Iowa declines to reject Mimms or Wilson under the state constitution on ordering occupants out of the car. State v. Willer, 2026 Iowa App. LEXIS 46 (Jan. 7, 2026):
On the merits, Willer asks us to join a handful of states that have rejected Mimms or the Wilson extension of Mimms under their state constitutions. See State v. Kim, 711 P.2d 1291, 1294 (Haw. 1985); Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 711 N.E.2d 108, 110?11 (Mass. 1999); State v. Bacome, 154 A.3d 1253, 1258-60 (N.J. 2017); and State v. Sprague, 824 A.2d 539, 544-45 (Vt. 2003). Willer shares the concern expressed by those courts that allowing exit orders for passengers without reasonable suspicion “invites arbitrary, if not discriminatory, enforcement.” See Sprague, 824 A.2d at 546. Thus, Willer contends “Under article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution, a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot or that a passenger is armed and dangerous should be required before an officer can order a passenger out of a vehicle.” And Willer maintains, as Gonsalves found, “[t]he safety of the police can be adequately protected” by requiring a reasonable basis to justify an exit order. 711 N.E.2d at 112. Pressing that point, Willer questions “the dominant narrative regarding the dangerousness of traffic stops,” citing Jordan Blair Woods, Policing, Danger Narratives, and Routine Traffic Stops, 117 Mich. L. Rev. 635, 640?41 (Feb. 2019) (presenting statistics from a 2005-2014 Florida study that showed the vast majority of routine traffic stops did not result in any violence against law enforcement).
Pushing back, the State argues that the clarity of Wilson’s bright-line rule is preferable to Willer’s proposed standard under the state constitution. The State also stresses the “legitimate and weighty” concern for police safety during traffic stops, see Mimms, 434 U.S. at 110, balanced against the “minor” imposition on the passenger’s liberty by being ordered out of the stopped vehicle. See Wilson, 519 U.S. at 413-14. The State extols the “clear, workable rule” in Wilson and contends that Willer “offers no good reason” for our state courts to adopt a different test under the Iowa Constitution.
We agree with the State’s position. As our supreme court recently reiterated, “Traffic stops remain highly dangerous today.” See State v. Woods, 23 N.W.3d 258, 270 (Iowa 2025) (quoting Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73, 85 (2025) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring)). Even assuming that Professor Woods is correct that more research is needed to “evaluate dangerousness in everyday police work, including routine traffic stops,” 117 Mich. L. Rev. at 710, those future studies cannot inform our instant judgment about the protections afforded by the Iowa Constitution.
We understand that an exit order intrudes on the liberty interests of passengers like Willer. See Wilson, 519 U.S. at 419 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“[T]he potential daily burden on thousands of innocent citizens is obvious.”). But as the Wilson majority reasoned, “the passengers are already stopped.” Id. at 414. …
