IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA

No. 17–0317

Filed October 12, 2018

STATE OF IOWA,

Appellee,

vs.

CODY TYLER SMITH,

Appellant.

On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Clarke County, Monty W. 

Franklin, Judge.

A defendant convicted of operating while intoxicated seeks further 

review of a court of appeals decision affirming his conviction and the denial 

of his motion to suppress. REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Scott A. Michels of Gourley, Rehkemper, & Lindholm, P.L.C., West 

Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas E. Bakke, Assistant 

Attorney General, and Michelle Rivera, County Attorney, for appellee.
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PER CURIAM.

At 4:30 a.m., officers responded to a dispatch report of a vehicle in 

a roadside ditch. According to dispatch, a witness did not see any injuries, 

but saw the possible driver walking away. The officers did not find the 

driver, but they did see a van pass by on the road. The van briefly stopped

in a nearby driveway, pulled out, and departed. The officers ran a check 

on the van’s license plate and noticed it was registered to another member 

of the same household that the vehicle in the ditch had been registered to. 

One of the officers followed the van and pulled it over. It turned out that 

the driver of the car that had gone into the ditch was riding as a passenger 

in the van, and he was wearing only one boot. He was subsequently 

convicted of operating while intoxicated (OWI).

On appeal, we must decide whether the stop of the van was 

permissible under the community caretaking doctrine. Guided by our 

recent decision in State v. Coffman, 914 N.W.2d 240 (Iowa 2018), we 

conclude that it was not. Accordingly, we hold that the stop of van violated 

article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. Therefore, we reverse the 

judgment of conviction and sentence and the denial of the motion to 

suppress, vacate the decision of the court of appeals, and remand this case 

for further proceedings.

I. Facts and Procedural Background.

At approximately 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 2, 2016, sheriff’s 

deputies were called to the scene of a single-vehicle accident in Clarke 

County. Dispatch informed Deputies Smith and Fitzpatrick that the 

vehicle was in a roadside ditch. Dispatch also relayed that a passerby had 

seen a possible driver walking away from the vehicle and had not seen any 

injuries.
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After arriving at the scene, Deputy Fitzpatrick ran a check on the 

license plate of the vehicle in the ditch and determined it belonged to a 

Steven Smith with an Osceola address. Deputy Smith drove around in 

search of the individual who had been seen walking from the accident. Not 

finding anyone, he reparked his patrol car next to the vehicle in the ditch. 

On the front seat of that vehicle, he found a Minnesota driver’s license 

belonging to the defendant, Cody Smith. There was no indication inside 

the vehicle that Cody had been injured.1

Meanwhile, a van drove by. It pulled into the driveway of a nearby 

residence, pulled back out of the driveway, and departed. Officer Smith 

ran a check on the van’s license plate and determined it belonged to a 

Noreen Smith, who shared the same Osceola address as Steven.

Deputy Smith followed the van and pulled it over. When asked why 

he stopped the van, Deputy Smith testified,

I was checking on the welfare of the people. I also found it 

suspicious that the vehicle driving by and the vehicle in the 

ditch had the same address when that address is 

approximately four miles southwest of where the vehicle in the 

ditch was at.

Deputy Smith further testified that he stopped the van because he 

“believed that the individual involved in the accident was either in the van, 

or those people were also looking for the individual who was in the 

accident.” 

Once Deputy Smith approached the van, he saw a passenger in the 

front seat—Cody—wearing only one boot. Steven was driving the van. 

Cody displayed signs of intoxication and his clothes were wet and muddy. 

 1The photographs of the vehicle stuck in the ditch that are in the record also seem 

to dispel the notion that this would have been an injury-accident.

Because of the surplus of Smiths involved in this case, we shall refer to the 

defendant and other members of the defendant’s family by their first names.
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Cody admitted having been the driver of the vehicle that went into the 

ditch. After failing various field tests and a preliminary breath test, Cody 

was arrested and transported to the county jail, where he registered a .184 

blood alcohol level on a chemical test.

On May 12, Cody was charged by trial information in the Iowa 

District Court for Clarke County with OWI, first offense, in violation of Iowa 

Code section 321J.2, a serious misdemeanor. See Iowa Code § 321J.2(1), 

(2)(a) (2016). 

Cody filed a motion to suppress the evidence resulting from the stop 

of the van, claiming the stop violated the Fourth Amendment of the United 

States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. After 

a September 2 hearing on the matter, the district court denied Cody’s 

motion to suppress. In its September 9 ruling, the court concluded that 

the stop had been justified as a community caretaking function. 

At the time of the stop, Officer Smith was investigating a 

wrecked vehicle found in a ditch without a driver present. At 

the time, the status of the driver was in question as the 

location and condition of the driver was unknown. It was early 

in the morning (4:30 a.m.) and still dark[,] making it 

potentially dangerous to walk on the road after being involved 

in an accident. There was little if any traffic at the location so 

the driver’s opportunity to be helped by passing vehicles was 

limited. The driver had also left his driver’s license on the seat 

of the wrecked vehicle with the vehicle unlocked[,] calling into 

question his judgmental abilities following the accident. It 

was therefore appropriate for a reasonable police officer to 

have concerns about the condition of the driver of this vehicle 

and to continue with efforts to locate the driver to ensure that 

the driver was not injured or in need of assistance.

These legitimate concerns outweighed the limited 

intrusion upon the occupants of the van which took place 

when Officer Smith stopped the van. Officer Smith knew that 

the van was registered to a person with the same last name as 

the driver of the vehicle in the ditch and that the address of 

the registered owner of the van was the same address as the 

address of the registered owner of the vehicle in the ditch. It 

was reasonable to assume that the occupant(s) of the van were 

related to the driver of the vehicle in the ditch and either had 
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information as to the status of the driver or were in fact also 

trying to locate the driver. Stopping the van was the only 

realistic method for Officer Smith to continue his efforts to 

ensure that the driver of the vehicle in the ditch was not 

injured or in need of assistance.

Following a December 9 bench trial on the minutes, Cody was found 

guilty of OWI, first offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2. The 

district court sentenced Cody to two days in jail and ordered him to pay 

fines and surcharges. 

Cody appealed, still contending that the stop of the van violated the 

Fourth Amendment and article I, section 8. We transferred the case to the 

court of appeals, which affirmed Cody’s conviction, concluding that “the 

traffic stop at issue was constitutionally reasonable as a permissible and 

appropriate exercise of the community caretaking function.” 

We granted Cody’s application for further review.

II. Standard of Review.

Cody contends that the seizure violated his rights under both the 

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 

8 of the Iowa Constitution. “When a defendant challenges a district court’s 

denial of a motion to suppress based upon the deprivation of a state or 

federal constitutional right, our standard of review is de novo.” Coffman, 

914 N.W.2d at 244 (quoting State v. Storm, 898 N.W.2d 140, 144 (Iowa 

2017)). We view the entire record and “make ‘an independent evaluation 

of the totality of the circumstances.’ ” Id. (quoting Storm, 898 N.W.2d at 

144). “[W]e independently evaluate the totality of the circumstances as 

shown by the entire record.” State v. White, 887 N.W.2d 172, 175 (Iowa 

2016) (quoting State v. Lindsey, 881 N.W.2d 411, 415 (Iowa 2016)); see 

also Coffman, 914 N.W.2d at 244. We must view each community 

caretaking case in light of the specific circumstances. State v. Kurth, 813 

N.W.2d 270, 272 (Iowa 2012). 
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III. Analysis.

This case requires us to apply the community caretaking exception 

to the warrant requirement. We recently analyzed that exception in 

Coffman. There, we reiterated that there is a three-step inquiry to 

determine whether an officer’s actions fall under the community 

caretaking exception:

(1) was there a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth 

Amendment?; (2) if so, was the police conduct bona fide 

community caretaker activity?; and (3) if so, did the public 

need and interest outweigh the intrusion upon the privacy of 

the citizen?

Coffman, 914 N.W.2d at 245 (quoting State v. Crawford, 659 N.W.2d 537, 

543 (Iowa 2003)). However, we emphasized that in the second step under 

article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution, “it is incumbent on the state 

to prove both that the objective facts satisfy the standards for community 

caretaking and that the officer subjectively intended to engage in 

community caretaking.” Id. at 257. In this instance, the State does not 

dispute that there was a seizure. The other two questions are in dispute.

In Coffman, we upheld an officer’s decision to pull his patrol car 

behind a parked, occupied car on the side of a rural highway in the middle 

of the night and activate his emergency flashers. We essentially agreed 

with the district court’s conclusion that

[a] car parked on the shoulder of a highway at 1:00 a.m. in a 

rural area in Iowa should raise a number of concerns. There 

is a safety issue in having a vehicle parked within two feet of 

the traveled portion of a highway, especially at 1:00 a.m., in 

an area that is not lighted. Second, the occupant(s) of the 

vehicle might have car problems or medical issues that they 

are experiencing. Most people would not simply pull over to 

the side of the road in this type of setting at such an hour. It 

would have been irresponsible for Deputy Hochberger to 

simply drive by without checking on the vehicle.

Id. at 243, 253–54.
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This case is different—different enough that we hold the community 

caretaking exception does not apply under article I, section 8. The van 

clearly did not need assistance. The possibility exists that the driver of the 

vehicle in the ditch needed assistance and that the van was looking for the 

driver, but this is seemingly belied by the fact that the van left the scene, 

presumably after noticing the presence of a law enforcement vehicle. 

Deputy Smith did testify that he was “checking on the welfare of the 

people involved,” given the possibility that the van either was looking for 

the driver of the vehicle in the ditch or had already picked him up. Yet the 

van appeared not to want Deputy Smith’s help, and from everything the 

deputies had heard and seen, there was no indication of an injury or other 

emergency. By analogy, this is like a Coffman case in which Coffman

decided to pull away and leave after seeing the officer and before the officer 

activated his flashers. If those had been the facts in Coffman, we would 

not have found that the community caretaking doctrine applied, and we 

do not find that it applies here.

Examining the second factor noted above under our de novo 

standard of review, we do not find that this was bona fide community 

caretaking activity. As noted above, we are deciding this case under article 

I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. Again, this means that the stop must 

meet both objective and subjective standards. Id. at 257–58.

A vehicle that veers into a roadside ditch at 4:30 a.m. on a weekend

is often the result of impaired driving. Given all the facts and 

circumstances we have recited, we conclude that the van stop was 

investigatory in nature. The van stop would have comprised an effort to 

locate Cody, not to potentially help him, but to investigate how he drove 

the car into the ditch.
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Turning to the third prong, we found in Coffman that the intrusion 

into the privacy of the citizen was not great because the vehicle was already 

parked. We noted, “The vehicle was already at rest when Deputy 

Hochberger activated the flashers . . . .” Id. at 253. Here by contrast, 

Deputy Smith stopped a moving vehicle. Other options existed. For 

example, Deputy Smith testified that the Osceola address where both 

vehicles were registered was only four miles away. Deputy Smith could 

have gone to that residence and asked to speak with the residents.

Another way to look at this case is to do a thought experiment. 

Suppose Cody had not been found in the van, but the stop of the van had 

revealed that Steven was doing something wrong. Would Steven’s motion 

to suppress be sustained? We think so.

IV. Conclusion.

For the reasons stated above, we vacate the decision of the court of 

appeals, reverse Cody Smith’s conviction and sentence, and remand for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

This opinion shall be published.