IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA No. 20–0445 Submitted February 17, 2021—Filed June 4, 2021 STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, vs. MATTHEW ROBERT SEWELL, Appellant. Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dickinson County, David C. Larson, District Associate Judge. A defendant appeals the denial of his motion to suppress, claiming that he had a right to a confidential telephone call with an attorney before deciding whether to take a blood alcohol test. AFFIRMED. Mansfield, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Christensen, C.J., and Waterman, McDonald, Oxley, and McDermott, JJ., joined. Appel, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Robert G. Rehkemper (argued) of Gourley, Rehkemper & Lindholm, P.L.C., West Des Moines, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Louis S. Sloven (argued), Assistant Attorney General, and Amy E. Zenor, County Attorney, for appellee. 2 MANSFIELD, Justice. We are asked to decide today whether Iowa law or the Iowa Constitution guarantee a suspected drunk driver the right to a private phone consultation with counsel before deciding whether to take a blood alcohol test. We conclude that Iowa law does not provide such a right because the statute provides that if a call to counsel is made, “it shall be made in the presence of the person having custody of the one arrested or restrained.” Iowa Code § 804.20 (2019). We conclude that the Iowa Constitution does not provide such a right because the right to counsel under article I, section 10 arises in “criminal prosecutions” and “cases involving the life, or liberty of an individual,” not in procedures that occur before such a prosecution or case is commenced. For these reasons, we hold that the defendant was not entitled to a private phone consultation with counsel and his motion to suppress was properly denied. We affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence. I. Background Facts and Proceedings. On January 15, 2019, at 2:49 a.m., dispatch received a call from a local resident reporting that someone was passed out in a truck in their driveway in Milford. Dickinson County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Grimmus arrived at the resident’s home at about 3:00 a.m. Upon arriving, Deputy Grimmus discovered a silver Ford-150 in the driveway running with its lights on. There was a male in the driver’s seat sleeping. Deputy Grimmus reported, “I knocked on the window several times to get the male[’]s attention. He looked at me once and then closed his eyes. I knocked again on the window and the male looked at me and flipped me off.” The man originally denied he had identification, but eventually produced his driver’s license identifying him as Matthew Sewell. Sewell admitted he had been drinking, and Deputy Grimmus noticed a strong 3 odor of an alcoholic beverage. Sewell did not know what street he was on and looked confused. His eyes were watery and bloodshot and his speech was slurred. Sewell did not perform well on three field sobriety tests and declined the preliminary breath test. Deputy Grimmus arrested …
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