IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 13–1615
Filed April 17, 2015
STATE OF IOWA,
Appellee,
vs.
JOHN PENN-KENNEDY,
Appellant.
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Todd A.
Hensley, Judge.
The State seeks further review of a court of appeals decision
reversing defendant’s conviction for OWI finding the prosecution violated
the speedy indictment rule. DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS
VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
Robert D. Tiefenthaler of Tiefenthaler Law Office, P.C., Sioux City,
for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Heather R. Quick, Assistant
Attorney General, Patrick Jennings, County Attorney, and Jacklyn Fox,
Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
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CADY, Chief Justice.
In this appeal, we revisit the scope and application of the speedy
indictment rule. The issue presented is whether this rule applies to
require the dismissal of a prosecution for the crime of operating while
intoxicated that arose from an arrest and prosecution for the crime of
public intoxication when the defendant reasonably believed he had also
been arrested for the crime of operating while intoxicated. The district
court held that the speedy indictment rule did not require a dismissal of
the subsequent prosecution for the crime of operating while intoxicated.
We transferred the case to the court of appeals, which reversed the
decision of the district court. On further review, we vacate the decision
of the court of appeals and affirm the decision of the district court. We
hold that the speedy indictment rule is not triggered for a prosecution of
a public offense by an arrest that resulted in an earlier prosecution of a
separate public offense arising from the same incident.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
During the frigid early morning hours of January 19, 2012,
Sioux City police officers responded to a report of an intoxicated man
leaving a restaurant and preparing to operate his motor vehicle parked
outside the restaurant. When officers arrived, they found John
Penn-Kennedy, a Nebraska resident, sitting behind the steering wheel of
his vehicle in the parking lot with the motor running. After questioning
Penn-Kennedy, one of the officers entered the restaurant to interview the
person who made the report. Two other officers remained outside with
Penn-Kennedy. During this time, Penn-Kennedy told the officers he had
driven to the restaurant from a bar and planned to drive home. An
officer administered two field sobriety tests and a preliminary breath test.
Penn-Kennedy failed the tests.
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Without informing Penn-Kennedy he was under arrest, the officers
handcuffed him and transported him to the police station. As the
arresting officer was walking him into the station, Penn-Kennedy fell and
injured his foot. The injury was severe enough that the officer
transported him from the station to the hospital. At the hospital, the
officer read Penn-Kennedy his Miranda rights and invoked implied-
consent procedures to obtain a body specimen for testing to determine
his alcohol concentration level. The officer requested a blood test for this
purpose. Penn-Kennedy refused the test, but consented to provide a
urine sample. After obtaining the urine sample, the officer told
Penn-Kennedy he was under arrest for public intoxication in violation of
Iowa Code section 123.46 (2011). Penn-Kennedy was then transported
back to the station and booked for public intoxication. A criminal
complaint for public intoxication was filed, and a prosecution for the
offense followed. Penn-Kennedy was released from custody following an
initial appearance.
On February 17, the police received the toxicology report on the
urine sample provided by Penn-Kennedy. The report showed
Penn-Kennedy had an alcohol concentration level at the time of his arrest
in excess of the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle.
On May 18, the State filed a criminal complaint charging
Penn-Kennedy with the crime of operating while intoxicated (OWI) in
violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2. The complaint arose from the
same incident that resulted in the public intoxication arrest 120 days
earlier. An arrest warrant was issued, followed by an initial appearance
on the complaint before a magistrate on July 31.
On August 7, the State filed a trial information against
Penn-Kennedy charging him with OWI. The public intoxication charge
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was still pending, and the parties agreed to consolidate it with the OWI
charge for the purposes of trial. Penn-Kennedy then filed a motion to
dismiss the trial information. He claimed the State was required to
indict him under the speedy indictment rule for operating while
intoxicated within forty-five days of his arrest on January 19 because he
maintained a reasonable belief he had been arrested for OWI at the time.
The district court denied the motion.
At a stipulated bench trial, Penn-Kennedy was found guilty of OWI,
first offense. The public intoxication charge was dismissed.
Penn-Kennedy appealed from the judgment and sentence for OWI.
The sole claim raised on appeal is that the trial court erred in failing to
dismiss the case under the speedy indictment rule. We transferred the
case to the court of appeals. It found the speedy indictment rule for the
prosecution of the crime of OWI was triggered by the arrest for public
intoxication because the State did not have probable cause to arrest him
for public intoxication, only OWI. It concluded the officers did not
observe the essential facts to support the public intoxication charge and
could only have arrested Penn-Kennedy for the crime of OWI.
Consequently, it concluded the State was required to indict
Penn-Kennedy for OWI within forty-five days of the arrest and held the
district court erred in failing to dismiss the prosecution. We granted
further review.
II. Standard and Scope of Review.
We review the district court’s interpretation of the speedy
indictment rule, Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2)(a), for errors at
law. State v. Dennison, 571 N.W.2d 492, 494 (Iowa 1997) (per curiam).
“We are bound by the findings of fact of the district court if they are
5
supported by substantial evidence.” State v. Wing, 791 N.W.2d 243, 246
(Iowa 2010).
III. Application of Speedy Indictment Rule.
The right to a speedy trial in Iowa is derived from both our State
and Federal Constitutions and is more specifically defined under the
Iowa Rules of Criminal Procedure. See id. It is aligned with the
venerable public policy of this state that “criminal prosecutions be
concluded at the earliest possible time consistent with a fair trial to both
parties.” Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33(2).
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2) divides a criminal
prosecution into three segments and imposes a time limitation for each.
The first segment pertains to the filing of an indictment and is also
known as the speedy indictment rule. “[T]he court must order the
prosecution to be dismissed” if “an indictment is not found against the
defendant within 45 days” of an arrest. Id. r. 2.33(2)(a). The second
segment pertains to the trial. “[T]he court must order the indictment to
be dismissed” if the defendant is not “brought to trial within 90 days
after indictment.” Id. r. 2.33(2)(b). The prosecution must be dismissed if
these time limitations are not observed unless good cause is shown or
the right has been waived. Id. r. 2.33(2)(a)–(b). The third segment
pertains to the entire case. “All criminal cases must be brought to trial
within one year after the defendant’s initial arraignment . . . unless an
extension is granted by the court, upon a showing of good cause.” Id.
r. 2.33(2)(c).
As with all three segments of the speedy trial rule, the speedy
indictment rule serves to “ ‘relieve an accused of the anxiety associated
with’ ” the suspension of a prosecution, provide for the “ ‘reasonably
prompt administration of justice,’ ” prevent the loss of evidence, and
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maintain a fair process. Wing, 791 N.W.2d 246–47 (quoting State v.
Delockroy, 559 N.W.2d 43, 46 (Iowa Ct. App. 1996)). In particular, the
speedy indictment rule protects these objectives during the time period
provided to file an indictment in a criminal case. Yet, an indictment is
not normally the initial charging instrument brought against an accused
that commences the criminal prosecution. Instead, a criminal
prosecution is commenced upon the filing of the first charging
instrument, including the filing of a “complaint.” Iowa Code § 804.1 (“A
criminal proceeding may be commenced by the filing of a complaint
before a magistrate.”); see id. § 801.4(7) (defining a “criminal proceeding”
as “a proceeding in which a person is accused of a public offense”); id.
§ 801.4(13) (defining a “prosecution” as “the commencement, including
the filing of a complaint, and continuance of a criminal proceeding”). The
speedy indictment time period, however, does not begin with the
commencement of the prosecution but with an arrest. Wing, 791 N.W.2d
at 247. An arrest is the triggering event to commence the forty-five-day
time period to file an indictment under the rule, supplanting the previous
version of the rule’s use of the date of prosecution as the trigger. Id.; see
also id. at 255 (Cady, J., dissenting) (explaining the “held to answer”
language from the previous version of the rule related to the initial court
appearance).
Normally, the date of an arrest and the date of prosecution follow
hand in hand. Thus, even though the date of arrest triggers the
requirement to file an indictment, the arrest date is usually very close in
time to the date that commences the prosecution. This approach is
largely due to the procedure and protocol police are required to follow in
making an arrest. See generally Iowa Code ch. 804. An arresting officer
“must inform the person to be arrested of the intention to arrest,” the
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reason for the arrest, and his or her identity as a police officer. Id.
§ 804.14. The officer must also require the person to submit to the
officer’s custody. Id. The officer is then required to take the arrested
person before a committing magistrate for an initial appearance without
unnecessary delay. Id. §§ 804.21(1), .22; Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.2(1). The
period of time between the arrest and the initial appearance normally
must not exceed twenty-four hours. Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.1(2)(d). This
narrow time frame relates to the broader right to a speedy trial, but is
more associated with the rights afforded persons following an arrest,
including the right to be informed of the accusations responsible for the
arrest. See Iowa Const. art I, § 10 (describing rights of persons accused);
Iowa Code ch. 804 (regulating arrests); Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.2 (describing
initial court proceedings). The initial appearance requires a complaint to
be filed if the person was arrested without a warrant and for the person
to be informed of the charges and be given a copy of the complaint.1
Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.2(1)–(2).
While the complaint commences a criminal prosecution, no person
may be held to answer for a public offense greater than a simple
misdemeanor without the additional presentation of a grand jury
indictment or a trial information. Iowa Const. art. I, § 11 (“[N]o person
shall be held to answer for [a criminal offense for which the maximum
imprisonment exceeds 30 days], unless on presentment or indictment
. . . .”); Iowa Code § 903.1(1)(a) (“For a simple misdemeanor, . . . [t]he
1An arrest can occur with or without a warrant. Iowa Code § 804.7. An arrest
warrant is issued by a magistrate based on a complaint and affidavit filed before the
magistrate that supports probable cause for the arrest. Id. § 804.1. When a police
officer makes an arrest without a warrant, the complaint must be filed with the
magistrate in conjunction with the initial appearance. Id. § 804.22; see Iowa R. Crim.
P. 2.2(1).
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court may order imprisonment not to exceed thirty days . . . .”). Thus, a
criminal prosecution for an indictable offense must include the filing of
an indictment or trial information, and the speedy indictment rule
addresses the time frame during which this constitutional mandate must
take place over the course of the prosecution. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.4(2)
(“Criminal offenses other than simple misdemeanors may be prosecuted
to final judgment either on indictment or on information . . . .”); id.
r. 2.33(2)(a).
Generally, the speedy indictment rule’s time frame is sufficiently
clear to guide the prosecutor in filing a timely indictment and protect the
right of the accused to a speedy indictment, but confusion may occur
concerning the point in time when a police encounter with a member of
the public transforms into an arrest. See Wing, 791 N.W.2d at 248–49.
This uncertainty, in turn, can also hinder the arrest and prosecution
from proceeding hand in hand. See State v. Davis, 525 N.W.2d 837, 838,
840–41 (Iowa 1994) (finding violation of speedy indictment rule in case in
which police officers had completed citation and complaint forms, but
released defendant without filing them with the court to delay
prosecution). The two events become detached when a person
reasonably believes a warrantless arrest has occurred during an
encounter with police, while police assume the encounter ultimately
ended without an arrest and with the release of the person from police
custody without being taken before a magistrate for the initial
appearance. See Delockroy, 559 N.W.2d at 45–46 (finding arrest when
defendant was taken into police custody and transported to station
following a search of the home but was released without charges after a
third party negotiated a deal for himself and defendant). Without the
filing of a complaint and an initial appearance following a warrantless
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arrest, no court procedure exists to provide notice to the county attorney
to file an indictment. If law enforcement officers later pursue the
prosecution against a person under this circumstance, a question arises
whether the speedy indictment rule requires the indictment to be filed
within forty-five days of the time when the person reasonably believes he
was arrested.
This question was the subject of our decision in Wing, 791 N.W.2d
at 244. In that case, the defendant was indicted for possession of
marijuana with intent to deliver approximately five months after a
roadside search by police of a motor vehicle he occupied disclosed a brick
of marijuana in the trunk. Wing, 791 N.W.2d at 244–46. He
acknowledged ownership of the drugs at the scene and was handcuffed
and placed in the backseat of a patrol car. Id. at 245. He was later
released from custody, however, after he expressed an interest in
cooperating with law enforcement in various drug investigations. Id. The
defendant was not taken before a magistrate for an initial appearance.
Instead, the encounter ended after police drove him to his home,
conducted a consent search of the premises, and reached an
understanding with him to discuss further his cooperation in future drug
investigations. Id. Five months later, a criminal complaint for
possession of marijuana with intent to deliver was filed against the
defendant. Id. at 245–46. The prosecutor then filed a trial information
charging the same crime approximately three weeks later. Id. at 246.
We held the speedy indictment rule was violated because a reasonable
person in the defendant’s position would have believed he was arrested
at the roadside encounter, and this arrest triggered the running of the
speedy indictment rule. Id. at 252–53.
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Penn-Kennedy seeks to apply the Wing rule in this case. See id.
He claims he reasonably believed he was arrested for OWI during his
police encounter on January 19, 2012, and the speedy indictment rule
was violated when the indictment for OWI was not timely filed following
the arrest. He claims the Wing rule applies to preclude the prosecution
of all crimes a person reasonably believes can be the basis for the arrest
if that belief is formed before the police inform the person of the specific
crime of arrest and prosecution is commenced on that crime. See id.
The Wing rule is tied to the objectives served by the right to a
speedy indictment. Even though no immediate prosecution followed the
perceived warrantless arrest under the circumstances in Wing, the arrest
nevertheless triggered the anxiety and other pitfalls of a suspended
prosecution sought to be ameliorated by the speedy indictment rule. Id.
at 246–47, 252–53 (recognizing a purpose of the speedy indictment rule
is to relieve the person of the anxiety associated with a suspended
prosecution).
In this case, the objectives of the speedy indictment rule were not
similarly implicated. Penn-Kennedy may have experienced anxiety and
other pitfalls by waiting to be indicted for OWI, but not because the
prosecution was suspended awaiting the indictment. Instead, the pitfalls
faced by Penn-Kennedy were implicated by the power of the prosecutor or
grand jury to bring a separate indictment charging a different criminal
offense any time within the statute-of-limitations period. See State v.
Combs, 316 N.W.2d 880, 882 (Iowa 1982) (indicating the state is not
required to bring all charges in a single prosecution); see also Iowa Code
ch. 802 (establishing limitations on actions ranging from one year to no
limit based on the crime). This consequence was not within the
protections afforded by the speedy indictment rule. It is a consequence
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faced by all persons accused of crimes and is protected by the statute of
limitations applicable to most crimes. Id. § 802.3 (setting limitations for
most felonies and aggravated and serious misdemeanors at three years).
The speedy indictment rule serves to protect against the pitfalls
associated with a suspended prosecution. The rule does not impinge on
the power of the prosecutor to select the crime to be prosecuted. See
Dennison, 571 N.W.2d at 497 (noting it is beneficial to limit the rule to
the crime for which the person was arrested and not require a
prosecution to commence before crucial evidence is available to the
prosecutor on other charges). Thus, the reasonable-person rule used to
determine the time of a warrantless arrest in Wing is narrow and limited
to those cases in which an arrest is not promptly followed by any
prosecution. Wing, 791 N.W.2d at 252–53.
We staked out this approach early in our analysis of the speedy
indictment rule following the 1978 changes to its present language. In
State v. Sunclades, we said that the forty-five-day period to bring an
indictment applies only to the public offense for which the defendant was
arrested and any lesser included offenses. 305 N.W.2d 491, 494 (Iowa
1981). We specifically held that the time period did not apply “to all
offenses arising from the same incident or episode.” Id. Thus, in
Sunclades, the speedy indictment rule applied only to the initial charge
of attempted murder for which the defendant was arrested and not the
later-filed separate charges of going armed with intent and assault while
participating in a felony that arose out of the same incident. Id. at 494–
95; see also State v. Eichorn, 325 N.W.2d 95, 96–97 (Iowa 1982) (holding
a subsequently filed burglary charge was not precluded by the speedy
indictment rule when the forty-five days had run for a robbery charge
arising out of the same incident); Combs, 316 N.W.2d at 882–83 (holding
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a theft charge arising out of the same facts as a tried charge of false use
of a financial instrument was permissible). Moreover, public intoxication
cannot be a lesser included offense of OWI, as the presence of an
intoxicated person in a “privately owned motor vehicle either on the
public street or in the public parking lot” is not considered to be public
for purposes of the offense, and the submission to police authority upon
removal from the vehicle is not voluntary and cannot support the
volitional element of the general-intent crime. State v. Lake, 476 N.W.2d
55, 56–57 (Iowa 1991). Thus, public intoxication and OWI are not
sufficiently related for the arrest for one offense to serve as the speedy
indictment trigger for the other offense.
In this case, unlike Wing, the prosecution following the arrest was
not suspended or delayed by the failure of the State to proceed to an
initial appearance based on a complaint charging a public offense.
Instead, the State pursued a criminal prosecution for public intoxication,
a simple misdemeanor that did not require an indictment, and
Penn-Kennedy was in no different position than all other defendants who
face the possibility of multiple criminal prosecutions arising out of the
same episode. See Dennison, 571 N.W.2d at 493, 497 (charging OWI
after arrest for open container and revoked license); State v. Lies, 566
N.W.2d 507, 509 (Iowa 1997) (per curiam) (charging conspiracy as a
separate offense rather than a lesser included offense of burglary).
Furthermore, the state ultimately selects the charges to be prosecuted,
not the accused.
Finally, the speedy indictment rule does not look behind the
charge identified in the complaint filed in conjunction with an arrest to
make sure it is supported by probable cause. The rule only relies on the
arrest as a triggering mechanism. A separate rule of criminal procedure
13
exists that allows an arrested person to challenge the arrest prior to the
filing of an indictment and to seek a dismissal of the complaint if not
supported by probable cause to believe the crime charged was committed
or the defendant committed it. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.2(4).
IV. Conclusion.
Accordingly, the district court properly denied the motion to
dismiss filed by Penn-Kennedy. We vacate the decision of the court of
appeals and affirm the judgment and sentence of the district court.
DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT
COURT JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.