State of Iowa v. Trevell Demon Bruce ( 2022 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 21-1670
Filed October 5, 2022
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
TREVELL DEMON BRUCE,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, Brook
Jacobsen, District Associate Judge.
Trevell Bruce appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress
evidence, alleging a constitutional violation of his right against unreasonable
seizures. AFFIRMED.
Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Rachel C. Regenold,
Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Thomas J. Ogden, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Greer and Schumacher, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Presiding Judge.
We must decide whether the district court appropriately denied a motion to
suppress evidence.
The episode underlying the motion began when Waterloo police officers
were dispatched to a battered women’s shelter on a report that one of the residents
had been harassed or assaulted at some point and two men were seen walking
through the parking lot and, later, seated in a parked sedan. The driver of the
sedan was Trevell Demon Bruce.
One of the officers pulled up to “about a 45-degree angle to the driver’s
rear . . . corner” and turned on his “take-down” lights, which “illuminate anything in
front of you so you can see better.” His intent was to “see what their business was
in the parking lot based on the concern of the people” at the shelter. He did not
activate his “red and blue lights” because, in his view, “[i]t wasn’t a traffic stop at
this point.” As the officer began to get out of his vehicle, the sedan started “rolling
forward” and “pulling off.” The officer “got back in” and “started following” the
sedan. He “activated his top lights.” The sedan stopped. The officer directed
Bruce to put the car in park and cut the engine. Bruce instead took off at a speed
“in excess of 70” miles per hour, traveling through residential neighborhoods with
speed limits of approximately twenty-five miles per hour. In a short while, the
officer saw the sedan crashed against a garbage can but still in drive. He
apprehended Bruce in someone’s backyard.
The State charged Bruce with eluding. Bruce moved to suppress evidence
gained in what he contended was a warrantless seizure of his vehicle in violation
of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 8
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of the Iowa Constitution. The district court denied the motion following an
evidentiary hearing. Bruce agreed to a trial on the minutes of testimony, after
which the district court found him guilty. Bruce appealed.
Both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I,
section 8 of the Iowa Constitution prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures.
State v. Tyler, 830 N.W.2d 288, 291 (Iowa 2013). “Because [Bruce] has not
proposed a standard for interpreting our search and seizure provisions under the
Iowa Constitution differently from its federal constitutional counterpart, we will
apply the general standards as outlined by the United States Supreme Court for
addressing a search and seizure challenge under the Iowa Constitution.” Id. at
292.
A seizure requires a “show of authority and submission to that authority.”
State v. Ivankovic, No. 15-0622, 2016 WL 3269627, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. June 15,
2016) (citing California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 627–29 (1991)). “A traffic stop
is unquestionably a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.” Tyler, 830 N.W.2d at
292. Although a stop is a seizure, “a police officer may in appropriate
circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of
investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to
make an arrest.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22 (1968); see also State v. Struve,
956 N.W.2d 90, 95 (Iowa 2021) (“[A]n officer [may] briefly detain a driver to
investigate whether a traffic violation has been, or is being, committed, but only if
the officer can establish reasonable suspicion for the stop.”). “Reasonable
suspicion to support an investigatory stop requires that the officer identify specific
and articulable facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those
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facts, to reasonably believe criminal activity may have occurred.” Struve, 956
N.W.2d at 95–96 (quotations and citations omitted).
Bruce contends “law enforcement did not have reasonable suspicion upon
which to justify the stop of [his] vehicle and but for the illegal actions of law
enforcement no crime would have occurred.” The State essentially concedes the
officer lacked reasonable suspicion “to initiate a traffic stop based on the call from
the women’s shelter.” The State instead argues the officer did not effectuate a
constitutionally protected seizure until Bruce was apprehended in the backyard.
That seizure, the State asserts, was supported by Bruce’s conduct following the
officer’s order to stop at the intersection, specifically, his decision to “elude[ ] the
officer” and “commit[ ] numerous traffic violations in the process.”
As noted, a seizure requires a show of authority. We question whether
there was a constitutional show of authority when the officer turned on his “take-
down” lights and parked at an angle behind the sedan in the parking lot. See State
v. Fogg, 936 N.W.2d 664, 667–69 (Iowa 2019) (finding no seizure where the officer
“never activated the emergency lights on his vehicle” and “parked at least twenty
feet away from [the defendant’s] parked vehicle.”); State v. Wilkes, 756 N.W.2d
838, 844 (Iowa 2008) (stating “the use of ordinary headlights at night is simply not
coercive in the same manner as the activation of emergency lights which invoke
police authority and imply a police command to stop and remain,” and stating “[t]he
fact that [the officer] parked behind the vehicle driven by [the defendant] also d[id]
not convert the encounter into a seizure” because “the ability of [the defendant] to
drive away was not substantially impaired.”). But assuming the officer’s conduct
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amounted to a show of authority, Bruce did not submit to it. He ignored the officer’s
presence and maneuvered his car toward the street.
The officer followed, activating his overhead lights. Arguably, the flashing
lights constituted a show of authority. See State v. Harlan, 301 N.W.2d 717, 720
(Iowa 1981) (“The use of sirens, flashing lights or other signals to pull a moving
vehicle to the side of the road might also constitute a show of authority that is a
seizure.” (citation omitted)). But again, Bruce did not submit to it. Despite being
told to cut his engine, he accelerated down the road.
As Bruce sped away, the officer took off after him, with his overhead lights
flashing and his siren blaring. This was an indisputable show of authority. See
Ivankovic, 2016 WL 3269627, at *4 (“At the earliest here, any seizure occurred
when the officer directed [the defendant] to shut off the ignition and removed his
seat belt.”). Bruce did not yield to that authority, continuing his flight along
residential roads until he crashed the vehicle. Because Bruce did not submit to
the officer’s authority, no seizure occurred. See Hodari, 499 U.S. at 629 (holding
that even if the officer’s pursuit “constituted a ‘show of authority’ enjoining [the
defendant] to halt, since [the defendant] did not comply with that injunction he was
not seized until he was tackled”); Brower v. Inyo Cnty., 489 U.S. 593, 596 (1989)
(“The pursuing police car sought to stop the suspect only by the show of authority
represented by flashing lights and continuing pursuit; and though he was in fact
stopped, he was stopped by a different means—his loss of control of his vehicle
and the subsequent crash. If, instead of that, the police cruiser had pulled
alongside the fleeing car and sideswiped it, producing the crash, then the
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termination of the suspect's freedom of movement would have been a seizure.”).
In the absence of a seizure, the Fourth Amendment was not implicated.
It matters little that the officer’s initial show of authority in the parking lot and
as he began to pursue Bruce was not supported by reasonable suspicion. As the
Supreme Court stated, “Unlawful orders will not be deterred . . . by sanctioning
through the exclusionary rule those of them that are not obeyed.” Hodari, 499 U.S.
at 627.
We are left with Bruce’s argument that the stop was pretextual. The
supreme court has stated, “unlimited discretion to stop vehicles on the open road
may give rise to allegations of racial discrimination.” State v. Coleman, 890
N.W.2d 284, 287 (Iowa 2017). At the same time, the court has reaffirmed that “the
officer’s subjective motivations are irrelevant under the Fourth Amendment to the
United States Constitution so long as there is probable cause to support the stop.”
State v. Brown, 930 N.W.2d 840, 846 (Iowa 2019). In evaluating whether to adopt
a different standard under the Iowa Constitution, the court “acknowledge[d] that
police discretion can lead to racial profiling” but concluded the objective test
applied in the Fourth Amendment context, together with other protections including
district court assessments of officer credibility, would mitigate the risk of “abuse of
authority.” Id. at 849. Applying an objective test, the officer’s motivation in parking
behind Bruce and pursuing him is immaterial to the analysis of whether a seizure
occurred. And, as discussed, the apprehension of Bruce was supported by
probable cause in the form of numerous traffic violations, documented on the
officer’s dash camera video.
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We conclude Bruce was not seized until he was apprehended. We affirm
the district court’s suppression ruling and Bruce’s conviction, judgment, and
sentence for eluding.
AFFIRMED.