State v. Derek A. Lamb

Court of Appeals of Wisconsin·Decided July 31, 2026·No. 2025AP000824-CR·Unpublished

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS DECISION NOTICE DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. July 31, 2026 A party may file with the Supreme Court a Samuel A. Christensen petition to review an adverse decision by the Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10 and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2025AP824-CR Cir. Ct. No. 2022CF396

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT IV

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

DEREK A. LAMB,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Portage County: MICHAEL D. ZELL, Judge. Reversed and cause remanded with directions.

Before Blanchard, Nashold, and Taylor, JJ.

¶1 NASHOLD, J. Derek Lamb appeals a judgment of conviction for possession of methamphetamine as a repeat offender. He challenges a circuit court order denying his motion to suppress evidence seized as the result of an investigatory stop of his vehicle, arguing that the stop violated his constitutional No. 2025AP824-CR

rights because it was conducted without reasonable suspicion. We agree with Lamb that the State failed to show, under the totality of the circumstances known to law enforcement, that the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion that Lamb had committed, was committing, or would commit a crime. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Lamb was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia, both as a repeat offender. He filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained following an investigatory stop of his vehicle, arguing that he was seized in violation of his federal and state constitutional rights because law enforcement lacked reasonable suspicion to make the stop.1

¶3 At the suppression hearing, a Portage County deputy sheriff was the sole witness. The State played video footage from the deputy’s squad car camera, and the video footage was admitted into evidence. The deputy’s testimony and video footage showed the following.

¶4 While on patrol in the Town of Grant at around 3:00 a.m., the deputy saw a blue vehicle that was traveling east on Highway 73 turn to the north, and

1 Lamb also moved to suppress statements that he made to law enforcement after his vehicle was stopped but before he was given Miranda warnings. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). At the suppression hearing, the parties agreed that the sole issue was whether the initial stop was predicated on reasonable suspicion. The State stipulated that, regardless of the outcome of the hearing, Lamb’s statements before he was given Miranda warnings must be suppressed.

2 No. 2025AP824-CR

then make a turn to the west (the direction in which it had just been traveling), onto Oak Street. The deputy began following the vehicle.

¶5 Although the deputy testified that he did not consider the driver’s conduct in first traveling east and then traveling west to be “normal driving behavior,” he did not follow the blue vehicle “because of anything suspicious.” The deputy ran a license plate check of the vehicle but did not stop the vehicle. After losing sight of the vehicle, the deputy turned onto Oak Street and observed headlights at the end of 110th Street, which is a narrow, unpaved, dead-end road with no artificial light.2 The deputy had no knowledge of any previous crimes occurring on 110th Street.

¶6 The deputy traveled southbound on 110th Street toward the headlights, without activating the squad car’s emergency lights or siren, “to investigate why a vehicle would be parked … at the dead-end road in a rural area at that time of day.” He observed the same blue vehicle that he had just been following. It was on the shoulder of 110th Street, parked directly behind another vehicle, which was later determined to be Lamb’s. Both vehicles were facing the deputy as he approached them and both “appeared to be occupied.” The deputy shined the squad car’s spotlight into the first of the two vehicles (Lamb’s vehicle, not the blue vehicle) to “confirm that it was occupied,” and saw a man, later identified as Lamb, in the driver’s seat. The deputy had not seen anyone exit the blue vehicle.

2 The video footage shows that, in the relevant area, 110th Street appears to consist primarily of grass with tire tracks on it.

3 No. 2025AP824-CR

¶7 When the deputy shined the spotlight into Lamb’s vehicle, Lamb drove forward in the direction of the deputy’s squad car, possibly veering slightly more onto the shoulder away from the deputy’s squad car, which took up most, if not all, of the narrow road. The video shows that, approximately two seconds after Lamb’s vehicle began to move forward, the deputy moved his squad car in front of Lamb’s vehicle and activated his emergency lights, at which point Lamb briefly drove in reverse, stopped, and exited the vehicle. This stop eventually led to law enforcement seizing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

¶8 At the close of evidence at the suppression hearing, the circuit court judge said that he had lived in the Town of Grant. The court took judicial notice that the town is a sparsely populated area and that 110th Street is a fairly long, dead-end, unpaved “farm access road in the middle of nowhere,” with “no houses, businesses, [or] anything else around.” The court deemed the blue vehicle’s traveling onto this dead-end road at around 3:00 a.m. “slightly suspicious.”

¶9 In addition, the circuit court found the following. The deputy followed the blue vehicle onto 110th Street out of “simple curiosity to see if there was something he should check out further.” As the deputy drove down the dead- end road in the “very remote wooded area, he observed these two vehicles parked [one] behind [the] []other and he believed that was suspicious at 3:00 in the morning for two vehicles to be in this area.” The deputy shined the spotlight and observed a man in the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles.3 The driver (Lamb)

3 The circuit court said that it “believe[d]” that the man in the driver’s seat was observed in the “rear” (or second) vehicle, but it is clear from the video footage—and the parties agree— that the man (Lamb) was in the first of the two parked vehicles. The video footage also shows a woman later exit the rear vehicle.

4 No. 2025AP824-CR

then started the car and tried to get around the squad car “to avoid any contact with [the deputy].” The deputy’s vehicle blocked Lamb’s vehicle and the deputy activated the squad car’s emergency lights. The court concluded, consistent with the parties’ positions, that this was the point at which a seizure occurred for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.

¶10 The circuit court further determined that the deputy had reasonable suspicion for the stop. The court ruled that, although the deputy did not testify “specifically what he was suspicious about,” there was “still a reasonable suspicion based on the time of day and the remote location in addition to the attempt by the driver to avoid having any contact with [the deputy].” Accordingly, the court denied Lamb’s suppression motion.

¶11 Pursuant to a plea agreement, Lamb pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine as a repeat offender, and the possession of drug paraphernalia charge was dismissed and read in for sentencing purposes. Lamb appeals.4

DISCUSSION

¶12 Lamb argues that he was seized in violation of his federal and state constitutional rights. Both the United States and the Wisconsin Constitutions protect against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV; WIS. CONST. art. I, § 11.

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