United States of America v. Garry Wayne James Behrens

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2543
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Garry Wayne James Behrens
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa
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Submitted: April 16, 2025
Filed: July 28, 2025
[Unpublished]
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Before LOKEN, GRUENDER, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Garry Behrens entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of possession of
methamphetamine with intent to distribute and was sentenced to 72 months of

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imprisonment. He now appeals the district court’s1 denial of his motion to suppress
evidence obtained following a traffic stop. We affirm.
In May 2023, Sergeant Dominic Wheeler of the Muscatine County Sheriff’s
Office observed a truck traveling ten miles per hour below the speed limit. Wheeler
thought the reduced speed could indicate that the driver was impaired, so he followed
the truck. During the three miles that Wheeler followed the truck, its speed
fluctuated, which Wheeler viewed as another sign of driver impairment. Wheeler
then checked the truck’s registration and learned the registered owner was a woman
who did not have a valid license. At this point, Wheeler could not tell who was
driving the truck. Wheeler activated his lights, but the truck did not immediately
pull over even though the highway had a shoulder and “there were no conditions that
would have prevented the driver from immediately stopping.” After Wheeler
activated his sirens, the truck pulled into a gas station and parked at an angle near
the station’s entrance. Wheeler testified that the manner in which the truck parked
further increased his suspicion that the driver was impaired or trying to conceal
contraband.
Wheeler exited his police vehicle to approach the driver and realized the driver
was a male, not the female registered owner. Wheeler asked the driver if he was
alright after Wheeler “immediately noticed the driver was nervous, sweaty, had a
‘blank stare,’ and was slow to react when speaking with him.” Wheeler asked
additional questions to determine whether the driver was impaired and requested the
driver’s license, registration, and insurance. The driver could not provide any of
those documents, and Behrens, the truck’s passenger, also did not have his license.
Wheeler learned the driver and Behrens were traveling from Burlington, Iowa, to
Buffalo, Iowa, a known drug trafficking route. Wheeler then returned to his squad
car to verify the driver’s and Behrens’s identities and to call for a canine unit.
Wheeler initially struggled to pull up the driver’s and Behrens’s records but
1 The Honorable Stephen H. Locher, United States District Judge for the
Southern District of Iowa.

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eventually learned neither had a valid license. Fifteen minutes into the stop, the
canine unit arrived. Wheeler told the canine officer that “the driver was lethargic,
had bloodshot eyes, and was acting weird.” The canine alerted on the truck, and
Wheeler found a pipe with suspected methamphetamine residue inside. Behrens
admitted the pipe belonged to him, and another officer on the scene located a sock
filled with methamphetamine in front of the truck. Both the driver and Behrens were
then arrested.
Behrens unsuccessfully sought to suppress the physical evidence seized
during the stop, his statement about the glass pipe, and other evidence from the stop.
On appeal, Behrens argues Wheeler was obligated to end the traffic stop when his
reasonable suspicion of unlicensed driving dissipated upon learning the truck’s
driver was a man and therefore was not the registered owner. We apply a mixed
standard of review to a denial of a motion to suppress, reviewing “the district court’s
findings of fact for clear error and the denial of the suppression motion de novo.”
United States v. Williams, 929 F.3d 539, 543 (8th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States
v. Smith, 820 F.3d 356, 359 (8th Cir. 2016)). We conclude the district court did not
err by denying Behrens’s motion. Even if we accept Behrens’s argument that an
officer may not ask further traffic safety questions and must terminate a traffic stop
once reasonable suspicion of a violation dissipates, Wheeler had reasonable
suspicion that the driver was impaired by the time he learned the driver was not the
registered owner.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. See
U.S. Const. amend. IV. A traffic stop constitutes a seizure and therefore “must be
supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause.” Williams, 929 F.3d at 544
(quoting United States v. Houston, 548 F.3d 1151, 1153 (8th Cir. 2008)). The
“tolerable duration” of a traffic stop “is determined by the seizure’s ‘mission’—to
address the traffic violation that warranted the stop and attend to related safety
concerns.” Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 354 (2015) (internal citation
omitted) (quoting Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407 (2005)). An officer’s
authority for the traffic stop “ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or

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reasonably should have been—completed.” Id. As a result, “[o]nce ‘the purpose of
the traffic stop is complete[,] further detention of the driver or vehicle would be
unreasonable, unless something that occurred during the traffic stop generated the
necessary reasonable suspicion to justify further detention.’” Williams, 929 F.3d at
544 (second alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Quintero-Felix, 714 F.3d
563, 567 (8th Cir. 2013)).
Since the truck’s registered owner did not have a valid license and Wheeler
could not tell that the driver was not the registered owner, Wheeler had reasonable
suspicion that a traffic violation was occurring and could stop the vehicle. See
Kansas v. Glover, 140 S. Ct. 1183, 1188, 1191 (2020). After Wheeler saw the driver
was a man upon approaching the window, not a woman like the registered driver,
his reasonable suspicion that the driver had an invalid license dissipated. But just as
that reasonable suspicion dissipated, Wheeler’s reasonable suspicion that the driver
was impaired continued to grow. Once at the driver’s window, Wheeler
“immediately” saw signs that the driver was impaired. Behrens claims Wheeler
should have realized the driver was a man before he spoke to the driver, but even
under those circumstances, Wheeler could, at minimum, inform the driver of the
original basis for the stop and that he was free to go, at which point Wheeler noticed
the physical signs of driver impairment. While we do not resolve the issue of
continued detention after reasonable suspicion dissipated, courts that have held that
a stop must terminate immediately without further questions still permit an officer
to “explain[] to [the vehicle’s occupants] the reason for the initial stop,” rather than
requiring the officer to return to his patrol car and drive off without explanation. See
United States v. Trestyn, 646 F.3d 732, 744 (10th Cir. 2011). Upon seeing the driver,
Wheeler did not smell anything, but he noticed the driver was nervous and sweaty,
had bloodshot eyes and a blank stare, and was slow to react when speaking.
Moreover, while following the truck, Wheeler had observed the vehicle driving
inconsistent speeds, as slow as ten miles per hour below the speed limit, and taking
longer than necessary to pull over. The totality of these circumstances provided
Wheeler with reasonable suspicion that the driver was impaired by drug use. See
United States v. Campbell-Martin, 17 F.4th 807, 814–15 (8th Cir. 2021) (concluding

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similar facts supported reasonable suspicion of driving under the influence). As a
result, Wheeler could continue to detain the truck, investigate whether the driver was
impaired, and request licenses, registration, and proof of insurance. See id.;
Williams, 929 F.3d at 545.
We therefore conclude no Fourth Amendment violation occurred when
Wheeler continued the stop after learning the driver was not the registered owner
because Wheeler had already obtained information that “generated the necessary
reasonable suspicion to justify further detention.”2 See Williams, 929 F.3d at 544
(quoting Quintero-Felix, 714 F.3d at 567).
We affirm the judgment of the district court.
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2 Since reasonable suspicion of the driver’s impairment justified the continued
stop, we need not address the government’s other justifications for the stop or the
district court’s alternative holding that the drug-filled sock was abandoned.

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