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State v. Moorehead4/1/2005
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Defendant convicted of drunk driving seeks further review of court of appeals' decision that held denial of his statutory right to contact family member was harmless error. DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED; CASE REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
Mother knows best. While detained in the back of a patrol car on suspicion of drunk driving , a young man asked the police if he could talk to his mother about his predicament. He now asks us to overturn his conviction because the police did not comply with his request. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I. Facts
In the wee hours of April 20, 2003, a Cerro Gordo County deputy sheriff clocked a car speeding on a highway in Mason City. The deputy gave chase but the car did not immediately stop. The car swerved over the center line twice before eventually coming to a halt on the wrong side of an adjacent residential street.
The deputy spoke to the driver, Joshua Paul Moorehead. Moorehead was eighteen years old, living at home with his parents, and driving his mother's car. The deputy smelled alcohol and noticed Moorehead's speech was slurred. Moorehead's eyes were glazed but not bloodshot. Moorehead initially denied having anything to drink, but later admitted he had drunk one beer.
The deputy administered three field sobriety tests for drunkenness. Moorehead failed them all. While taking one of these tests, Moorehead said he did not know if he could pass the test "if I was sober." The deputy also asked Moorehead to take a preliminary breath test, and Moorehead complied. Based upon his observations, the deputy placed Moorehead in the deputy's vehicle.
While Moorehead was sitting in the back of the police car, the deputy and Moorehead had the following videotaped conversation:
DEPUTY: Well, Josh, you've been drinking a lot more than one beer tonight. By all the tests that I've done, you're definitely over the legal limit. . . . I'm going to have to take you with me [to the police station] to do one more test.
MOOREHEAD: That's fine, sir.
DEPUTY: What do you want done with the car?
MOOREHEAD: Um . . . .
DEPUTY: Do you [have] some parents that can get it or anything? That can come get you after awhile?
(In an inaudible portion of the tape, at this point Moorehead presumably indicates the deputy should contact his mother.)
MOOREHEAD: Would it be possible for me to talk to my Mom when you call her to come pick it up?
DEPUTY: Not right now, because I just have to call my dispatcher and have her call her.
MOOREHEAD: All right, that's fine . . . .
DEPUTY: I'll probably have to wait here until she comes anyway . . . .
MOOREHEAD: Yeah, that's fine.
The deputy contacted his dispatcher. The dispatcher called Moorehead's parents.
Moorehead's parents arrived at the scene of their son's detention. Moorehead's mother asked the deputy if she could speak with her son. The deputy told her he had to take Moorehead to the police station first and the dispatcher would call her when she could pick him up.
By all accounts, however, Moorehead's mother did have a brief encounter with her son at the scene through the window of the patrol car. (It is unclear from the record whether the window was up or down.) For approximately thirty seconds to one minute, Moorehead's mother yelled at her son. She told Moorehead he was grounded, and would remain grounded for a long period of time. Moorehead's father said his wife "wasn't ve
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