State v. Louwrens

• Citation: 792 N.W.2d 649
• Decision Date: 24 November 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-1862.,08-1862.
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Donna Kay LOUWRENS, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

792 N.W.2d 649

STATE of Iowa, Appellant,

v.Donna Kay LOUWRENS, Appellee.

No. 08-1862.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Nov. 24, 2010.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Linda J. Hines, Assistant Attorney General, and Douglas R. Hansen, County Attorney, for appellant.

John L. Sandy of Sandy Law Firm, P.C., Spirit Lake, for appellee.

HECHT, Justice.

This case presents an issue of first impression in this state—whether evidence obtained after police stopped a vehicle based on a mistake of law must be suppressed as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. We conclude the district court correctly determined the evidence derived from a stop based on a law enforcement officer's mistake of law must be suppressed.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Shortly before 1:00 a.m. on May 25, 2008, local police officers observed a car make a U-turn on Central Avenue in Estherville. Knowing that an Estherville ordinance prohibits U-turns anywhere on Central Avenue, the officers believed the driver had committed a traffic violation and stopped the car. When the officers interacted with the driver, Donna Louwrens, they suspected she was intoxicated. After failing several sobriety tests, Louwrens was taken to the law enforcement center where breath testing indicated Louwrens's blood-alcohol content was above the legal limit. She was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Louwrens moved to suppress all evidence seized as a result of the traffic stop because "there was no probable cause to justify the police in stopping" her car. The State resisted the motion to suppress, and the parties submitted a stipulated statement of facts for the district court's consideration. The parties stipulated that although an Estherville ordinance prohibits U-turns anywhere on Central Avenue, state law, specifically Iowa Code section 321.237 (2007), dictates that such turning restrictions are not effective until signs are posted in the restricted areas. The parties further stipulated that no signs were posted in the area where Louwrens made her U-turn. The stipulation included the State's concession "that enforcement (i.e. conviction) on the No U-turn ordinance is doubtful given the lack of proper signage." ¹

The district court concluded the officers' mistake of law could not provide probable cause for the traffic stop and granted Louwrens's motion to suppress. We granted the State's application for discretionary review of the district court's decision.

II. Scope of Review.

We review constitutional claims de novo. State v. Lloyd, 701 N.W.2d 678, 680 (Iowa 2005). We independently review " 'the totality of the circumstances as shown by the entire record.' " State v. Turner, 630 N.W.2d 601, 606 (Iowa 2001) (quoting State v. Howard, 509 N.W.2d 764, 767 (Iowa 1993)). We will give deference to the factual findings of the district court, but are not bound by them. Id.

III. Discussion.

The district court granted Louwrens's motion to suppress, concluding the officers' mistake of law could not justify the traffic stop. The State contends this was error and argues that a reasonable mistake of law by the officer should justify a traffic stop.

As a starting point, it is well-established that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.² State v. Kinkead, 570 N.W.2d 97, 100 (Iowa 1997). The Fourth Amendment's proscriptions apply to state governments by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 1090 (1961). Generally, this means a search or seizure must take place pursuant to a warrant issued by a judicial officer and that searches conducted without a warrant are unreasonable, unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies. Kinkead, 570 N.W.2d at 100.

One such exception authorizes a law enforcement officer to stop a vehicle when the officer observes a traffic violation, no matter how minor.³State v. Tague, 676 N.W.2d 197, 201 (Iowa 2004). The burden is on the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the officer had probable cause to stop the vehicle. Id. If the State does not meet thisburden, the evidence obtained through the stop must be suppressed. Kinkead, 570 N.W.2d at 100. We have previously determined that an officer's reasonable mistake of fact supporting his belief that a traffic violation or other criminal activity is underway will suffice as probable cause for a stop. Id. at 101; Lloyd, 701 N.W.2d at 680.

This case, however, presents a different question: May an officer's mistake of law provide probable cause to authorize a traffic stop? We mentioned, but did not decide this question in Lloyd. 701 N.W.2d at 680 n. 1. A majority of courts that have considered the issue have concluded a mistake of law cannot provide probable cause to justify a traffic stop. See United States v. McDonald, 453 F.3d 958, 962 (7th Cir.2006); United States v. DeGasso, 369 F.3d 1139, 1144-45 (10th Cir.2004); United States v. Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d 1271, 1279 (11th Cir.2003); United States v. Twilley, 222 F.3d 1092, 1096 (9th Cir.2000); United States v. Miller, 146 F.3d 274, 279 (5th Cir.1998).

The State, however, urges us to adopt the minority view held by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. That court has concluded "the legal determination of whether probable cause or reasonable suspicion existed for [a] stop is judged by whether the mistake of law was an 'objectively reasonable one.' " United States v. Washington, 455 F.3d 824, 827 (8th Cir.2006) (quoting United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767, 770 (8th Cir.2005)).

However, our review of the development of the Eighth Circuit's position does not convince us to follow suit. In Smart, a case in which the officer "made neither a mistake of law nor one of fact," the Eighth Circuit stated that "in our circuit the distinction between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact is irrelevant to the fourth amendment inquiry." 393 F.3d at 769, 770 (citing United States v. Sanders, 196 F.3d 910 (8th Cir.1999)). However, Sanders, the case cited by the court for this proposition, was not analyzed as a "mistake" case and did not discuss the distinction between a mistake of law and mistake of fact for Fourth Amendment purposes. See Sanders, 196 F.3d at 912-13. It was not until later that year that the Eighth Circuit applied the principle announced in Smart in a case actually involving a mistake of law. United States v. Martin, 411 F.3d 998, 1001 (8th Cir.2005). It did so without any discussion of the competing view that a mistake of law cannot provide probable cause to justify a traffic stop. In a subsequent decision, the court acknowledged the development of a different rule in other circuits, but did not discuss the rationale supporting that rule. Washington, 455 F.3d at 827 n. 1.

Although we can appreciate the appeal of the symmetry of the Eighth Circuit's approach treating all mistakes alike, we are ultimately persuaded that the approach acknowledging a fundamental distinction between an officer's mistake of fact and mistake of law is better-reasoned. The circuits applying the majority rule begin their analysis with the proposition that " '[t]he touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.' " Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d at 1275 (quoting United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118, 122 S.Ct. 587, 591, 151 L.Ed.2d 497, 505 (2001)). They note that "great deference" is given to an officer's assessment of facts and recognize that an officer's mistake of fact may provide the necessary grounds to justify a stop, as long as the officer's assessment was reasonable. Id. at 1276. However, courts applying the majority rule temper this deference by evaluating the existence of probable cause for a stop " 'from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer.' " Id. (quotingOrnelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1661-62, 134 L.Ed.2d 911, 919 (1996)).

[L]aw enforcement officers [have] broad leeway to conduct searches and seizures regardless of whether their subjective intent corresponds to the legal justification for their actions. But the flip side of that leeway is that the legal justification must be objectively grounded.

Miller, 146 F.3d at 279 (footnote omitted). Courts applying the majority rule have concluded that the legal justification for a stop based on conduct accurately observed but mistakenly understood by officers to be illegal is not "objectively grounded." Id.;

accord Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d at 1279.

The Ninth Circuit has further reasoned in support of its adoption of the majority rule that allowing officers to justify a stop based on a misunderstanding of the law "would remove the incentive for police to make certain that they properly understand the law they are entrusted to enforce and obey." United States v. Lopez-Soto, 205 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir.2000). Using similar reasoning, the Eleventh Circuit rejected an argument that a vague or ambiguous statute should excuse an officer's mistaken interpretation, concluding that even if the statute at issue were ambiguous, it would be inappropriate to use the ambiguity of a statute against a defendant. Chanthasouxat, 342 F.3d at 1278. "We ... note the fundamental unfairness of holding citizens to 'the traditional rule that ignorance of the law is no excuse' while allowing those 'entrusted to enforce' the law to be ignorant of it," Id. at 1280 (quoting Bryan v. United States, 524 U.S. 184, 196, 118 S.Ct. 1939, 1947, 141 L.Ed.2d 197, 208 (1998)).

The State contends that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in United States v. Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d 392 (3d Cir.2006), supports its position that a stop may be justified by an officer's mistake of law. We do not interpret Delfin-Colina to support a ruling in the State's favor in this case. Instead we read Delfin-Colina as implicitly adopting the majority approach distinguishing between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law....