State v. Versteegh
| Decision Date | 15 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-0625 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JESSICA JOANN MARIE VERSTEEGH, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jeffrey Farrell, Judge.
Jessica Versteegh appeals the denial of her motion to suppress evidence from a stop and frisk. AFFIRMED.
Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Rachel C. Regenold Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Heard by Bower, C.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
Jessica Versteegh was convicted of carrying a dangerous weapon. Prior to trial, the district court denied Versteegh's motion to suppress evidence from a stop and frisk. Versteegh appeals arguing the court erred in denying her motion to suppress. We find reasonable suspicion to justify the investigatory stop and resulting frisk. Therefore, we affirm Versteegh's conviction.
At 11:49 p.m. on Sunday, August 9, 2020, staff from a local university notified Des Moines police about shots fired on campus at approximately 26th Street and Forest Avenue. Officers began arriving around 12:08 a.m., and they quickly located and detained multiple suspects. Based on information from university staff and the suspects already detained, officers believed the suspects they were looking for included six black males between fourteen and sixteen years old.
Sergeant Garth House was one of the officers participating in the search. After inspecting the scene of the shooting, Sergeant House began searching for suspects from his patrol vehicle and on foot. Sergeant House believed at least one at-large suspect still possessed a firearm used in the shooting. At one point, another officer reported over the police radio that "a passerby said a female in a- wearing blue and khaki-blue top, khaki bottoms, about 28th and [University]," and the dispatcher replied "we've had that description a couple of times." At about the same time, Sergeant House drove past a pedestrian wearing a blue shirt and khaki shorts walking eastbound along University Avenue near 25th Street. Even though Sergeant House initially thought the pedestrian was male, he stopped and exited his vehicle to speak with the pedestrian, later identified as Versteegh. Sergeant House's body camera recorded the encounter. Sergeant House testified he realized Versteegh was female as soon as she spoke. The two had the following interaction:
House: Hi. Where you coming from?
Versteegh: Walking down from [a nearby restaurant], pretty much.
House: Okay, well, we had a deal up there by [the university], okay? Matching your description pretty well-
Versteegh: What?
House: -clothing anyways.
Versteegh: Really?
House: Yes. You got an ID on you?
Versteegh: No, but I have my name.
[House talking on his radio]
Versteegh: Somebody just passed by me and was like, "are you in trouble?" I was like, "no." But I was like, I think you've been passing me actually.
House: Uh, I just drove by here and turned around.
Versteegh: I was actually walking from [the restaurant] going to 23rd [Street] to my friend's house.
Versteegh: Oh, wow, really? No.
House: Okay, I'm just going to pat you down real quick, make sure you don't have any weapons, okay?
Sergeant House grabbed Versteegh's left arm to frisk her, which he testified he does to prevent the subject from running away or assaulting him if the suspect has contraband. Versteegh hesitated and then admitted she had a handgun in her pants pocket. Sergeant House detained Versteegh in handcuffs, secured the handgun, and arrested her for unlawfully carrying a firearm. Although Versteegh was initially a suspect in the shooting, upon completion of the investigation, the State does not allege that Versteegh was involved in it.
Versteegh filed a motion to suppress evidence from the search, claiming the State lacked reasonable suspicion to justify the stop and frisk. After a hearing, the district court denied the motion. Following a trial on the minutes, the court found Versteegh guilty of carrying a weapon.[1] The court sentenced Versteegh to a term of incarceration not to exceed two years for the carrying-weapons charge, ordered the sentence to be served consecutively to her sentences in two unrelated matters, and suspended the sentence. Versteegh appeals.
Versteegh argues that the investigatory stop and the subsequent frisk were an unreasonable seizure and search in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. While Versteegh raises the issue under both constitutions, she does not put forth an independent standard to evaluate her claims under the Iowa Constitution. Therefore, "we will apply the general standards as outlined by the United States Supreme Court for addressing a search and seizure under the Iowa Constitution."[2]"We review claims challenging the denial of a motion to suppress evidence on constitutional grounds de novo."[3] "When presented with such claims, we make an 'independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances as shown by the entire record.'"[4] "We give deference to the district court's factual findings, but they do not bind us."[5]
A warrantless search and seizure is per se unconstitutional unless an exception applies.[6] "One exception to the warrant requirement allows an officer to stop an individual or vehicle for investigatory purposes based on a reasonable suspicion that a criminal act has occurred or is occurring."[7] "The purpose of an investigatory stop is to allow a police officer to confirm or dispel suspicions of criminal activity through reasonable questioning."[8] "To justify an investigatory stop, the officer must be able to point to 'specific and articulable facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.'"[9] "Whether reasonable suspicion exists for an investigatory stop must be determined in light of the totality of the circumstances confronting a police officer, including all information available to the officer at the time the decision to stop is made."[10] "An officer may make an investigatory stop with 'considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence.'"[11] "Factors that may reasonably lead an experienced officer to investigate include time of day or night, location of the suspect parties, and the parties' behavior when they become aware of the officer's presence."[12] "In addition, a person's temporal and geographic proximity to a crime scene, combined with a matching description of the suspect, can support a finding of reasonable suspicion."[13]
While both parties agree that a stop occurred at some time, to some degree, they disagree as to when the stop began. The event upon which this appeal focuses is the frisk, which, as explained below, must be supported by reasonable suspicion at the time independent of when the stop began. As the State does not challenge that a stop occurred before the frisk began, we need not decide the precise moment that the stop occurred. For purposes of our discussion, we will assume the investigatory stop began when Sergeant House exited his patrol vehicle and began speaking to Versteegh.
The State relies primarily on three factors as providing reasonable suspicion to justify the investigatory stop: Versteegh's temporal and geographic proximity to the shooting, the time and place of the stop, and Versteegh's appearance being similar to the description of the suspects.
For temporal and geographic proximity, the State points to a recent case from the District of Columbia, Funderburk v. United States, wherein the court "recognized that 'sometimes the universe' of potential suspects 'will be small enough that no description at all will be required to justify a stopping for investigation.'"[14] In Funderburk, the officers heard gunfire, narrowed the location of the gunfire to a twenty-five meter area, and encountered the defendant in that area about thirty seconds after the gunfire.[15] We recognize this temporal and geographic proximity is much stronger than the proximity here. Des Moines police responded to a call about gunfire rather than personally observing it. While our record contains no definitive evidence of the precise time of the shooting, the evidence suggests that the shots were fired at least several minutes before officers arrived at the scene, but the suspects were still in the area and actively fleeing at the time Sergeant House encountered Versteegh. Sergeant House testified he encountered Versteegh "[a]bout two blocks" away from the shooting, which is not a small area to search for suspects next to an urban college campus. But a stop and frisk may be supported by reasonable suspicion even with much greater temporal and geographic distance when considered with the totality of the circumstances.[16]
For the time and place of the stop, the State notes Versteegh was the only person Sergeant House saw while searching for suspects. Sergeant House testified "[t]here was literally no one else out" that night, not even other vehicles.
The body camera footage confirms the area was generally devoid of activity at the time of the encounter. Sergeant House testified that the reasons the area was deserted included the late hour on a weeknight (the shooting occurred late on Sunday evening, with...
To continue reading
Request your trial