obtained thereafter. She claims Killpack acted unreasonably because he did not have probable cause to arrest her for OWI and there were no exigent circumstances to justify his entry into her garage without a warrant. The State contends that Legg had no legitimate expectation of privacy in her garage and that, even if she did, the officer did not unreasonably invade that interest. We review this constitutional claim de novo. See State v. Halliburton, 539 N.W.2d 339, 341 (Iowa 1995).

II. General Legal Principles.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." U.S. Const. amend. IV. In interpreting this provision of the Constitution, the United States Supreme Court has stated that "the Fourth Amendment's proper function is to constrain, not against all intrusions ... but against intrusions which are not justified in the circumstances, or which are made in an improper manner." Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 768, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1834, 16 L.Ed.2d 908, 918 (1966) (emphasis added). Similarly, this court has noted that

[t]he essential purpose of the proscriptions of the Fourth Amendment "is to impose a standard of `reasonableness' upon the exercise of discretion by government officials, including law enforcement agents[,] in order `to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasion....'"

State v. Loyd, 530 N.W.2d 708, 711 (Iowa 1995) (emphasis added) (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653-54, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660, 667 (1979)); accord State v. Breuer, 577 N.W.2d 41, 45 (Iowa 1998) (stating "the Fourth Amendment protects only against unreasonable

633 N.W.2d 767

government intrusion upon a person's legitimate expectation of privacy" (emphasis added))

To protect citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fourth Amendment requires that the government must obtain a warrant before it may search or enter an area in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. See Breuer, 577 N.W.2d at 45. Searches conducted without a warrant are per se unreasonable, unless the government action falls within one of a few, well-recognized exceptions. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 585 (1967). These exceptions include "searches based on consent, plain view, [or] exigent circumstances and searches incident to arrest." Breuer, 577 N.W.2d at 45.

In determining whether there has been a Fourth Amendment violation, this court has adopted a two-step approach. See id. First, we decide whether the person challenging the search has shown a legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched. See id.; accord Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 91, 119 S.Ct. 469, 474, 142 L.Ed.2d 373, 379 (1998). If so, we then "consider whether the State has unreasonably invaded that protected interest." Breuer, 577 N.W.2d at 45. Our evaluation of the reasonableness of a search is made using an objective standard. See State v. Cline, 617 N.W.2d 277, 280-81 (Iowa 2000). "Consequently, the legality of a search and seizure ... `does not depend on the actual motivation of the individual officers involved.'" Id. at 281 (quoting State v. Predka, 555 N.W.2d 202, 205 (Iowa 1996)).

III. Legitimate Expectation of Privacy.

The first issue we must decide is whether Legg had a legitimate expectation of privacy in her garage. The United States Supreme Court has observed that

the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.

Katz, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511, 19 L.Ed.2d at 582 (citations omitted). Whether a person has a legitimate expectation of privacy concerning a specific area is made on a case-by-case basis, considering the unique facts of each situation. See Breuer, 577 N.W.2d at 46.

Notwithstanding a generally case-by-case approach, it is well established that persons have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their homes. See Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 770, 86 S.Ct. at 1835, 16 L.Ed.2d at 919 ("Search warrants are ordinarily required for searches of dwellings...."). Indeed, the "physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed." United States v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2134, 32 L.Ed.2d 752, 764 (1972).

Fourth Amendment protection has also been extended to the curtilage of the home. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 1742, 80 L.Ed.2d 214, 225 (1984).³ "[T]he extent of the curtilage is determined by factors that bear upon whether an individual reasonably may expect that the area in question

633 N.W.2d 768

should be treated as the home itself." United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 300, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 1139, 94 L.Ed.2d 326, 334 (1987). In Dunn, the Court established four, nonexclusive factors to consider in determining whether an area falls within the curtilage of a home: (1) "the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home"; (2) "whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home"; (3) "the nature of the uses to which the area is put"; and (4) "the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by." Id. at 301, 107 S.Ct. at 1139, 94 L.Ed.2d at 334-35. "[T]he primary focus is whether the area in question harbors those intimate activities associated with domestic life and the privacies of the home." Id. at...