Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-1833 Filed November 4, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Jason Maurice Gast, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Gregory D. Brandt, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Robert G. Rehkemper of Gourley, Rehkemper, & Lindholm, P.L.C., West Des Moines, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Tessa Register, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Ahlers, P.J., Badding, J., and Telleen, S.J. Opinion by Badding, J. 1 BADDING, Judge. Jason Gast appeals his conviction for third-offense operating while intoxicated, challenging the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. In support of his motion, Gast claimed his rights under Iowa Code section 804.20 (2025) were violated in two ways. First, when a state trooper denied Gast’s request to call an attorney before deciding whether to submit to a preliminary breath test at a patrol post. And second, when the trooper refused to let Gast continue trying to reach counsel after his formal arrest. The district court rejected these claims and found that section 804.20 was not violated. We agree and affirm the court’s ruling. I. Background Facts and Proceedings Just after 10:00 p.m. on a cold winter night in February 2025, Jason Gast sped past Iowa State Trooper Matthew Butcher on I-235. He was driving eighty-four miles per hour in a sixty-mile-per-hour zone and swerving in his lane. The trooper pulled Gast over and asked him to sit in the front seat of his cruiser while he gathered Gast’s information. Trooper Butcher told Gast that he could smell a “very strong” odor of alcohol and asked him how much he had to drink. Gast answered, “Enough.” Suspecting that Gast was intoxicated, the trooper read Gast his Miranda rights and told him that he was being detained. Because of the winter weather, Trooper Butcher took Gast to a state patrol post for field sobriety testing. On the way there, the trooper let Gast have his cell phone and told him that it was okay to make calls. Once they arrived at the patrol post, Trooper Butcher led Gast through a secure entrance and directed him to the “OWI room” with a DataMaster and camera system. Gast sat in a chair, looking through his phone for insurance information until the trooper asked him to start performing field 2 sobriety tests. Trooper Butcher conducted one test in the room and a second on a painted line in the hallway. He noticed clues of impairment during both. Back in the room, Trooper Butcher asked Gast to submit to a preliminary breath test. Gast responded, “Can I call my attorney?” The trooper said no, telling Gast: “We’ll get to that, this is before all that.” Gast questioned, “Am I not allowed to call my attorney first?” Trooper Butcher answered, “Not before this. The phone calls come later with the DataMaster, this is just a PBT.” When Gast continued asking to call his attorney, the trooper determined he was refusing the test and arrested him for operating while intoxicated. Trooper Butcher later testified that he was going to arrest Gast “regardless of the PBT.” After placing Gast under arrest, Trooper Butcher gave him a copy of the implied consent advisory, see Iowa Code § 321J.8, and quickly read it to him. He then handed Gast a copy of Iowa Code section 804.20—which explained his right to contact an attorney or family member—and read the statute to him. With those tasks completed, the trooper told Gast that he could contact his attorney. Gast spent the next eight minutes trying to do so. He called the same law firm seven times but got the firm’s voicemail each time. In between these calls, Gast talked to a friend, telling her that he was going to be taken to the Polk County Jail. After Gast put his phone in his pocket, Trooper Butcher told him, “Just let me know when you’re done making phone calls.” Gast said that he was done, and the trooper asked him whether he would consent to the DataMaster breath test. Gast consented to the test, but as Trooper Butcher prepared the machine, Gast changed his mind. He told the trooper, “I’m going to be honest, I’d rather talk to my attorney before I do this.” Trooper Butcher replied, “That’s what I just gave you the phone calls for. We’re past 3 that now, you just consented to my testing.” After some more back and forth, Trooper Butcher told Gast, “You’re done with your phone calls,” and took his phone away. He then marked Gast as refusing the test. Gast was charged with operating while intoxicated, third offense. He pled not guilty and moved to suppress both test refusals—the preliminary breath test and the chemical test—claiming that Trooper Butcher violated his rights under Iowa Code section 804.20. After a hearing, the district court denied Gast’s motion. With the State’s consent, Gast then entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to challenge the denial of his motion to suppress. See Iowa Code § 814.6(3). Gast now appeals. We find appellate adjudication of his claim is in the interest of justice and therefore proceed to the merits. See State v. McClain, 20 N.W.3d 488, 495 (Iowa 2025). II. Standard of Review “We review the district court’s interpretation of Iowa Code section 804.20 for errors at law.” State v. Clark, 21 N.W.3d 429, 435 (Iowa 2025) (citation omitted). “If the district court properly applied the law and there is substantial evidence to support its findings of fact, we will uphold its ruling on a motion to suppress.” Id. (citation omitted). III. Analysis Iowa Code section 804.20 states in relevant part: Any peace officer or other person having custody of any person arrested or restrained of the person’s liberty for any reason whatever, shall permit that person, without unnecessary delay after arrival at the place of detention, to call, consult, and see a member of the person’s family or an attorney of the person’s choice, or both. Such person shall be permitted to make a reasonable number of telephone calls as may be required to secure an attorney. 4 This statute “creates a limited right that requires a law enforcement officer to afford a suspect a reasonable opportunity to contact an attorney or family member when requested.” Clark, 21 N.W.3d at 435. “The plain language of the statute requires only that the officer ʻpermit’ a detainee to make a call ʻwithout unnecessary delay’ upon arriving at the place of detention.” State v. Lindaman, 30 N.W.3d 547, 564 (Iowa 2025). “We apply section 804.20 pragmatically, balancing the rights of the arrestee and the goals of the chemical-testing statutes.” Clark, 21 N.W.3d at 435 (cleaned up). A. Preliminary Breath Test Gast first claims the trooper violated section 804.20 by denying his request to call an attorney before deciding whether to submit to a preliminary breath test. The district court rejected this claim, concluding that Gast “was not placed under arrest until after the field sobriety testing was complete. That is when [his] 804.20 rights ripened.” Cf. State v. Krebs, 562 N.W.2d 423, 426 (Iowa 1997) (recognizing the statute “may be implicated in a situation short of a formal arrest”). We agree with the court’s conclusion that section 804.20 was not violated but for a different reason. See State v. Gaskins, 866 N.W.2d 1, 44–45 (Iowa 2015) (Waterman, J., dissenting) (stating we may affirm a suppression ruling on the admissibility of evidence on any ground appearing in the record whether urged by the parties or not). Gast’s argument presumes that once he asked to call an attorney, the trooper was required to immediately honor that request. But the statute does not go that far. See State v. Smith, No. 16-0749, 2017 WL 510957, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2017) (“[I]t is unrealistic to expect law enforcement to hand an accused a phone the minute he or she steps foot into the detention center.”). Instead, it “requires that a suspect who has invoked the right be afforded the opportunity to contact an attorney or family member ʻwithout 5 unnecessary delay after arrival at the place of detention.’”1 Clark, 21 N.W.3d at 436 (quoting Iowa Code § 804.20). Gast first asked to call an attorney at 10:35 p.m. After completing some administrative tasks, including reading the implied consent advisory and section 804.20 to Gast, the trooper allowed Gast to start making phone calls at 10:44 p.m.—a delay of nine minutes. In Clark, our supreme court found a delay of eleven minutes and thirty-four seconds was not unnecessary, reasoning: “Section 804.20 is to be applied pragmatically, and there are necessary security and administrative procedures that must be performed before a suspect is given a reasonable chance to contact an attorney or family member.” Id. The tasks performed by the trooper during the nine-minute delay in this case were “administrative processes that are typical” of an operating-while-intoxicated arrest and did not cause an unnecessary delay. Id.; see also State v. Caldwell, No. 19-0894, 2021 WL 592747, at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 21, 2021) (finding a delay of five to six minutes during which the officer was performing “appropriate police activities” was not unnecessary); see also Smith, 2017 WL 510957, at *2 (holding that the “eleven minutes between the time Smith arrived at the police station and the time he was allowed to make phone calls did not constitute unnecessary delay”); State v. Perry, No. 11-1051, 2012 WL 1864568, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. May 23, 2012) (holding that there was no unnecessary delay when the defendant was “given 1 It is undisputed that Gast adequately invoked section 804.20. And we assume without deciding that Gast was restrained of his liberty and at the place of detention when he made his request. See Clark, 21 N.W.3d at 435 n.4 (noting the defendant was restrained of her liberty when she requested an attorney before a preliminary breath test because she committed multiple traffic violations, smelled of alcohol, failed one field sobriety test, and could not complete two others); State v. Caldwell, No. 19-0894, 2021 WL 592747, at *5 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 21, 2021) (rejecting the State’s argument that “the inside of a jail is not a place of detention simply because” field sobriety tests are being performed there). 6 the opportunity to contact an attorney approximately seven minutes after arriving in the booking room”). Once the tasks were completed, the trooper allowed Gast to make calls before asking him to submit to chemical testing. See State v. Colocho, No. 18-1643, 2019 WL 5791011, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 6, 2019) (finding defendant’s rights under section 804.20 were not violated when he was denied a phone call during field sobriety testing but later allowed to make calls before chemical testing). Gast accordingly received the “limited statutory right” afforded to him under the statute. See State v. Davis, 922 N.W.2d 326, 334 (Iowa 2019). B. Chemical Test Gast next claims that Trooper Butcher’s refusal to let him make more calls after he said that he was done and consented to the chemical test violated section 804.20. He argues that because there was still time left in the two-hour testing window, the trooper should have given him another chance to reach an attorney. See Iowa Code § 321J.6(2) (imposing a two-hour time limit on chemical testing). The district court disagreed, finding that the “requirements under Iowa Code section 804.20 were satisfied since Mr. Gast was allowed to make calls” and that just “[b]ecause Trooper Butcher could have agreed and allowed Mr. Gast to make more calls, does not mean that the statute was violated.” We agree. “Section 804.20 does not provide an absolute right to counsel, but requires a peace officer to provide the arrestee with a reasonable opportunity to contact an attorney.” Clark, 21 N.W.3d at 437 (citation omitted). “If the lawyer is not physically present and cannot be reached promptly by telephone or otherwise, the defendant may be required to elect between taking the test and submitting to revocation of his license, without the aid of counsel.” Moore 7 v. Iowa Dep’t of Transp., 473 N.W.2d 230, 232 (Iowa Ct. App. 1991) (citation omitted). That is exactly what happened here. We have considered Haun v. Crystal, 462 N.W.2d 304, 306 (Iowa Ct. App. 1990) and Short v. Iowa Department of Transportation, 447 N.W.2d 576, 579 (Iowa Ct. App. 1989), which Gast cites in support of his argument that he was not afforded a reasonable opportunity to contact an attorney. Those cases are distinguishable. As we reasoned in State v. Shaffer, the outcomes in Haun and Short “turned on the fact that the arrestees contacted attorneys with the knowledge of the officers and were awaiting further contact with them when the officers administered the chemical test.” 774 N.W.2d 854, 857 (Iowa Ct. App. 2009). But here, Gast could not reach an attorney after several attempts. Thus, “Haun and Short do not dictate a different result.” Id. Because Gast did not experience an unreasonable delay after asking to contact an attorney, and because he was given a reasonable opportunity to do so, we affirm the district court’s ruling denying Gast’s motion to suppress. AFFIRMED. 8