State of Minnesota v. Adam Alan Penhollow

• Court: Court of Appeals of Minnesota
• Decided: July 6, 2026
• Docket: a251320
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A25-1320

State of Minnesota, Respondent,

vs.

Adam Alan Penhollow, Appellant.

Filed July 6, 2026 Affirmed Larkin, Judge

Freeborn County District Court File No. 24-CR-24-1101

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Lydia Villalva Lijo, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

David Walker, Freeborn County Attorney, Albert Lea, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Jessica Merz Godes, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Bratvold,

Judge.

NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

LARKIN, Judge

Appellant challenges his conviction for fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle,

arguing that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress the evidence against him. He also argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdict.

We affirm.

FACTS

Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Adam Alan Penhollow with the

following offenses: (1) fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle, (2) fifth-degree

possession of a controlled substance, (3) possession of an explosive device, (4) unlawful

possession of a suppressor, (5) refusal to submit to a chemical test, (6) possession of

ammunition or a firearm by an ineligible person, and (7) driving after revocation.

The police arrested Penhollow because he failed to stop when the police attempted

to pull him over for driving after revocation of his driving privileges. An inventory search

of the vehicle Penhollow was driving revealed a baggy containing white residue. Police

suspected that Penhollow was driving while impaired and obtained a warrant for a sample

of his blood or urine for chemical testing. Penhollow refused to provide a sample. Police

also obtained a warrant to search a safe that was in the vehicle. Inside, police discovered

a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine and a pipe bomb. Finally, police

obtained a warrant to search Penhollow’s residence and found firearms, ammunition, and

a firearm sound suppressor in the home.

Penhollow moved to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of his seizure and to

dismiss the charges against him. The district court held a hearing on the motion. The

district court found that, on July 5, 2024, officers were on patrol and observed a

confrontation outside of a Walmart store. A male, later identified as Penhollow, walked

2 away from the confrontation, entered a vehicle, and drove away. An officer ran the

vehicle’s license-plate number and learned that the vehicle belonged to Penhollow’s wife.

The officer had previously interacted with Penhollow in a law-enforcement

capacity. Although the officer did not recognize Penhollow when the officer saw him at

Walmart, the officer testified that the male’s appearance was not inconsistent with

Penhollow’s. The officer explained that when he saw Penhollow outside of Walmart,

Penhollow looked “a little rougher” and in “worse condition” than when the officer

previously had contact with him.

Because Penhollow was traveling in the direction of the Penhollow residence and

driving a vehicle belonging to Penhollow’s wife, the officer suspected that Penhollow was

driving the vehicle. The officer confirmed that Penhollow’s driving privileges were

revoked and then initiated a traffic stop. Penhollow did not immediately stop his vehicle

despite the officer’s use of his squad car’s emergency lights and siren.

The district court granted in part and denied in part Penhollow’s suppression motion.

The district court suppressed certain statements that Penhollow made to the police, but the

court denied his motion to suppress the other evidence.

Penhollow pleaded guilty to driving after revocation, and a jury later found him

guilty of the remaining six charges.

Penhollow appeals.

3 DECISION

I.

Penhollow contends that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress

all of the evidence obtained subsequent to and as a result of his traffic stop, arguing that

the stop was unconstitutional.

Evidence seized in violation of the U.S. or Minnesota Constitution must be

suppressed. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12-13 (1968); State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836, 842

(Minn. 2011). The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and article I, section 10,

of the Minnesota Constitution protect “against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless they fall under an

established exception. State v. Othoudt, 482 N.W.2d 218, 221-22 (Minn. 1992); State v.

Hummel, 483 N.W.2d 68, 72 (Minn. 1992). “The State bears the burden of establishing

that the challenged evidence was obtained in accordance with the constitution.” State v.

Edstrom, 916 N.W.2d 512, 517 (Minn. 2018).

Police may temporarily detain an individual based on reasonable, articulable

suspicion that the individual is engaged in criminal activity. Diede, 795 N.W.2d at 842-

43. A reasonable, articulable suspicion exists if the police officer is “able to point to

specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those

facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. The reasonable-suspicion

standard is not high, but the suspicion must be more than a “mere hunch.” State v. Taylor,

965 N.W.2d 747, 752 (Minn. 2021) (quotation omitted). “Ordinarily, if an officer observes

4 a violation of a traffic law, however insignificant, the officer has an objective basis for

stopping the vehicle.” State v. George, 557 N.W.2d 575, 578 (Minn. 1997).

“When reviewing pretrial orders on motions to suppress evidence, we may

independently review the facts and determine, as a matter of law, whether the district court

erred in suppressing—or not suppressing—the evidence.” State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90,

98 (Minn. 1999). We review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal

determinations de novo. State v. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d 145, 149 (Minn. 2009). In reviewing

the district court’s factual findings, we defer to the district court’s credibility

determinations. State v. Jones, 566 N.W.2d 317, 325 (Minn. 1997); State v. Miller, 659

N.W.2d 275, 279 (Minn. App. 2003), rev. denied (Minn. July 15, 2003).

The parties agree that the officer “seized” Penhollow when the officer activated his

squad car’s emergency lights while following Penhollow. Penhollow argues that the

officer did not have reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity at that time.

The stop was based on the following circumstances, as found by the district court.

A police officer observed Penhollow enter a vehicle at the Walmart store and then

determined that the vehicle belonged to Penhollow’s wife. The officer had previously

interacted with Penhollow, but the officer did not recognize him at Walmart because he

looked “rougher” than he had in the past. However, the officer did not notice any physical

inconsistencies that ruled out the possibility that the person he saw at Walmart was

Penhollow. The officer followed the vehicle and it headed towards the Penhollow

residence. The officer therefore suspected that Penhollow was driving the vehicle. Finally,

the officer confirmed that Penhollow’s driving privileges were revoked.

5 In State v. Pike, the supreme court held that an officer may lawfully stop a vehicle

“if the officer knows that the owner of the vehicle has a revoked license, so long as the

officer remains unaware of any facts which would render unreasonable an assumption that

the owner is driving the vehicle.” 551 N.W.2d 919, 920 (Minn. 1996). The district court

relied on Pike for the proposition that an officer may make rational inferences about the

driver of a vehicle, and concluded that, in this case, the officer rationally inferred that

Penhollow was the driver, in part because “spouses often share much of their property.”

“In determining whether the reasonable suspicion standard is met, we consider the

totality of the circumstances,” and we apply a common-sense approach. Taylor, 965

N.W.2d at 752. Officers may draw reasonable inferences from the facts available. Id. at

752-53. Because the officer here knew that the vehicle was registered to Penhollow’s wife,

a male was driving the vehicle, the male’s appearance was not inconsistent with

Penhollow’s, and the vehicle was traveling towards the Penhollow residence, it was not

unreasonable for the officer to infer that Penhollow was driving. Instead, the officer’s

reasoning was consistent with common sense.

Penhollow’s reliance on a nonprecedential opinion of this court, State v. Smith, does

not persuade us otherwise. No. A07-2426, 2008 WL 2967063 (Minn. App. Aug. 5, 2008).

“Nonprecedential opinions . . . are not binding authority . . . but . . . may be cited as

persuasive authority.” Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01(c).

In Smith, we addressed “whether an officer may reasonably conclude that a relative

of the registered owner of a vehicle, who has the same registered address as the registered

owner, is the driver of the vehicle.” 2008 WL 2967063, at *5. The officer in Smith went

6 to a residence to execute a warrant for Rick Smith’s arrest. Id. at *1. The officer “observed

a vehicle being operated near the listed address and ran the license plate number.” Id. The

registered owner was James Smith, “who had the same last name and registered address as

Rick Smith.” Id. Based on what he could see of the driver’s hair, the officer suspected

that the driver was male, and because the vehicle was registered to someone with the same

last name and address and was driven by a male, the officer concluded that the driver of

the vehicle could be Rick Smith and stopped the vehicle. Id. We concluded that the

officer’s observations were constitutionally insufficient to justify the stop, primarily

because the officer “had no indication of the driver’s age range or any other features that

could reasonably identify him” as Rick Smith. Id. at *6.

This case is distinguishable from Smith because the officer here learned that the

vehicle belonged to Penhollow’s wife, the officer had previously interacted with

Penhollow, the officer observed the vehicle’s driver enter the vehicle at Walmart, the

driver’s appearance was not inconsistent with Penhollow’s, and the officer observed the

vehicle travel in the direction of Penhollow’s residence. And as the district court reasoned,

“[i]t is a matter of common sense and common knowledge that spouses often share much

of their property, including vehicles.” The confirmed spousal relationship in this case more

readily supports a suspicion regarding the identity of the driver than the undefined

relationship in Smith. As the state argues, the articulated suspicion in this case “was based

on more than [Penhollow] sharing the same last name and residence” with the vehicle’s

registered owner. For these reasons, our nonprecedential decision in Smith is not

persuasive.

7 In sum, “[t]he factual basis required to support an investigatory stop is minimal.”

Magnuson v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 703 N.W.2d 557, 560 (Minn. App. 2005) (citing State

v. McKinley, 232 N.W.2d 906, 909 (Minn. 1975)). It requires “a showing that the seizure

was not the product of mere whim, caprice, or idle curiosity.” State v. Klamar, 823 N.W.2d

687, 691 (Minn. App. 2012) (quotation omitted). The officer’s articulated basis for the

traffic stop in this case meets that standard. The district court therefore did not err by

concluding that the seizure was lawful and denying Penhollow’s motion to suppress.

II.

Penhollow contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s guilty

verdict on his fleeing charge.

When considering a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we “carefully

examine the record to determine whether the facts and the legitimate inferences drawn from

them would permit the jury to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a

reasonable doubt of the offense of which he was convicted.” State v. Griffin, 887 N.W.2d

257, 263 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). We view the evidence in the light most

favorable to the verdict and assume that the fact-finder disbelieved any evidence contrary

to the verdict. Id. We defer to the jury’s credibility determinations and will not reweigh

the evidence on appeal. State v. Franks, 765 N.W.2d 68, 73 (Minn. 2009); State v. Watkins,

650 N.W.2d 738, 741 (Minn. App. 2002). We will not disturb a guilty verdict if the jury,

acting with due regard for the presumption of innocence and requirement of proof beyond

a reasonable doubt, could reasonably have concluded that the state proved the defendant’s

guilt. Bernhardt v. State, 684 N.W.2d 465, 476-77 (Minn. 2004).

8 But if the state relied on circumstantial evidence to prove an element of an offense,

we apply a heightened standard of review. See State v. Harris, 895 N.W.2d 592, 601-03

(Minn. 2017) (applying circumstantial-evidence standard to individual element of criminal

offense that was proved by circumstantial evidence). Circumstantial evidence is “evidence

from which the [fact-finder] can infer whether the facts in dispute existed or did not exist.”

Id. at 599 (quotation omitted). “A state of mind generally is proved circumstantially, by

inference from words and acts of the actor both before and after the incident.” State v.

Johnson, 616 N.W.2d 720, 726 (Minn. 2000).

Penhollow was charged and convicted of fleeing under Minn. Stat. § 609.487, subd.

3 (2022), which criminalizes fleeing or attempting to flee a peace officer “who is acting in

the lawful discharge of an official duty” if “the perpetrator knows or should reasonably

know the same to be a peace officer.”

The term “flee” is defined by statute as “to increase speed, extinguish motor vehicle

headlights or taillights, refuse to stop the vehicle, or use other means with intent to attempt

to elude a peace officer following a signal given by any peace officer to the driver of a

motor vehicle.” Id., subd. 1 (2022). The term “elude” is not defined by statute. If a

statutory term is not defined in statute, “we give that word or phrase its plain and ordinary

meaning” by applying dictionary definitions of the term. State v. Prigge, 907 N.W.2d 635,

638 (Minn. 2018) (quotation omitted). Dictionaries define “elude” as “to avoid or escape,”

see Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage 47 (3d ed. 2011) (defining

“elude”), or “[t]o evade or escape from,” see The American Heritage Dictionary of the

English Language 581 (5th ed. 2018) (defining “elude”). See State v. Klaysmat, No. A23-

9 1437, 2024 WL 3321008, at *3 (Minn. App. July 8, 2024) (citing those dictionary

definitions when considering whether evidence was sufficient to support a conviction of

fleeing); see also Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01(c) (allowing citation of nonprecedential

opinions as persuasive authority).

Penhollow asserts that the state failed to prove his “specific intent to elude a peace

officer.” Because proof of Penhollow’s state of mind was circumstantial, we apply the

heightened standard of review.

The Minnesota Supreme Court recently reiterated the “long-standing two-step

circumstantial-evidence test.” State v. Firkus, 31 N.W.3d 468, 473 (Minn. 2026). Under

that test, we first “winnow down the evidence presented at trial by resolving all questions

of fact in favor of the jury’s verdict, which results in a subset of facts that constitute the

circumstances proved.” Id. at 478 (quotations omitted). Next, “we consider whether the

reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the circumstances proved, when viewed as a

whole and not as discrete, isolated facts, are consistent with the hypothesis that the accused

is guilty and inconsistent with any rational hypothesis other than guilt.” Id. (quotations

omitted). “During the second step, we do not defer to the factfinder but examine the

reasonableness of the inferences ourselves.” Id. at 483 (quotation omitted).

“If the circumstances proved when viewed as a whole, support a reasonable

inference that is inconsistent with guilt, the evidence is not sufficient to support the

conviction, and we must reverse.” Id. (quotations omitted). But appellate courts “will not

reverse a conviction based on mere conjecture” or “speculation.” Id. (quotation omitted);

State v. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469, 480 (Minn. 2010).

10 The circumstances proved here are as follows:

• An officer saw a man—later identified as Penhollow—enter a vehicle in a Walmart parking lot. • The officer, who was in his squad car in the parking lot, learned that the vehicle was registered to Penhollow’s wife and that Penhollow’s driving privileges were revoked. • Penhollow drove out of the parking lot, followed by the officer. • Penhollow turned onto Hammer Road, a two-lane highway with a 55 mile- per-hour speed limit, and the officer turned on his squad-car lights, in an effort to initiate a traffic stop. • After Penhollow completed the turn, the pursuing officer turned on his squad-car’s siren. • The officer saw that there was a dark, plastic covering where the rear window of the vehicle should have been, and the officer wanted to be absolutely sure that the driver was aware that the officer was behind him. • Penhollow accelerated to 55 miles per hour. • There were areas where Penhollow’s vehicle could have stopped. • Penhollow was waving his arms out the window of his vehicle, but he did not slow down. • The officer did not understand the meaning of Penhollow’s arm waving. • A second officer was driving toward Penhollow and the first officer on Hammer Road. • The second officer activated the emergency lights on his squad car as he approached Penhollow. • After the second officer passed Penhollow and the first officer, the second officer made a U-turn on Hammer Road and joined the first officer’s pursuit of Penhollow with his squad car’s emergency lights activated. • Penhollow’s vehicle turned left. • The first officer addressed Penhollow over the squad car’s PA and told him to “pull it over” a couple times. • Penhollow turned right into a subdivision and stopped. • The officer’s pursuit of Penhollow spanned a distance of approximately 0.66 miles. • The pursuit lasted approximately one minute.

Viewed as a whole, these circumstances show that Penhollow knew officers were

attempting to stop his vehicle, that he increased his speed and refused to stop despite having

11 the ability to do so, and that he intended to elude the officers. Thus, the circumstances

support a reasonable inference of guilt.

Penhollow argues that the circumstances also support a reasonable hypothesis that

is inconsistent with guilt specifically, that Penhollow did not intend to elude the officers

but rather intended to “facilitate” the officers’ “ability to observe and follow him, and to

stop and speak with [the officers] as soon as it was safe to do so.”

A rational hypothesis of innocence cannot be based on mere speculation or

conjecture—it must be supported by evidence in the record. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d at

480; State v. Tscheu, 758 N.W.2d 849, 858 (Minn. 2008). Penhollow’s hypothesis is

inconsistent with the circumstances proved, which show that he had opportunities to pull

over in a safe area but did not do so. Because Penhollow’s hypothesis of innocence is not

supported by the record, it is not reasonable.

In sum, because the circumstances proved, when viewed as a whole, do not support

a reasonable inference that is inconsistent with guilt, we do not disturb the guilty verdict

underlying Penhollow’s fleeing conviction.1

Affirmed.

1 Penhollow also argues that if the police unlawfully seized him, then the state necessarily failed to prove that the officers were “acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty,” which is an element of fleeing. Minn. Stat. § 609.487, subd. 3. Our conclusion that the traffic stop was lawful forecloses this argument.