United States v. Davis
| Citation | 326 F.Supp.3d 702 |
| Decision Date | 14 August 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. CR 17-4074-MWB,CR 17-4074-MWB |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Dylan Anthony DAVIS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa |
Jamie D. Bowers, US Attorney's Office, Sioux City, IA, for Plaintiff.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A defendant charged with drug and firearm offenses seeks suppression of evidence seized from a rental car in which he was a passenger and the statements he allegedly made while he was being transported by law enforcement officers to his initial court appearance. While the defendant concedes that the initial stop of the rental car for speeding was valid, he contends that the purported inventory search, conducted after the officer who stopped the car obtained permission from the rental car company to tow the vehicle, was pretextual, because it was not pursuant to any reasonable protocol, and was unreasonably prolonged. He also contends that statements he made while being transported to his initial appearance and arraignment were obtained by the transporting officers in violation of his right to counsel. The prosecution concedes that the statements made during the defendant's transportation to his court appearance must be suppressed, but it disputes the defendant's standing to challenge the vehicle search as well as the merits of his challenge.
On the evening of November 29, 2017, Sergeant Michael Kober of the Iowa State Patrol (ISP) was parked in the median of Interstate 29, facing northbound, near mile marker 113, within approximately a mile of the Onawa exit, in Monona County, Iowa, conducting traffic enforcement. Sgt. Kober has been with the ISP since 1996. He started as a trooper, and in 2015, he was promoted to sergeant. He has spent his career with the ISP patrolling Iowa's roads, and he estimates that he has conducted thousands of traffic stops and hundreds of vehicle searches. He testified at the suppression hearing that a traffic stop ordinarily takes him about ten to fifteen minutes. On the evening of November 29, 2017, Sgt. Kober had a civilian in his cruiser for a "ride along."
Sgt. Kober's "dash camera video," Defendant's Exhibit E (Video), shows that, at 9:17 p.m., an SUV in the left southbound lane of I-29 passed Sgt. Kober's parked position at a speed in excess of the posted 70 mph speed limit. Sgt. Kober pulled onto the southbound lane of I-29 and began pursuit. When he caught up with the SUV, which was still traveling in the left lane at 80 miles per hour, and the SUV immediately began braking. After going under an overpass, the SUV pulled over toward the median. Sgt. Kober moved his cruiser into the center of the two southbound lanes and signaled with his spotlight that he wanted the SUV to pull over to the right-side shoulder. I doubt that I would have understood the meaning of these signals, even if I had been looking in the rearview mirror of the SUV. There is no evidence in the record that the occupants of the SUV, or a reasonable driver or passenger, would have both seen and understood the signals, either. When the driver of the SUV did not respond to those signals as hoped, Sgt. Kober promptly gave up the attempt to move the stop to the right side of the highway and pulled his cruiser in behind the SUV as it stopped in the median. There was nothing unusual or inappropriate about the manner in which the vehicle was being driven other than its speed. Nor was there anything unusual about the length of time the vehicle took to pull over. Even though traffic was relatively light, Sgt. Kober never requested that the driver move the SUV to the wider shoulder on the right side of the highway. As the two vehicles were coming to a stop, Sgt. Kober commented to his passenger that the vehicle had Georgia plates and was probably a rental, adding, "See the barcode?" referring to a barcode in the rear window. Both the cruiser and the SUV had come to a stop less than one minute after the SUV passed Sgt. Kober's original parked position and approximate thirty seconds after Sgt. Kober had activated his lights.
When Sgt. Kober approached the driver's side of the SUV, he did not detect any smell of drugs, but he did encounter an overwhelming smell of body odor and cigarettes, notwithstanding a "no smoking" sticker on the dash of the SUV. At no time did Sgt. Kober detect any indications that the occupants were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, although he later testified that the passenger initially was asleep or was pretending to be asleep. Sgt. Kober told the occupants that the SUV had been stopped for speeding and requested licenses and the SUV's registration. In response to Sgt. Kober's questions, the occupants immediately and truthfully identified themselves as Noah Pope, the driver, and defendant Dylan Davis, the only passenger. Pope told Sgt. Kober that they did not have the registration, because the car was a rental. Sgt. Kober made several requests to see the rental agreement in rather quick succession. Video at 2:41-3:03. Pope explained that a person named Cari Rigdon had rented the SUV for "them" in Georgia, that they were driving back to Georgia from North Dakota after dropping off another woman, and that the vehicle was due back the next day, but he admitted that they did not have the rental agreement. Id. ; see also Sgt. Kober's Report, Defendant's Ex. A (Sgt. Kober's Report), 1. Later in the stop, when Sgt. Kober again mentioned that they did not have the rental agreement, Pope told Sgt. Kober that they had been stopped once in North or South Dakota, but the police had not given them any trouble for not having the rental agreement. Video at 4:48-55. Sgt. Kober testified that, based on his training and experience, it is unusual for the renter of a vehicle not to be present in the vehicle during a traffic stop and that it is unusual for the occupants of a rental car not to have the rental agreement. He did not, however, make any attempt to obtain Cari Rigdon's contact information or whereabouts from Pope or Davis or the ISP dispatcher, nor did he make any attempt to contact her to ask if she had given Pope and Davis permission to take the rental car.
Pope began looking for his identification in a backpack that he had pulled from the back seat. Sgt. Kober's Report at 1. Sgt. Kober saw a baggie or baggies in the backpack and believed that Pope was trying to shove it or them back out of sight. When Sgt. Kober asked Pope, "What's in the zip-lock bag?" Pope explained it was a pellet or air gun, but it was in pieces, and handed the bag to Sgt. Kober. Video at 3:16-4:04. Sgt. Kober testified that Pope was very nervous, breathing heavily, and shaking, but Davis did not seem nervous. Sgt. Kober asked several more questions about Pope's and Davis's trip before he observed a long gun case in the back compartment of the SUV. When Sgt. Kober asked what was in it, Davis told him it contained a "nine-millimeter." Id. at 6:38-55. When Sgt. Kober asked if it was loaded, Davis replied that he did not know, but promptly agreed to let Sgt. Kober look at it. Id. at 6:55-7:06. Sgt. Kober removed the gun case from the SUV, then opened it on the hood of the SUV. Sgt. Kober asked why they had a gun in a rental car, and Davis explained that he had not wanted to leave it in his truck. Sgt. Kober needed the help of one of the occupants of the SUV to figure out how to release the magazine, but when he did, he found that the magazine was loaded, although there was no bullet in the chamber. Id. at 7:06-8:38. Sgt. Kober explained to the occupants of the SUV that guns cannot be transported while loaded in Iowa. Id. at 8:53-9:08. Pope produced a Georgia driver's license, but Davis said he had no identification, so he wrote his name and other information on a piece of paper and gave it to Sgt. Kober. Sgt. Kober returned to his cruiser with the gun. Id. at 9:33. At that point, the vehicles had been stopped for approximately nine minutes.
It took several minutes for dispatch to reply to Sgt. Kober's request for verification of Pope's and Davis's information and to confirm that the gun was not stolen. While waiting, Sgt. Kober told his ride-along passenger something like "he's got drugs [inaudible] no good [?] ...," id. at 13:02-06,2 and "there's a dope bag in the bottom of [Pope's] bag that he didn't show me,"id. at 14:43-52. When another ISP officer, Trooper Farver, arrived on the scene, having heard Sgt. Kober's request for information about a gun over the radio, Sgt. Kober told Trooper Farver that it was his "personal opinion there's dope in the car." Id. at 15:35-41. After he told Trooper Farver about the broken pellet gun in the bag, Sgt. Kober also told Trooper Farver, "I think there's another bag in the bottom of his backpack that he kept moving shirts and clothes around trying to cover it...
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United States v. Grayon
...in a rental car have a reasonable expectation to privacy, even when they are not authorized drivers. See United States v. Davis, 326 F. Supp. 3d 702, 718-720 (N.D. Iowa 2018). However, the court need not reach this issue due to the subsequent discussion here about the good-faith exception t......