Opinion ID: 1293711
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel for Failing to File Motion to Suppress Defendant's Statements The Illegal Seizure Issue.

Text: A. Failure to perform an essential duty. As to the first prong of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant contends his trial counsel failed to perform an essential duty when he failed to file a motion to suppress the defendant's incriminating statements to the police. In support of his contention, the defendant argues those statements were made as a result of an illegal seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the federal constitution and article 1, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution and were for that reason inadmissible evidence. 1. Illegal seizure. The Fourth Amendment to the federal constitution provides: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. U.S. Const. amend. IV. The Fourth Amendment is binding on the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 1090 (1961). Evidence obtained in violation of these provisions is inadmissible, regardless of its relevancy or probative value. State v. Reinders, 690 N.W.2d 78, 81 (Iowa 2004). Because the search and seizure clause of the Iowa Constitution, see Iowa Constitution article 1, section 8, is substantially identical in language to the Fourth Amendment, the construction of the federal constitution is persuasive in our interpretation of the state provision. Id. However, decisions of the United States Supreme Court that interpret the Fourth Amendment are not binding on us with respect to the Iowa Constitution. Id. Because we find no basis to distinguish the protections afforded by the Iowa Constitution from those afforded by the federal constitution under the facts of this case, our discussion of the defendant's claimed seizure violation applies equally under both constitutional provisions. See id. Warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless a recognized exception applies. State v. Eubanks, 355 N.W.2d 57, 58 (Iowa 1984). The State must prove by a preponderance of the evidence the warrantless search or seizure was lawful. State v. Bumpus, 459 N.W.2d 619, 622 (Iowa 1990). The State first contends that the defendant's trial counsel had no reason to believe that the defendant was illegally seized when the police transported him to the police station and therefore had no duty to file a motion to suppress his statements. The State's fallback position is that the defendant voluntarily went to the police station. The facts here are similar to those in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), a case that presented the same issue that confronts us here. In Dunaway, a detective received a tip implicating the petitioner in an attempted robbery and homicide, but learned nothing that would supply enough information for an arrest warrant. Nevertheless, the detective ordered other detectives to pick up the petitioner and bring him in. The police then took the petitioner into custody. Although the police did not tell him he was under arrest, the petitioner would have been physically restrained if he had tried to leave. The police drove him to the police station and placed him in an interrogation room. After waiving his Miranda rights, the petitioner made statements and drew sketches that implicated him in the crime. In his state-court trial, the petitioner's motion to suppress was denied, and he was eventually convicted. Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 202-03, 99 S.Ct. at 2251-52, 60 L.Ed.2d at 829-30. At issue was the legality of the custodial questioning on less than probable cause. Id. at 202, 99 S.Ct. at 2251, 60 L.Ed.2d at 829. The Court began its analysis by noting that before Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), it analyzed the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable seizures of persons in terms of arrest, probable cause for arrest, and warrants based on such probable cause. Id. at 207-08, 99 S.Ct. at 2254, 60 L.Ed.2d at 832-33. According to the Court, [t]he term arrest was synonymous with those seizures governed by the Fourth Amendment. While warrants were not required in all circumstances, the requirement of probable cause, as elaborated in numerous precedents, was treated as absolute. The long-prevailing standards of probable cause embodied the best compromise that has been found for accommodating [the] often opposing interests in safeguard[ing] citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy and in seek[ing] to give fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community's protection. The standard of probable cause thus represented the accumulated wisdom of precedent and experience as to the minimum justification necessary to make the kind of intrusion involved in an arrest reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The standard applied to all arrests, without the need to balance the interests and circumstances involved in particular situations. Id. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2254, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833 (citations omitted) (footnotes omitted) (second, third, and fourth alterations in original). Probable cause, the Court said, exists where `the facts and circumstances within ... [the officers'] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that' an offense has been or is being committed [by the person to be arrested]. Id. at 208 n. 9, 99 S.Ct. at 2254 n. 9, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833 n. 9 (citations omitted) (alterations in original). Continuing with its analysis, the Court in Dunaway noted several important holdings in Terry. First, Terry for the first time recognized an exception to the requirement that Fourth Amendment seizures of persons must be based on probable cause. Id. at 208-09, 99 S.Ct. at 2254, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833. Second, the factual scenario in Terry  a brief, on-the-spot stop on the street and a frisk for weapons, did not fit comfortably within the traditional concept of an `arrest.' Id. at 209, 99 S.Ct. at 2254, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833. Nevertheless, even this type of action constituted a `serious intrusion,' requiring therefore that such action `be tested by the Fourth Amendment's general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.' Id. at 209, 99 S.Ct. at 2254-55, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833 (citations omitted). But, because the intrusion in a stop and frisk was so much less severe than that involved in traditional `arrests,' Terry declined to stretch the concept of `arrest'  and the general rule requiring probable cause to make arrests `reasonable' under the Fourth Amendment  to cover such intrusions. Id. at 209, 99 S.Ct. at 2255, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833. Third, rather than stretch the concept of arrest to cover a stop-and-frisk, Terry treated the stop-and-frisk intrusion as a sui generis rubric of police conduct. And to determine the justification necessary to make this specially limited intrusion reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, the Court balanced the limited violation of individual privacy involved against the opposing interests in crime prevention and detection and in the police officer's safety. As a consequence, the Court established a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime. Id. at 209, 99 S.Ct. at 2255, 60 L.Ed.2d at 833-34 (citations omitted). Last, Dunaway summarized these holdings this way: Thus, Terry departed from traditional Fourth Amendment analysis in two respects. First, it defined a special category of Fourth Amendment seizures so substantially less intrusive than arrests that the general rule requiring probable cause to make Fourth Amendment seizures reasonable could be replaced by a balancing test. Second, the application of this balancing test led the Court to approve this narrowly defined less intrusive seizure on grounds less rigorous than probable cause, but only for the purpose of a pat-down for weapons. Id. at 209-10, 99 S.Ct. at 2255, 60 L.Ed.2d at 834. Important to the case before us, Dunaway rejected the government's argument to adopt a multifactor balancing test of `reasonable police conduct under the circumstances' to cover all seizures that do not amount to technical arrests: [T]he protections intended by the Framers could all too easily disappear in the consideration and balancing of the multifarious circumstances presented by different cases, especially when that balancing may be done in the first instance by police officers engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. A single, familiar standard is essential to guide police officers, who have only limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they confront. Indeed, our recognition of these dangers, and our consequent reluctance to depart from the proved protections afforded by the general rule, are reflected in the narrow limitations emphasized in the cases employing the balancing test. For all but those narrowly defined intrusions, the requisite balancing has been performed in centuries of precedent and is embodied in the principle that seizures are reasonable only if supported by probable cause. Id. at 213-14, 99 S.Ct. at 2257, 60 L.Ed.2d at 836-37 (citation omitted) (footnote omitted). Also important to the case before us, Dunaway, relying on prior precedent, clearly rejected the argument that investigative detentions do not require probable cause: [T]o argue that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the investigatory stage is fundamentally to misconceive the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Investigatory seizures would subject unlimited numbers of innocent persons to the harassment and ignominy incident to involuntary detention. Nothing is more clear than that the Fourth Amendment was meant to prevent wholesale intrusions upon the personal security of our citizenry, whether these intrusions be termed `arrests' or `investigatory detentions.' Id. at 214-15, 99 S.Ct. at 2257-58, 60 L.Ed.2d at 837 (citation omitted) (alteration in original); see also Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 605, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2262, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, 428 (1975) (similarly disapproving arrests made for investigatory purposes on less than probable cause). The Court in Dunaway concluded that detention for custodial interrogation  regardless of its label  intrudes so severely on interests protected by the Fourth Amendment as necessarily to trigger the traditional safeguards against illegal arrest. 442 U.S. at 216, 99 S.Ct. at 2258, 60 L.Ed.2d at 838. As to the facts before it, the Court held that the police violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments when, without probable cause, they seized [the] petitioner and transported him to the police station for interrogation. Id. at 216, 99 S.Ct. at 2258, 60 L.Ed.2d at 838. Even when under Terry there is reasonable suspicion to stop an individual, the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment dictates that [t]he scope of the detention must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 238 (1983). Moreover, an investigative detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop, and the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer's suspicion in a short period of time. Id. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1325-26, 75 L.Ed.2d at 238. Finally, the State has the burden to demonstrate that the seizure it seeks to justify on the basis of a reasonable suspicion was sufficiently limited in scope and duration to satisfy the conditions of an investigative seizure. Id. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d at 238. On the same point, we said in Kreps, 650 N.W.2d 636 (2002): The purpose of an investigatory stop is to allow a police officer to confirm or dispel suspicions of criminal activity through reasonable questioning. Such a stop and a subsequent detention  even though temporary and for a limited purpose  is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Because the stop is a seizure, it is subject to the constitutional imperative that it not be `unreasonable' under the circumstances. 650 N.W.2d at 641 (citations omitted). The facts here differ from those in Dunaway only in that here the police stopped a vehicle the defendant was driving whereas in Dunaway police picked up the defendant. So no vehicle stop was involved in Dunaway. As far as vehicles are concerned, stop[ping] a car and temporarily detain[ing] an individual [renders] the temporary detention ... a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The detention is such a seizure even though the detention is only for a brief period of time and for a limited purpose. For this reason, [a]n automobile stop is ... subject to the constitutional imperative that it not be `unreasonable' under the circumstances. State v. Heminover, 619 N.W.2d 353, 357 (Iowa 2000) (citations omitted) (second ellipsis and fourth alteration in original), overruled on other grounds by State v. Turner, 630 N.W.2d 601, 606 n. 2 (Iowa 2001). This was the state of the law when trial counsel undertook representation of the defendant.