The Iowa Court of Appeals has reversed the deferred judgement opinion of the Pottawattamie County District Court in the case of a woman who was convicted on drug and child endangerment charges following a traffic stop on Interstate 80. The traffic stop took over an hour. Erika Lopez-Cardenas had appealed her case based on the length of time an Iowa State Patrol Trooper took to question her and the driver of the vehicle. The Trooper pulled the vehicle with California license plates over, for having dark tinted windows and because it appeared to be heavily weighed down in the rear.

The driver of the van and Lopez-Cardenas were questioned at length about where they were going, why they had stopped and what the relationship was between the two adults and a child in the vehicle (The child was Lopez-Cardenas’ niece. They were returning from vacation so the girl could begin school.) A K9 requested by the Trooper arrived 49-minutes after the traffic stop. The dog alerted on the van, but no narcotics were found. The vehicle was weighed down by several containers of fertilizer and the occupants’ personal property. No drugs were initially found in the vehicle, but a later search located three socks containing marijuana seeds.

Lopez-Cardenas contends the district court should have suppressed the marijuana evidence on the ground that the trooper unduly prolonged the stop absent reasonable suspicion, and her trial attorney was ineffective in two respects relating to the child-endangerment charge.

The appeals court concluded the trooper unconstitutionally prolonged the stop of the vehicle, absent reasonable suspicion, and the evidence gained as a result of the unconstitutional detention should have been suppressed.  Because suppression of the evidence affects the findings of guilt on both charges, the Court reversed the findings of guilt on both charges and remanded the case for a new trial.  The Court said in light of its remand for a new trial, they didn’t need to address the remaining issues.