State v. Larson

1

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEFFREY LEROY LARSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 21-1850

Court of Appeals of Iowa

March 8, 2023

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

Jeffrey Leroy Larson appeals the denial of his motion to suppress. AFFIRMED.

Matthew G. Sease of Sease &Wadding, Des Moines, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Thomas J. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., Tabor, J., and Scott, S.J ^[*] SCOTT, Senior Judge.

After a trial on the minutes of evidence, Jeffrey Leroy Larson was convicted of first-offense possession of marijuana, in violation of Iowa Code section 124.401(5) (2020). On appeal, Larson challenges the denial of his motion to suppress, asserting the state trooper unreasonably prolonged the traffic stop. We affirm.

At about 3:30 p.m. on December 19, 2020, Iowa State Patrol Trooper John Iriarte stopped Larson's vehicle, which was traveling eighty-three miles per hour in a sixty-five mile per hour zone. Larson, his wife, and their dog were in the vehicle. Trooper Iriarte asked Larson to bring his license and registration to the patrol vehicle where Larson sat in the trooper's front passenger seat while the officer prepared a speeding citation. After about seven minutes, Trooper Iriarte-still working on the citation-asked Larson questions about whether there was anything illegal in Larson's vehicle-weapons, drugs, marijuana, meth, heroine, or "prescription pills that aren't yours?" Larson said no. Trooper Iriarte than asked, "If I wanted to search your vehicle, could I?" and Larson said, "Absolutely."

A couple minutes later, the officer completed inputting information in his patrol vehicle computer system, asked for Larson's signature, and explained how to take care of the speeding citation. Trooper Iriarte then gave Larson the citation and stated, "If you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and just search your vehicle if it's okay with you still." Larson said, "Well, we'd like to get on the road but I can get the dog ...." Trooper Iriarte found marijuana when searching Larson's vehicle.

Larson challenged the search of his vehicle in the district court, asserting the trooper unlawfully prolonged the traffic stop and his consent was not voluntary. Trooper Iriarte testified at a hearing on the motion, and the patrol vehicle recordings of the traffic stop were admitted. The district court denied Larson's motion to suppress, finding the stop was not impermissibly extended and Larson's consent was voluntary. Larson appeals.

We review constitutional issues de novo. In re Prop. Seized from Pardee, 872 N.W.2d 384, 390 (Iowa 2015). In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we make "an independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances as shown by the entire record." Id. (citation omitted). "We give deference to the district court's fact findings due to its opportunity to assess the credibility of witnesses, but we are not bound by those findings." Id. (citation omitted).

"'[I]t is well settled that a traffic violation, however minor, gives an officer probable cause to stop a motorist' and is therefore a reasonable seizure." State v. Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d 572, 577 (Iowa 2019) (quoting State v. Aderholdt, 545 N.W.2d 559, 563-64 (Iowa 1996)).

Once lawfully stopped, inquiries reasonably related to the mission of addressing the traffic infraction "and attend[ing] to related safety concerns" are permissible. This court has recognized, "[A] reasonable investigation includes asking for the driver's license and registration, requesting that the driver sit in the patrol car, and asking the driver about his destination and purpose."

Id. at 577-78 (alterations in original) (internal citations omitted).^[1] Authority for a traffic seizure "ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are-or reasonably should have been-completed." Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 354 (2015). "Because addressing the infraction is the purpose of the stop, it may 'last no longer than is necessary to effectuate th[at] purpose.'" Id. (alteration in original) (citation omitted). The Salcedo court noted: "Rodriguez made clear the Fourth Amendment will tolerate certain unrelated investigations that do not extend the roadside stop, but the stop will remain lawful only 'so long as [unrelated] inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.'" 935 N.W.2d at 579.

On our de novo review, we find Larson's detention lasted no longer than necessary to prepare and issue the traffic citation. It is true Trooper Iriarte asked Larson questions during that time period concerning Larson's destination and purpose and the existence of weapons or drugs in the vehicle, but those questions did not measurably extend the duration of the stop.

While Trooper Iriarte was preparing the traffic citation, Larson informed the trooper he could "absolutely" search the vehicle-the trooper had not yet completed issuing the citation. When the trooper handed the citation to Larson, Larson again consented-admittedly less enthusiastically-to the search. "[C]onsensual searches are a well-established exception to the warrant requirement and do not violate the Federal or State Constitution." State v. Hauge, 973 N.W.2d 453, 461 (Iowa 2022). Larson, however, contends the circumstances of his traffic stop require a finding that Larson's consent was not voluntary. He relies on State v. Pals, 805 N.W.2d 767 (Iowa 2011), claiming almost identical circumstances exist here. We cannot agree.

Our supreme court has recently described the circumstances that led to the Pals court finding the consent was not voluntary:

There, a law enforcement officer conducted a traffic stop of Pals to enforce a municipal ordinance. When Pals was unable to produce proof of insurance, the officer asked Pals to come back to his patrol car. The officer subjected Pals to a pat-down search before detaining Pals in the patrol car, where Pals sat in the front passenger seat while the officer informed Pals that he needed to update the address on his driver's license, warned him about the municipal infraction he had violated, and instructed him to call the sheriff's office with his insurance policy information to alleviate the need for a no-insurance ticket. After Pals agreed to do so, the officer asked Pals, "Say you don't have anything, any weapons or drugs or anything like that in your vehicle, do you? Do you care if I take a look?" Pals responded, "[S]ure, go ahead." The search of the vehicle revealed marijuana, which led to Pals's conviction for possession of a controlled substance after the district court denied his motion to suppress the evidence.

On appeal, a majority of our court concluded that Pals did not voluntarily consent to the search of his vehicle under article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. The majority considered four factors, including the "projected authority" the officer exerted over Pals during the pat-down search and the "inherently coercive" setting of Pals's detainment in the police vehicle on the side of a public highway. Additionally, it observed that the officer had not advised Pals that the officer had "concluded business related to the stop at the time he asked for consent," which would have made the stop "a less coercive voluntary encounter," and the "lack of closure of the original purpose of this stop makes the request for consent more threatening." Finally, the majority asserted,

The lack of any statement that Pals was free to leave or that he could decline to give his consent to the search in this case is, at a minimum, a strong factor cutting against the voluntariness of the search, particularly in the context of a traffic stop where the individual is seized in the front seat of a police car. A warning of rights would serve to significantly neutralize the coercive setting in this case.

Hauge, 973 N.W.2d at 466-67 (internal citations omitted).

Trooper Iriarte asked Larson to join him in the patrol vehicle, which is recognized as part of a reasonable investigation. See Salcedo, 935 N.W.2d at 577. Larson was not subjected to a pat-down search before he entered the patrol vehicle. He sat in the front passenger seat while the trooper worked on his computer next to him. The time between when the trooper made the traffic stop and when he asked Larson for consent to search was only a matter of a few minutes. During their interaction, Larson made small talk, asked questions of the trooper, and laughed on occasion. The trooper was conversational and calm. Nothing in the record suggests Larson was not of sound mind or too impaired to consent. See Hauge, 973 N.W.2d at 469. Viewing the totality of the circumstances, Larson's behavior was consistent with consent, and the interaction between Larson and Trooper Iriarte was "fairly benign leading up to the request to search." See id. We agree with the district court, Larson's consent was given voluntarily. There was no error in denying the motion to suppress.

AFFIRMED.

Vaitheswaran, P.J., concurs; Tabor, J., dissents.

TABOR, Judge (dissenting).

In deciding whether consent to search is voluntary, "account must be taken of subtly coercive police questions." Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 229 (1973). Because the majority's analysis does not do that, I respectfully dissent.

The State has the burden to prove that Larson gave his consent to search "freely and voluntarily." See Bumper v North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548 (1968); see also State v. Howard, 509 N.W.2d 764, 767 (Iowa 1993) (noting consent must be "unequivocal" and "specific"). The State can't discharge its burden by showing that Larson merely submitted to the trooper's cleverly phrased...