Drivers accused of serious drunken crashes often keep Iowa licenses

Two crashes reveal an unforeseen lapse in Iowa’s drunken driving laws:

One happened two weeks ago, north of Cedar Rapids, when a deputy sheriff found a car partially in a ditch of a rural highway, its wheels still spinning.

Its driver — who had been convicted of intoxicated driving seven times before — smelled of booze and said he was incapable of shutting off the vehicle. He refused a breath test to determine if he was drunk, and his license was promptly revoked by the Iowa Department of Transportation.

The other crash happened in December at a busy intersection in Cedar Rapids, where police officers found a boy on his back and breathing erratically after being struck by a car.

Its driver — who had been convicted of intoxicated driving seven times before — smelled of booze and had open containers of alcohol in his vehicle. He refused a test of his breath. But he kept his license.

Here's the thing: The person who allegedly drove in each of those incidents is Ralph Carl Sauer, 56, of Cedar Rapids, according to court records.

He was allowed to keep legally driving after the first crash that nearly killed someone but not after the second, which hurt no one. The prompt revocation after the second crash didn't happen because of his prior offense. Rather, it was the result of a different path of investigation.

Those two paths under Iowa law have created a system in which drunken driving suspects in serious crashes often can retain their driver’s licenses until they are convicted, whereas suspects in less series crashes have their licenses taken away immediately.

A drunken 'holocaust'

State lawmakers in Iowa and elsewhere enacted "implied consent" legislation about six decades ago — meaning that those who seek the privilege to drive implicitly agree to submit to testing when they are suspected of driving under the influence of intoxicating substances.

Its purpose was to expeditiously remove dangerous drivers from the state's roadways, "to reduce the holocaust on our highways, part of which is due to the driver who imbibes too freely of intoxicating liquor," Iowa Supreme Court justices wrote in 1967, in a decision that upheld the law.

To that end, lawmakers also have reduced the allowable blood-alcohol concentrations for most drivers to .08 percent. That's about half what was commonly believed to be acceptable before the implied consent laws.

Under Iowa law, drivers suspected of intoxicated driving must submit to a breath, blood or urine test upon request from police or face an automatic one-year suspension of their license. That’s about twice as long as if they were found to be intoxicated by voluntary testing.

Further, drivers who cause very serious injury or the death of someone else can be compelled to provide blood samples without a warrant if they refuse testing.

Implied consent is one path in a drunken driving investigation, and is the most commonly used.

The other is for investigators to seek a search warrant from a judge to collect a specimen for testing. Under current law, this path does not result in an immediate license suspension — even if test results show intoxication — unless the driver is later convicted. However, it is a preferred path for law enforcement officers who seek the best evidence for prosecution.

"We won't get his license right away, but we have a better chance of winning that criminal conviction in court," said Maj. Chad Colston of the Linn County Sheriff's Office.

That's why Colston, who oversees the patrol and criminal divisions of the office, advises his deputies to seek a search warrant for drunken driving suspects who injure or kill someone else.

Those drivers are among the most likely to refuse an implied consent request, he said. And those refusals can be delayed by suspects who waffle about whether to provide a sample or call their lawyers before making a decision. That can, in turn, delay when officers are allowed to force a suspect to provide one.

The search warrant can ensure an expedited sample, Colston said, which might be important to capture a blood-alcohol concentration before it drops below the legal limit to drive. Research has shown that most people metabolize alcohol at about .015 percent per hour or more.

Because those tests sometimes occur hours after crashes, experts can be summoned to testify in criminal trials to estimate a drunken driver's blood-alcohol concentration at the time of the crash. Still, it's better for prosecutors to have a test result that is higher than the .08 percent limit, Colston said.

"One thing that juries believe is the numbers that come from the hospital, the numbers that come from the lab," he said. "If you start talking about some people have a faster metabolism, some people have a slower metabolism — it gives the defense attorney ammunition to try to raise that reasonable doubt."

Easier search warrants

The search warrant path has been made even faster in recent years by lawmakers, who in 2017 approved the electronic transmission of search warrant requests and approvals. Previously, officers were required to take paper requests to judges for approval, which can be a tougher task in the middle of the night or in rural counties.

The Iowa Judicial Branch launched a pilot program in 2020 in four rural counties to test the procedure and expanded it statewide in 2022.

The state has not tracked whether the existence of electronic search warrants has changed how law enforcement officers investigate intoxicated drivers, said Steve Davis, a spokesperson for the judicial branch.

But there is anecdotal evidence that some officers prefer the warrant path over implied consent when they believe a suspect will refuse to provide a sample.

In February 2022, a deputy sheriff in Boone County saw a vehicle speeding and swaying on a roadway and initiated a traffic stop, according to court records.

The driver admitted to having a "couple beers" and had an open container of beer in the vehicle. He refused to participate in field sobriety testing — the tasks that drivers are asked to perform to check their eyes, balance and cognition.

Rather than using the implied consent path, the deputy chose to seek an electronic warrant because it was the "simplest, most straightforward option in this case," the deputy testified when the driver later challenged the evidence obtained with the warrant. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the use of the warrant in a 2024 decision.

Colston, of the Linn County Sheriff's Office, said his deputies most often use search warrants when there is a crash that injures or kills people, or when they encounter someone they know has been convicted of multiple operating-while-intoxicated offenses. Those drivers are more likely to know the tactics to delay testing and potentially make their prosecutions more difficult.

The Cedar Rapids Police Department operates in a similar manner, according to a spokesperson.

Colston estimates that more than 80 percent of the agency’s intoxicated driving investigations use the implied consent path, rather than search warrants.

Licenses kept

Sauer, the man in two recent crashes, didn't have a valid license for nearly all of the past three decades after a spate of OWI convictions between 1987 and 2007, according to Iowa Department of Transportation and court records.

Repeat offenders can have their licenses revoked for up to six years, and some don’t regain legal driving status for longer until they meet certain requirements.

Sauer's driver's license was reinstated about a year before he allegedly struck a 17-year-old boy who was crossing a Cedar Rapids street.

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It happened about 4 p.m. Dec. 20 at the intersection of Wilson Avenue SW and Wiley Boulevard SW in the presence of numerous witnesses and a video surveillance camera operated by police.

Sauer made a left turn and struck the boy in a crosswalk, authorities said.

Police officers who arrived shortly thereafter found the boy unconscious on the ground, court records show. A hospital evaluation later determined his brain was bleeding, "and that caused a substantial risk of death if not treated."

The boy survived, but it's unclear how the injury has affected him. His family declined to comment for this article.

About two months later, Cedar Rapids police charged Sauer with OWI and serious injury by motor vehicle, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. A blood test revealed his blood-alcohol concentration near the time of the incident was .086 percent, slightly more than what is allowed to drive by Iowa law.

But because that blood sample was obtained with a search warrant, Sauer retained his driver's license.

About a month after Sauer was charged in the December crash, a Linn County deputy sheriff issued him a ticket for driving 30 mph over the speed limit on Interstate 380 and released him. There was nothing more for the deputy to do.

"His driver's license is valid," Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner told The Gazette last month in an email.

Days after that email, another deputy sheriff was dispatched to a crash on a rural highway about 15 miles north of Cedar Rapids. The deputy found a blue 2002 Buick LeSabre — the same one that allegedly struck the boy, court records show — in a ditch, its wheels spinning.

Sauer was inside, according to a criminal complaint. He said he was unable to turn off the car and stumbled on his feet and slurred his words. He admitted to having "a few" alcoholic beverages.

Sauer refused an implied consent breath test to determine whether he was intoxicated, and the state revoked his license effective May 1, according to Iowa DOT records. Drivers have 10 days to contest the revocations before they take effect.

Sauer did not respond to requests to comment for this article. A trial for charges related to the December crash is set for July.

Other suspected intoxicated drivers have retained their licenses — and in one case, had a license reinstated — after recent crashes that injured or killed people, according to a Gazette analysis.

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In August 2024, Spenser Michael Kann, 31, of Cedar Rapids, attempted to make a left turn at an intersection on the city's southwest side and struck a motorcycle, according to court records. The collision severed the motorcyclist's leg, and he later died.

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In September, Kann was charged with vehicular homicide after blood test results — from a search warrant — showed his blood-alcohol concentration was .189 percent. The tests also detected the active intoxicant of marijuana.

Yet Kann kept his driver's license for six months until it was suspended for "failure to appear and pass required exams," according to Iowa DOT records. The department declined to elaborate due to "restricted medical information."

His trial is set for October.

In December 2024, Katie Marie Austin Karkow, 32, of Cedar Rapids, drove south in the northbound lanes of Highway 13 near Marion and crashed into an oncoming vehicle, court records show.

A passenger in the other vehicle was thrown from it and, moments later, was struck by a semi-trailer truck that dragged his body nearly 300 feet. He died.

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Investigators obtained a sample of her urine with a search warrant because she suffered severe injuries and was unconscious at a hospital. In April, Austin Karkow was charged with vehicular homicide after tests showed her blood-alcohol concentration was .142 percent. The sample was taken nearly five hours after the crash.

Her license still is valid, according to Iowa DOT records. Her trial has not yet been scheduled.

In March, Christopher Charles Higgins, 34, of Dubuque, struck two open doors of a parked car and one person in downtown Dubuque, court records show. The person suffered a broken knee cap.

Higgins' vehicle was discovered more than 2 miles away, parked with Higgins asleep in the driver's seat. He declined all tests of his intoxication, and a police officer obtained a sample of his blood with a search warrant.

He was immediately arrested for felony serious injury by vehicle and operating while intoxicated. Court records do not indicate the results of the blood test.

Higgins did not have a valid license at the time of the incident — due, in part, to a drunken driving conviction a decade ago — but was issued one two weeks after the crash because he "satisfied all compliance requirements, passed all required tests, paid applicable fees," according to the Iowa DOT.

A law change?

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State Rep. Steve Holt, a Denison Republican who leads the House Judiciary Committee, was flabbergasted when contacted by a Gazette reporter over the differing treatment of drunken driving suspects.

"How has this gone on for this many years, and nobody has brought this up as an issue?" he asked. "That sounds like something we definitely need to take action on."

Rep. Eric Gjerde, a Cedar Rapids Democrat and police officer, said he also was unaware of the license suspension disparities and said he would consider supporting a change in law or agency procedure that would impose the suspensions when blood tests reveal someone was driving drunk.

“It’s certainly something that we need to have a conversation with the Department of Transportation about,” he said, clarifying that he was speaking as a legislator and not for the Cedar Rapids Police Department.

It's unclear how such potential legislation might take shape. The current legislative session is nearing its end, and it's unlikely lawmakers will address the situation immediately.

Matthew Lindholm, a West Des Moines lawyer who represents those accused of intoxicated driving and has argued cases before the Iowa Supreme Court, predicted any law change to enable the state to suspended licenses based on the test results from search warrants would be found unconstitutional.

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"If an officer chooses to go the search warrant route, then they are removing from the motorist the protections of the implied consent statutes," he said. "And in doing so, they are also removing the ability to immediately suspend somebody's driver's license."

Lindholm has argued in court that the ability to drive is so ingrained in modern society that it has become a fundamental right that should be protected by the state constitution.

But the Iowa Supreme Court has frequently deferred to state law and has not conferred the same constitutional protections to license suspensions that apply to criminal prosecutions.

For example, the court disagreed with Lindholm in 2019 when it ruled that evidence obtained in an improper traffic stop — that could not be used to prosecute a suspected intoxicated driver in court — still could be used to revoke his license.

State law also has a provision to revoke someone's license if they are charged with vehicular homicide before they are convicted. Lindholm said the provision has been successfully challenged in district court but that the Iowa Supreme Court has not weighed its legality.

Frank Harris, who lobbies on behalf of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, declined to say specifically how the issue should be addressed but said his organization generally supports license suspensions for those who injure or kill, even if those suspensions are not completely effective at preventing further drunken driving.

"The driver's license in itself, it's just a piece of paper," Harris said. "Revoking someone's license is not necessarily going to stop them from driving."

Local law enforcement agencies declined to say whether state law should be modified.

"I'm not the one who makes the laws," said Colston, of the Linn County Sheriff's Office. "I'm the one who enforces them."

Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com