State of Iowa v. Nicholas Alexander Sinclair

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-0331
Filed January 24, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

NICHOLAS ALEXANDER SINCLAIR,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Gregory D. Brandt,

District Associate Judge.

The defendant challenges the denial of his motion to suppress following his

conviction for operating while intoxicated. AFFIRMED.

Sydney N. Ross of Gourley, Rehkemper & Lindholm, P.L.C., West Des

Moines, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Olivia D. Brooks, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Heard by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Chicchelly, JJ.
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GREER, Judge.

Nicholas Sinclair challenges the denial of his motion to suppress following

his conviction for operating while intoxicated (OWI). He asserts that the State

failed to meet its burden to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that

the stopping officer had specific and articulable facts to support a reasonable belief

that Sinclair was involved in criminal activity, and therefore the stop of his vehicle

was unconstitutional. Upon our de novo review, we affirm.

I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings.

At approximately 11:52 p.m. on Monday, October 3, 2022, a person called

911 to report a disturbance in a gated community. According to the dispatch notes,

the 911 caller reported that “there was a female outside of her house freaking out.”

Two minutes later, the caller—who was still on the line with dispatch—said

someone drove by the area in a black SUV and tried to talk to the woman standing

outside but then left. Next, the caller reported the woman outside was shouting,

“Please help me. Don’t hurt me.” The 911 caller relayed a belief the woman was

intoxicated. At 11:56 p.m., a second 911 caller from the area reported a woman

who was across the street screaming and noted a black SUV “keeps driving by.”

The 911 caller heard someone in the black SUV yell at the woman. The caller

reported further movements of the woman, saying she sat down in the grass, got

up and walked up the driveway, and then tried “to get into the front door of [the]

neighbor’s house.”

Officer Chelsea Dexter of the West Des Moines Police Department was the

first to respond to the scene. As she was approaching the area, she communicated

via radio that she passed a black Dodge Durango and that it was headed towards
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and relatively close to the gate. West Des Moines Police Officer Kyle Turlow1

responded next. Moments after Officer Dexter arrived at the scene, Officer Turlow

passed a “dark color black SUV” leaving the gated community. There were no

other vehicles in the area. Officer Turlow turned around and followed the vehicle

out of the gated community and onto a residential street before performing a traffic

stop of the vehicle around midnight. The vehicle was a dark gray Lincoln

Navigator; Sinclair was the driver.

The State charged Sinclair via trial information with OWI, a serious

misdemeanor, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2(2)(a) (2022). In December

2022, Sinclair filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized following the stop,

arguing that Officer Turlow lacked specific and articulable facts to support a

reasonable belief that Sinclair was involved in criminal activity to justify the traffic

stop. The district court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion in January 2023.

At the hearing, the State offered, and the district court admitted, the dispatch log

from October 3 into evidence. The State also called Officer Turlow to testify. He

testified that it was “pretty dark” out at the time of the traffic stop. He also stated

that Sinclair’s vehicle was a dark enough color that it could have been mistaken

for black but, after he stopped, the officer recognized it was a dark gray color.

Finally, Officer Turlow testified that there were no other vehicles leaving the gated

community that could have possibly matched the description of the black SUV and

that Sinclair’s vehicle was the only dark-colored SUV in the area at that time.

1 The officer’s last name is not spelled consistently in our record; we use the
spelling provided by the officer as part of his suppression hearing testimony.
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The district court denied Sinclair’s motion to suppress in February 2023,

determining that under the totality of the circumstances, the officer was justified in

briefly stopping the SUV for an investigative purpose. After the denial of the

motion, Sinclair stipulated to a bench trial on the minutes, and the court found

Sinclair guilty of OWI. Sinclair was sentenced to one year in prison with all but

three days suspended and given credit for one day of time served, for a total term

of imprisonment of two days, which Sinclair could satisfy by participating in a

weekend program rather than serving jail time. The court also placed Sinclair on

probation for one year and, as part of probation, required that he follow through

with substance-abuse treatment. Sinclair appeals.

II. Standard of Review.

“When a defendant challenges a district court’s denial of a motion to

suppress based upon the deprivation of a state or federal constitutional right, our

standard of review is de novo.” State v. Hauge, 973 N.W.2d 453, 458 (Iowa 2022)

(citation omitted). This means “[w]e review the entire record to independently

evaluate the totality of the circumstances and examine each case ‘in light of its

unique circumstances.’” Id. (quoting State v. Brown, 930 N.W.2d 840, 844 (Iowa

2019 )). “We give considerable deference to the trial court’s findings regarding the

credibility of the witnesses, but [we] are not bound by them.” State v. Tague, 676

N.W.2d 197, 201 (Iowa 2004).

III. Analysis.

Sinclair renews his argument that Officer Turlow did not have specific and

articulable facts to support a reasonable belief that he was involved in criminal

activity and, therefore, the stop of his vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment to
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the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution.

Sinclair argues: “[t]he facts available to [Officer Turlow] preceding the ‘investigatory

contact’ of the gray Lincoln Navigator show he acted on a generalized suspicion

that criminal activity may have been afoot, and an unparticularized hunch that an

occupant of the gray Lincoln Navigator committed those imaginary illicit acts.”

Hence, his rights were violated when the stop occurred. “Both the Fourth

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

Constitution prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.”

State v. Tyler, 830 N.W.2d 288, 291 (Iowa 2013). Although a traffic stop is a

seizure, State v. Arrieta, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2023 WL 8483980, at *2 (Iowa

2023), it is reasonable when supported by probable cause or reasonable suspicion

of a crime. State v. McIver, 858 N.W.2d 699, 702 (Iowa 2015) (“Probable cause

of a crime supports an arrest, while reasonable suspicion of a crime allows a peace

officer to stop and briefly detain a person to conduct a further investigation.”).

When a person challenges a stop on the basis that reasonable
suspicion did not exist, the State must show by a preponderance of
the evidence that the stopping officer had specific and articulable
facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those facts,
to reasonably believe criminal activity may have occurred.

Tague, 676 N.W.2d at 204. These facts comprise “the totality of the circumstances

confronting the officer, including all information available to the officer at the time

the officer makes the decision to stop the vehicle.” Id. “The principal function of

an investigatory stop is to resolve the ambiguity as to whether criminal activity is

afoot.” State v. Kreps, 650 N.W.2d 636, 642 (Iowa 2002) (citation omitted). This

criminal activity may already have occurred, presently be occurring, or be about to

occur. Id. at 647. We review for whether “the possibility of criminal conduct was
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strong enough that, upon an objective appraisal of the situation, we would be

critical of the officers had they let the event pass without investigation.” Id. at 642

(citation omitted). A two-day-old report of a gray vehicle covered in dust and with

out-of-county license plates was not strong enough. State v. Medrano, No. 13-

1941, 2015 WL 567922, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 11, 2015). But on these facts,

we find that the State met its burden to show the stop of Sinclair was legal.

Here, the facts known by Officer Turlow at the time of the stop included the

information provided by the two 911 callers. “[I]nformation imparted by a citizen

informant is generally reliable.” Id. (citing State v. Niehaus, 452 N.W.2d 184, 189

(Iowa 1990)). The facts also included the information communicated by Officer

Dexter. See State v. Baker, No. 17-0622, 2018 WL 4922970, at *5 (Iowa Ct. App.

Oct. 10, 2018) (finding that an officer properly included communication from an

investigator who was not present at the investigatory stop in determining that he

had reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant’s vehicle). Under those reported

facts, Officer Turlow was aware that a woman was described as “freaking out” and

attempting to get into a nearby home such that two neighbors were so concerned

they each requested assistance by calling 911. And those two 911 callers

identified someone in a black SUV driving past the woman repeatedly and either

yelling at her or attempting to speak with her. Around this time, one caller quoted

the woman as saying, “please help me, don’t hurt me.” All of these events occurred

within a gated community late on a Monday night. The events reported by the 911

callers also all occurred within a few minutes—between the first 911 call at

11:52 p.m. and Officer Turlow stopping Sinclair around midnight.
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Sinclair argues that while there were observations of the black SUV and the

actions of the black SUV’s driver that came from the 911 callers, there was no

rational connection for suspicion of him and his gray Lincoln Navigator. And Officer

Dexter, who should be trained to note color and make of a vehicle, identified a

black Dodge Durango as she was approaching the distressed woman. But Officer

Turlow testified that the distressed woman was inside of a gated community and

that he saw Sinclair’s vehicle leaving the entrance to the gated community

moments after Officer Dexter saw the reported Dodge Durango. To the State’s

point, at the same time as Officer Dexter’s report, the only vehicle in the area was

Sinclair’s and, in the dark of the night, it appeared to be a black-colored SUV.

Thus, there was a reasonable inference that the SUV was actually the one involved

even though the details were not exact.

Additionally, according to Sinclair, even if it was reasonable to infer that his

gray Lincoln Navigator was the vehicle that continued to return to the distressed

woman, there was no information from the 911 callers or observations by the

officers that the SUV driver was engaged in criminal activity, that the woman was

in any way injured, or that an assault had been observed to put context to the

woman’s cries. Sinclair points to a belief by one 911 caller that the distressed

woman looked intoxicated, suggesting the woman was the one engaged in illegal

activity (like public intoxication) rather than intimating the SUV driver was. But in

our independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances found in the record,

we conclude Officer Turlow had reason to believe criminal activity was afoot. See

State v. Vance, 790 N.W.2d 775, 781 (Iowa 2010).
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First, contrary to Sinclair’s characterization, the 911 callers tied the behavior

of the dark SUV to the hysteria the woman showed by mentioning its presence. A

reasonable officer could suspect that the driver of the vehicle had or was about to

commit a crime when the driver continued to return to the frantic woman and make

contact with her. Her cries of “please help me, don’t hurt me” could lead an officer

to infer that an assault is taking place. Likewise, the woman’s attempt to enter a

home as the dark SUV returned to her location could also suggest criminal

involvement by the driver, such as harassment or a kidnapping. These facts

support a reasonable suspicion to initiate an investigatory stop of the vehicle to

determine the driver’s involvement in the disturbance reported by the 911 callers.

See State v. McDowell, No. 13-1259, 2015 WL 1046127, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar.

11, 2015) (“[T]he officers received information a person . . . had been involved in

a disturbance and could properly stop McDowell to investigate whether he was the

person involved and the nature of the disturbance.”). Given these facts, concluding

Officer Turlow was required to allow the only dark SUV exiting the gated

community to pass without investigation would not be consistent with our task to

view the officer’s actions “through the eyes of a reasonable and cautious police

officer on the scene, guided by his experience and training.” Id. at *3 (citation

omitted). “The principal function of an investigatory stop is to resolve the ambiguity

as to whether criminal activity is afoot.” Vance, 790 N.W.2d at 780 (citation

omitted). Officer Turlow was doing just that, so we affirm the denial of the

suppression motion.
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IV. Conclusion.

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the district court’s ruling denying

Sinclair’s motion to suppress; we affirm his conviction and sentence for OWI.

AFFIRMED.