State v. Cox

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STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEROD MICHAEL COX, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 23-1811

Court of Appeals of Iowa

August 21, 2024

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Bremer County, Peter B Newell, Judge.

Jerod Cox appeals the denial of his motion to suppress. AFFIRMED.

Jesse M. Marzen of Marzen Law Office, P.L.L.C., Waverly, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Nicholas Siefert and Anagha Dixit, Assistant Attorneys General, and Makenna Konkol, Law Student, for appellee.

Considered by Ahlers, P.J., and Chicchelly and Buller, JJ.

AHLERS, Presiding Judge.

Jerod Cox was charged with and convicted of interference with official acts resulting in bodily injury in violation of Iowa Code section 719.1(1)(a) and (c) (2022). The charge stemmed from Cox's physical resistance to law enforcement officers attempting to get him to exit his vehicle to continue their investigation of suspected criminal conduct. Before his bench trial, Cox moved to suppress evidence on the ground that the officer did not have reasonable suspicion to support the seizure that he resisted. The district court denied the motion, and Cox appeals that ruling.

Cox contends law enforcement officers' seizure of him violated his rights against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. We review constitutional challenges to the denial of a motion to suppress de novo. State v Stevens, 970 N.W.2d 598, 601 (Iowa 2022). We independently evaluate "the totality of the circumstances as shown by the entire record." Id. at 602 (quoting State v. Scheffert, 910 N.W.2d 577, 581 (Iowa 2018)). We defer to the district court's factual findings, but we are not bound by them. Stevens, 970 N.W.2d at 602.

On the night at issue, Cox was sitting in the driver's seat of a running vehicle parked in an otherwise empty church parking lot around 11:30 p.m. A law enforcement officer on routine patrol noticed the vehicle parked alone in the parking lot and was aware of reports from the church that people had been stealing cans from the redemption box at the church. The officer pulled her vehicle into the parking lot to investigate, but she did not activate her patrol vehicle's lights or block Cox's vehicle. The officer approached the driver's side of the vehicle and saw Cox tapping on his cell phone. Cox did not react to the officer's approach or her first knock on his car window. When Cox did not respond to a second knock on his window, the officer shined her flashlight into the vehicle. In response, Cox turned toward the officer. He also turned his cell phone screen toward the officer, presumably to show what he was doing on his phone, and said something the officer could not hear because of Cox's closed window. The officer noticed that Cox's eyes were bloodshot and glassy, which, coupled with Cox's slow responses to her presence and questions, made the officer suspect he may be impaired-a suspicion she immediately relayed to another officer. The original officer repeatedly asked Cox to open his car window or door so she could talk to him, but Cox largely ignored her. Finally, Cox lowered his car window about an inch. The officer tried to engage Cox several times, asking questions about what he was doing and mentioning that he had bloodshot eyes. Cox was resistant to the officer's questioning, repeatedly claiming that he wasn't doing anything wrong and often failing to respond to the officer's questions or requests. He also repeated the officer's concern back to her incorrectly, mumbling something about his eyes not being dilated-a claim the officer never made. When asked how much he had to drink that night, Cox mumbled something unintelligible.

During this exchange, another officer arrived. As the original officer suspected Cox was impaired, the officers decided to ask Cox to exit the vehicle so they could determine whether he was operating while intoxicated. The officers repeatedly made this request. Cox refused, and in doing so, made several slurred or mumbled responses that were not responsive to things the officers had said, and he argued with them. When told they were not concerned about the game he was playing on his phone but were concerned that he was operating his vehicle while intoxicated, Cox claimed he was not operating a vehicle and then immediately thereafter reached down and turned off the vehicle that had been running, pulled the key out of the ignition, and dropped the keys in the center console area of his car. He then admitted driving into the parking lot.

As Cox refused to get out of the car, the officers opened the driver's side door to remove Cox from the vehicle. Cox resisted, holding on to the steering wheel and trying to brace himself between the seat and steering wheel as the officers tried to forcibly remove him from the car. One of the officers was injured in the struggle. After deploying a taser, the officers were finally able to remove Cox from the vehicle. They arrested him for interference with official acts.

Cox claims the officer did not have reasonable suspicion to continue investigating once it was clear he was just playing a game on his phone and their later seizure of him was unlawful so the evidence the officers obtained should be suppressed.

At the outset, we note that we have a question as to what evidence Cox seeks to suppress, as it is not clear from the record or his brief. Based on the transcript of the suppression hearing, it appears the district court had the same question. This question has importance because it may impact whether we should decline to address the merits of Cox's appeal due to the mootness doctrine. See Riley Drive Ent. I, Inc. v. Reynolds, 970 N.W.2d 289, 296 (Iowa 2022) ("Courts exist to decide cases, not academic questions of law." (citation omitted)). Further, even were we to assume that the officers had no lawful reason to continue to investigate or to seize Cox, Cox had no right to resist the seizure. See State v. Wilson, 968 N.W.2d 903, 915 (Iowa 2022) ("Even though an initial arrest is unlawful, a defendant has no right to resist the arrest. If the defendant does so, probable cause exists for a second arrest for resisting." (quoting State v. Dawdy, 533 N.W.2d 551, 555 (Iowa 1995))).^[1]

If Cox seeks to suppress the evidence of his resistance, we see no basis for doing so, as Cox provides no argument for why evidence of a new crime was unlawfully obtained here. If Cox seeks to suppress the evidence leading up to his seizure, we are at a loss to determine what that evidence is, as the only crime with which Cox was charged was interference with official acts for resisting the attempted seizure. Cox identifies no evidence prior to the officers' attempt to get him out of the car that is being used against him. See State v. Bergmann, 633 N.W.2d 328, 333 (Iowa 2001) ("[W]e are skeptical that [the defendant] can raise any successful constitutional challenge regarding this pat down because nothing was found from it that is now being used against [the defendant]."). As Cox has identified no evidence that...