Opinion ID: 3161850
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Merits of the Suppression Motion.

Text: On the merits, as noted above, Pardee made a number of challenges to the suppression ruling, all of which were rejected by the court of appeals. On further review, we only need to reach one of those arguments. We conclude that regardless of whether the initial vehicle stop was valid or not, Trooper Vander Weil’s detention of the vehicle occupants for approximately twenty-five minutes preceding the dog sniff 5We also find that Pardee raised a sufficient challenge to the trial court’s res judicata ruling for purposes of this appeal. Pardee’s principal brief correctly points out that the district court’s ruling must have been based on issue preclusion, not claim preclusion, but that issue preclusion does not apply here because “[t]he Suppression Ruling was not necessary nor essential to the judgment.” Pardee also cites pertinent authority in support of his argument. Notably, the State does not respond to these points or attempt to defend the district court’s res judicata ruling on the merits. 13 was improper under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Applying recent United States Supreme Court precedent, we find that Trooper Vander Weil developed reasonable suspicion of other criminal activity—if at all—only by prolonging the initial stop beyond the time reasonably necessary to execute the traffic violation warnings. In doing so, he violated Pardee’s federal constitutional rights. 6 Our point of departure is the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 191 L. Ed. 2d 492 (2015). That case, like this one, involved a dog sniff following a traffic stop. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1612, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 496. There, a police officer had pulled over the defendant’s car for a traffic violation upon observing the vehicle temporarily veer onto the shoulder of the highway. Id. After running a records check on both the driver and the lone passenger, and writing a warning for the driver, the officer asked for permission to walk his dog around the vehicle. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1613, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 497. The driver refused, whereupon the officer detained the vehicle’s occupants for another five minutes until a deputy sheriff arrived. Id. At that point, the officer led the dog twice around the car and the dog alerted to the presence of drugs on the second pass. Id. Although both the district court and the court of appeals upheld the dog sniff under the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court found that Rodriguez’s motion to suppress should have been granted because law enforcement had unconstitutionally prolonged the traffic stop. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1613–14, 1616–17, 191 L. Ed. 2d 497–98, 500–01. 6We do not need to reach Pardee’s challenge to the duration of the stop based on article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution, or any of his other claims based on article I, section 8. 14 In Rodriguez, the total delay between issuance of the written warning and the dog alert on the vehicle was approximately seven to eight minutes. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1613, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 497. The district court found that the officer did not have individualized suspicion of criminal activity prior to the dog sniff, and for purposes of appeal, the Eighth Circuit assumed this to be the case. See id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. 1613–14, 191 L. Ed. 2d 497–98. Yet the Eighth Circuit nonetheless upheld the dog sniff and subsequent search of the vehicle, reasoning that a “seven- or eight-minute delay” for investigative purposes was an “acceptable ‘de minimis intrusion on Rodriguez’s personal liberty.’ ” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1614, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 498 (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 741 F.3d 905, 907 (8th Cir. 2014)). In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court reversed. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1612, 1617, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 496, 501. As the Court explained, setting forth what appears to be a bright-line rule, “Authority for the seizure . . . ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed.” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1614, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 498. “Because addressing the infraction is the purpose of the stop, it may ‘last no longer than is necessary to effectuate th[at] purpose.’ ” Id. (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L. Ed. 2d 229, 238 (1983)). The officer’s drug investigation added seven to eight minutes to Rodriguez’s detention, rendering it unconstitutional unless the government had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity apart from the traffic violation. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1613, 1616–17, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 497, 500–01. The Rodriguez Court referred to and factually distinguished a prior case upholding a dog sniff that had occurred while the state trooper was in the process of writing a warning ticket. See id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 15 1614–15, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 498–99 (discussing Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 406, 408, 125 S. Ct. 834, 836, 837, 160 L. Ed. 2d 842, 846, 847 (2005)). Yet it reaffirmed “the line drawn in that decision” that a traffic stop “ ‘become[s] unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete th[e] mission’ of issuing a warning ticket.” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1612, 1614–15, 191 L. Ed. 2d 496, 499 (quoting Caballes, 543 U.S. at 407, 125 S. Ct. at 837, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 846). 7 Thus, in Rodriguez, the Court confirmed that an officer “may conduct certain unrelated checks during an otherwise lawful traffic stop” but “may not do so in a way that prolongs the stop, absent the reasonable suspicion ordinarily demanded to justify detaining an individual.” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1615, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 499. Unrelated checks, the Court explained in Rodriguez, are matters that do not “serve the same objective as enforcement of the traffic code: ensuring that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly.” Id. A dog sniff, unlike matters such as “checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance,” can only be undertaken without individualized suspicion if it does not prolong the traffic stop. Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1615, 1616, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 499, 501. The Court added that “[t]he critical question . . . is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket . . . but whether conducting the sniff ‘prolongs’—i.e., adds time to—‘the the Court found support for its ruling in Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 7Likewise, 323, 326, 129 S. Ct. 781, 784, 172 L. Ed. 2d 694, 700 (2009), dealing with a challenge to a stop and frisk of passengers in a vehicle. The Court upheld the frisk but cautioned: “An officer’s inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop . . . do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.” Johnson, 555 U.S. at 333, 129 S. Ct. at 788, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 704. 16 stop.’ ” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1616, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 501. “If an officer can complete traffic-based inquiries expeditiously, then that is the amount of ‘time reasonably required to complete [the stop’s] mission.’ ” Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1616, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 500 (quoting Caballes, 543 U.S. at 407, 125 S. Ct. at 837, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 846). 8 Pardee argues that Rodriguez controls here and that Trooper Vander Weil violated his constitutional rights by using what should have been a quick traffic stop to conduct extensive investigative questioning and then a dog sniff while detaining the vehicle occupants for approximately twenty-five minutes. The State responds that this case is distinguishable from Rodriguez because reasonable suspicion of criminal activity existed as soon as Trooper Vander Weil walked up to the Toyota and assessed the situation. During the ensuing twenty-five minutes, in the State’s view, Trooper Vander Weil’s already justifiable suspicion was enhanced as he learned more about the occupants and their alleged travel plans. The State points to the various factors cited by the district court in its order denying Pardee’s motion to suppress in the criminal case: the California license plates, Saccento’s behavior before Trooper Vander Weil pulled over the vehicle, the nervousness of Saccento and Pardee after Trooper Vander Weil stopped the vehicle, the lived-in look of the vehicle, the presence of a can of air freshener and the strong odor of air freshener, the criminal histories of Saccento and Pardee, and finally their curious and somewhat inconsistent travel plans. The latter two items, of 8The Court added that the officer may “take certain negligibly burdensome precautions in order to complete his mission safely.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1616, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 500. But again, it distinguished this officer safety interest “from the Government’s endeavor to detect crime in general or drug trafficking in particular.” Id. 17 course, were developed only after the Toyota had been pulled over and Trooper Vander Weil undertook his investigation. In weighing the parties’ respective positions, comparisons to other cases are useful. We consider first, United States v. Briasco, 640 F.3d 857 (8th Cir. 2011), cited by the court of appeals below. There the Eighth Circuit upheld a trooper’s decision to further detain a motorist for a vehicle dog sniff after writing a warning ticket for a speeding violation. Briasco, 640 F.3d at 860. In finding that reasonable suspicion existed, the court took note of the strong odor of air freshener in the car, the sagging or squatting of the back end of the vehicle, Briasco’s increasing nervousness shown by the developing dryness in his mouth and visible carotid artery, Briasco’s imprecise description of his travel plans, and his failure to disclose the full facts about his criminal history. Id. at 859–60. This case shares some characteristics of Briasco but is distinguishable in other respects. On the whole, one can fairly say the grounds for suspecting Saccento and Pardee of other criminal activity before they were detained for the dog sniff were not that strong. That probably explains why Trooper Vander Weil said they were free to go. More importantly, it appears the most significant ground for suspecting Saccento and Pardee of criminal activity had to be the information they provided on their travel plans during the vehicle stop. We are not persuaded that the knowledge Trooper Vander Weil possessed at the beginning of the stop—the California plates, the slowing down to sixtyfive miles per hour, the failure to make eye contact with the trooper, the oversight of leaving the right signal light on after pulling over, the initial nervousness, the lived-in look of the vehicle, or the air freshener— provided reasonable suspicion alone or in combination. Much of the 18 conduct observed here would be typical of any motorist who is approached and then pulled over by state law enforcement. Many motorists slow down, decline to make eye contact, and get nervous when a state trooper draws near. See United States v. Guerrero, 374 F.3d 584, 590 (8th Cir. 2004) (noting that nervousness during a traffic stop is of “limited significance”). Briasco can be contrasted with the Eighth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Beck, 140 F.3d 1129 (8th Cir. 1998). In that case, the Eighth Circuit considered whether seven factors gave rise to reasonable suspicion warranting a renewed detention following the issuance of a warning for a traffic violation. Id. at 1136, 1140. Those factors were: (1) an absent third party had rented the car driven by the defendant, (2) the car had a California license plate, (3) fast food trash was on the floor of the car, (4) there was no visible luggage in the car, (5) the defendant driver had a nervous demeanor, (6) the trip was being made “from a drug source state to a drug demand state,” and (7) the officer disbelieved the driver’s explanation for the trip. Id. at 1137. The court found those factors did not provide a basis for an ongoing detention Id. at 1137–39. The lived-in look of Saccento and Pardee’s vehicle, to judge by the photographs that are in the record, was unremarkable given the occupants were clearly on a cross-country trip. There were water bottles, an energy drink, a metal coffee cup, chips and dip, apples and bananas, a trash bag with some trash, a sleeping bag draped on the rear seat, and a guitar case. Many vehicles are more lived-in than that. The video recordings of the stop also tend to dispel any impression that the occupants were unusually apprehensive (until the narcotics sniffing dog was called in around 10 a.m.). While the strong odor of air freshener was 19 certainly a relevant consideration, alone it would not support detention of the occupants beyond the time required for the traffic stop. See Frazier v. State, 236 P.3d 295, 301 (Wyo. 2010) (“The presence of odor suppressing agents, alone, does not give rise to reasonable suspicion, but can be a factor contributing to the totality of the circumstances.”); cf. Commonwealth v. Kemp, 961 A.2d 1247, 1254 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2008) (finding reasonable suspicion when scent of air fresheners was “overpowering,” trooper still detected the odor of marijuana, driver acted extremely nervous, and vehicle belonged to absent third party). In short, we cannot find that Trooper Vander Weil had developed individualized suspicion of criminal activity at the outset of the stop when he first encountered Saccento and Pardee in person. If we conclude, as we must, that reasonable suspicion could potentially exist only if one weaves in the verbal answers given by Saccento and Pardee regarding their travel plans and their respective criminal histories, we then need to decide whether that information was obtained only because Trooper Vander Weil prolonged the stop beyond what was reasonably necessary to carry out his traffic-related mission. See Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1616, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 500. In United States v. Evans, 786 F.3d 779 (9th Cir. 2015), the Ninth Circuit performed this kind of post-Rodriguez inquiry. In that case, a sheriff’s deputy had pulled over a car at 7:09 p.m. for traffic violations on Interstate 80 with the plan of furthering a drug investigation. Evans, 786 F.3d at 781–82. At 7:28 p.m., nineteen minutes later, the deputy gave the driver a warning and told him he was “good to go.” Id. at 783. However, the deputy then asked the driver if he had any contraband in the car, mentioning marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. Id. When the driver denied the presence of contraband but refused to 20 consent to a search, the deputy performed a dog sniff. Id. at 783–84. The canine alerted at 7:33 p.m., twenty-four minutes after the stop began. Id. at 784. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the deputy had prolonged the stop beyond what was reasonably necessary to perform his traffic-related mission, specifically noting that the deputy had called in an ex-felon registration check at 7:20 p.m., that the check took eight minutes, that the check was not related to the traffic grounds for the stop, and that the deputy used the time to question the defendant and see if there were inconsistencies in his story. Id. at 786–87. The Ninth Circuit therefore found that the stop was invalid under Rodriguez unless the deputy’s “prolongation of the traffic stop was supported by independent reasonable suspicion.” 9 Id. at 789. Similarly, in People v. Pulling, the Illinois Appellate Court applied Rodriguez to uphold the granting of a motion to suppress after finding that a trooper “unlawfully prolonged the duration of the stop when he interrupted his traffic citation preparation to conduct a free-air sniff based on an unparticularized suspicion of criminal activity.” 34 N.E.3d 1198, 1201 (Ill. App. Ct. 2015). There, the trooper initiated a traffic stop for speeding. Id. at 1199. According to the trooper, writing a speeding ticket generally only took between three or five minutes, although the required time would have been longer because it turned out the driver had a suspended license. Id. The trooper admitted that about four minutes into the stop, he had all the information necessary to prepare both citations. Id. at 1201. Yet he stopped writing the citations, and 9On remand, the district court found that individualized suspicion did not exist to justify the deputy’s prolongation of the stop beyond 7:20 p.m. See United States v. Evans, ___ F. Supp. ___, ___, 2015 WL 4711148, at , –10 (D. Nev. August 7, 2015). 21 instead conducted further questioning, which detected inconsistencies, before performing a free-air sniff. Id. Even though the entire stop consumed only fifteen minutes, the court found the unrelated activity had prolonged it, and the results of the dog sniff therefore had to be suppressed. Id. at 1202. And even in a pre-Rodriguez case, the Eighth Circuit concluded that a trooper unlawfully extended a traffic stop when the “off-topic questions more than doubled the time Peralez was detained.” United States v. Peralez, 526 F.3d 1115, 1121 (8th Cir. 2008). There approximately sixteen minutes elapsed between the initial pullover of the vehicle and the dog sniff. Id. at 1119. Three minutes into the stop, the trooper had told the driver he would receive a warning ticket for the obstructed license plate. Id. But during the next thirteen minutes, the trooper engaged in “a ‘blended process,’ interspersing drug interdiction questions with the routine processing of a traffic stop.” Id. at 1119–20. The trooper admitted that the “blending” prolonged the stop. Id. at 1120. This case involves a similar blending. At 9:33 a.m., Trooper Vander Weil had all the information he needed to prepare warnings and had told the vehicle occupants he was only going to issue warnings. By Vander Weil’s admission, he could have gone back to his patrol car at that point and completed his traffic-related mission without Saccento’s or Pardee’s involvement except for a signature on the warning citations. Instead, he asked Saccento to come with him. He then questioned Saccento for five minutes in his car before calling in the information for a warrants check and a criminal background check at 9:38 a.m. 10 The 10Trooper Vander Weil admitted the criminal history check had nothing to do with processing the traffic violations and was part of his interdiction investigation. 22 response to the warrants check came back at 9:42 a.m. From 9:43 to 9:44 a.m., it appeared that Trooper Vander Weil was in the process of preparing the warnings because he asked Saccento to confirm the year of the Toyota. At 9:50 a.m., the warnings were complete and printed out. At this point, Trooper Vander Weil left Saccento in the vehicle, approached Pardee, and conducted separate investigative questioning of him for three minutes. Then, at 9:55 a.m., twenty-five minutes after pulling the vehicle over, the trooper returned to the vehicle and told Saccento he was free to go. Given all this, and Trooper Vander Weil’s admission that the entire stop would have taken only about ten to twelve minutes if he had been focused on issuing the warnings, the stop was clearly prolonged within the meaning of Rodriguez. See 575 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1612–13, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 496–97 (holding that a traffic stop prolonged approximately seven to eight minutes beyond the time reasonably required to complete the mission of the stop was unlawful). In fact, based on our review of the videos, we think the ten-to-twelveminute estimate overstates the amount of time a simple traffic stop would have required. 11 We must then ask whether individualized suspicion to justify a dog sniff would have existed without this delay. See id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 1616–17, 191 L. Ed. 2d at 501 (remanding for consideration of whether reasonable suspicion supported detaining defendant beyond time required to complete traffic stop). We find that it would not have existed. As we have already noted, the information Trooper Vander Weil had at the outset of the stop did not support more than a detention to process 11In the course of cross-examination, Trooper Vander Weil also admitted testifying in a prior case that it takes about five minutes to fill out a warning. 23 the traffic violations. And in his early questioning, all that Trooper Vander Weil had been told was that Saccento with the help of his companion was moving home from California to New Jersey in multiple trips. No inconsistencies—even minor ones—had been developed in the occupants’ story. While Saccento’s stated plan to move home from California to New Jersey in multiple trips may not have been “costeffective,” as Trooper Vander Weil later testified, we cannot say this factor, even when added into the considerations the trooper was aware of when he made the stop, amounted to reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking. See Beck, 140 F.3d at 1139 (holding that an officer’s disbelief of a driver’s explanation for traveling even when coupled with other factors was not enough to give rise to reasonable suspicion). The State urges that Saccento’s and Pardee’s criminal histories— which apparently disclosed that each had at least a prior drug-related arrest—also enter into the reasonable suspicion calculus. It is not clear when Trooper Vander Weil received these histories via email but we find it would not have been earlier than 9:44 a.m. That is when dispatch, having provided the answer to the warrants check at 9:42 a.m., was asking the trooper whether Saccento and Pardee were both white. This occurred over ten minutes into the stop. On our independent review of the record, we are convinced that a stop in this case directed only at the traffic-related mission—i.e., checking driver’s license, vehicle registration, insurance, and outstanding warrants, and preparing warnings—would have taken no more than ten minutes. At that point, i.e., at approximately 9:41 a.m., Trooper Vander Weil did not have Saccento’s and Pardee’s criminal histories partly because he did not even try to obtain this information until 9:38 a.m., after he had already been questioning Saccento for five 24 minutes in his patrol car. Thus, even if the criminal histories might have tipped the balance on reasonable suspicion, an issue we are not deciding, they were not obtained until the stop had already been prolonged past its permissible length in violation of Rodriguez and the Fourth Amendment.