State of Iowa v. Jissel Magali Gomez-Torres

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-0521
Filed November 21, 2023

STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

JISSEL MAGALI GOMEZ-TORRES,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Story County, Steven P. Van Marel,

District Associate Judge.

A defendant appeals her conviction for operating while intoxicated following

the denial of her motion to suppress. AFFIRMED.

Agnes G. Warutere of Warutere Law Firm, P.L.L.C., Ankeny, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered by Greer, P.J., Schumacher, J., and Carr, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2023).
2

GREER, Presiding Judge.

Jissel Gomez-Torres appeals her conviction for operating while intoxicated

(OWI), arguing that the court should have granted her motion to suppress.

Because we find that there was reasonable suspicion that Gomez-Torres was

operating her vehicle while intoxicated based on her driving, we affirm.

I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings.

At approximately 2:34 a.m. on September 22, 2022, Story County Sheriff’s

Deputy Matthew Massaro observed a vehicle drive over the dashed white center

line on the westbound Highway 30 exit ramp (the flyover or overpass) coming off

of Interstate 35 and noted the driver continued driving in the middle of the two lanes

on the second portion of that flyover. As he continued behind the vehicle, he also

saw it weave within its lane and vary its speed from sixty-five miles per hour (mph)

on the flyover to forty-five and back up to fifty-five mph on Highway 30, even though

the speed limit was sixty-five mph. After the driver activated the turn signal late,

the deputy noted the driver appeared to almost miss the turn onto the University

Boulevard exit ramp off of Highway 30, and the vehicle drove over the exit ramp’s

solid white lines and the gore1 in the process. It was at that point that Deputy

Massaro initiated a traffic stop of the vehicle. Once stopped, Deputy Massaro

identified the driver of the vehicle from her driver’s license and insurance

information as Gomez-Torres.

The State charged Gomez-Torres via trial information with OWI, first

offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2(2)(A) (2022), a serious

1 The gore is the triangular part of a highway in between the highway’s lanes and

an exit ramp. See Gore, Merriam-Webster (3rd ed. 2002).
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misdemeanor, in October 2022. Gomez-Torres moved to suppress the evidence

obtained following the stop of her vehicle, arguing that Deputy Massaro stopped

her vehicle without reasonable suspicion in violation of the Fourth Amendment of

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

At the hearing on the motion to suppress in February 2023, Deputy Massaro

testified that he did not observe Gomez-Torres exceed the speed limit of sixty-five

mph or fall below the minimum speed limit. He also confirmed he did not begin

following her vehicle based on any observation of a traffic violation. In fact, he

stated he was not “entirely sure” what caused him to begin following the vehicle.

In all, he opined that his observations encompassed four or five minutes of

following her vehicle for a distance of about three or four miles. As additional

evidence, the State offered and the district court admitted Deputy Massaro’s

dashboard camera footage. The dash cam footage begins after Deputy Massaro

observed the vehicle drive in the middle of the two lanes on the flyover from

Interstate 35 to Highway 30 westbound. Beginning at 2:34 a.m. and ending at 2:38

a.m. when Deputy Massaro initiates a traffic stop, the footage shows the driving

maneuvers of Gomez-Torres. Because Deputy Massaro was pacing the vehicle,

the footage also demonstrates—based on the patrol vehicle’s speed—that

Gomez-Torres’s vehicle varied its speed from sixty-five mph down to forty-five mph

and back up to fifty-five. Deputy Massaro testified to observing the same driving

behaviors depicted in his dash camera video.

Gomez-Torres argued at the suppression hearing that the deputy’s video

“captured what happened here.” Then, Gomez-Torres emphasized there was no

traffic violation that led the deputy to start following her. In her view, a person
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viewing the footage would find a driver who was not speeding, was driving

smoothly and mostly straight with only one or two occasions where she may have

crossed a line, but certainly not in any manner to raise a reasonable suspicion of

impairment. The district court disagreed.

At the hearing, the district court orally denied the suppression motion,

finding that Deputy Massaro had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that

Gomez-Torres was operating her vehicle while intoxicated based on Gomez-

Torres driving down the middle of two lanes over the dashed line dividing them,

weaving in her lane, varying her speed, almost missing her exit, and driving over

the gore area while crossing the solid white line. Ultimately, the district court

concluded,

[W]hen this court looks at the totality of the circumstances, that the
officer did have reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal
activity was afoot. Maybe while none of these things individually
would cause the court to make that determination, the court doesn’t
look at each of these as an individual event.

Gomez-Torres agreed to the OWI charge being submitted to the court for a

bench trial on the minutes of testimony.2 The district court found Gomez-Torres

guilty as charged and sentenced her to two days in jail and a fine of $1250.

Gomez-Torres now appeals.

II. Standard of Review.

We review constitutional claims like this challenge to the denial of the

suppression motion de novo. State v. Montgomery, 966 N.W.2d 641, 649 (Iowa

2 The minutes of testimony reflected Gomez-Torres provided a chemical breath

sample that tested at .185 blood alcohol level, which is over the legal limit. See
Iowa Code § 321J.2 (2022).
5

2021); see U.S. Const. amend. IV; Iowa Const. art. I, § 8. In doing so, we conduct

an independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances. State v. McIver,

858 N.W.2d 699, 702 (Iowa 2015) (“[W]e do not evaluate reasonable suspicion

based on each circumstance individually, but determine the existence of

reasonable suspicion by considering all the circumstances together.”).

III. Analysis.

“A traffic stop is unquestionably a seizure . . . .” State v. Tyler, 830 N.W.2d

288, 292 (Iowa 2013). Generally, the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant for a

seizure. See State v. Kreps, 650 N.W.2d 636, 641 (Iowa 2002). To make a

warrantless traffic stop of a vehicle, police must have probable cause or

reasonable suspicion based on “specific and articulable facts which, taken together

with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” the stop. Terry v.

Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968). “When a peace officer observes any type of traffic

offense, the violation establishes both probable cause to stop the vehicle and

reasonable suspicion to investigate.” State v. Pennington, 881 N.W.2d 471 (Iowa

Ct. App. 2016); see also McIver, 858 N.W.2d at 702. Furthermore, “[r]easonable

suspicion to stop a vehicle for investigative purposes exists when articulable facts

and all the circumstances confronting the officer at the time give rise to a

reasonable belief that criminal activity may be afoot.” State v. Tague, 676 N.W.2d

197, 204 (Iowa 2004). On the other hand, “[m]ere suspicion, curiosity, or hunch of

criminal activity is not enough.” Id. Because Gomez-Torres is only challenging

the reasonable suspicion supporting the stop of her vehicle, we only address

reasonable suspicion in our analysis.
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Our supreme court established the bright-line rule that a single incident of

briefly crossing the edge line of a divided highway, absent more, is not enough to

raise reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Id. at 205–06; see also State v.

Murphy, No. 21-0938, 2022 WL 1100904, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 13, 2022)

(applying Tague and stating, “we do not believe Murphy's one-time act of crossing

the fog line with his truck’s passenger side tires gave rise to a reasonable suspicion

that he was driving while intoxicated”).

However, in interpreting Tague, we have repeatedly found that a vehicle

that does more than cross the edge line once for a couple of seconds may raise

reasonable suspicion that the driver is intoxicated. See State v. Lobo, No. 17-

1768, 2019 WL 762192, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 20, 2019) (collecting cases

finding reasonable suspicion based on crossing of center and edge lines along

with time of night); see State v. Keith, No. 17-1044, 2018 WL 2174089, at *2 (Iowa

Ct. App. Apr. 4, 2018) (collecting cases finding reasonable suspicion based on

swerving, weaving, and crossing of center and edge lines). In fact, when

considering a set of similar circumstances, we determined that the stopping officer

had reasonable suspicion to support the traffic stop. See State v. Sorenson,

No. 14-1101, 2016 WL 718984, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 24, 2016) (finding

reasonable suspicion when a vehicle made a wide turn on a corner, crossed “the

center line on occasion,” and weaved over the fog line before “crossing a rumble

strip, leaving the travel portion of the highway and driving on the shoulder until”

coming to a stop sign). Even more, our supreme court has clarified the Tague

standard to add that “[w]eaving within one’s own lane and changing speeds without

exceeding the speed limit do not violate any statute, but they do provide evidence
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of impairment.” State v. Struve, 956 N.W.2d 90, 104 (Iowa 2021). And we consider

the totality of all observed driving behaviors in determining whether reasonable

suspicion of impaired driving existed. McIver, 858 N.W.2d at 702.

Here, Deputy Massaro observed more than a single crossing of the white

edge line of the highway. Instead, he testified to—and the dash camera footage

supported—“something more”: Gomez-Torres driving down the middle of two

lanes over the dashed line dividing the lanes, weaving in her lane and touching the

dashed center line and solid edge line in the process, varying her speed to twenty

miles below the speed limit, almost missing her exit and activating her turn signal

only after doing so, and driving over the gore area next to the exit while crossing

the solid white line separating the exit from the highway lanes. Taken together,

these actions rise above the level of a single isolated incident of briefly touching

the edge line. Therefore, Deputy Massaro had sufficient evidence of impairment

to raise a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity, namely, that

Gomez-Torres was driving while intoxicated, and the warrantless traffic stop was

not a violation of her constitutional rights.

IV. Conclusion.

Because Deputy Massaro’s stop of Gomez-Torres’s vehicle was supported

by reasonable suspicion based on more than a single, isolated incident of touching

the edge line of the road, we find, like the district court, that Gomez-Torres’s motion

to suppress should be denied, and we affirm her conviction for OWI, first offense.

AFFIRMED.