Sufficiency of Evidence

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WI Court of Appeals – District III

Case Name: State of Wisconsin v. Denton Ricardo Ewers

Case No.: 2016AP1671-CR

Officials: Stark, P.J., Hruz and Seidl, JJ.

Focus: Sufficiency of Evidence

Denton Ewers appeals a judgment of conviction for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OWI), as a ninth offense. The issue in this case is whether a citizen informant’s repeated observations of non-driving behaviors that reasonably suggest drunkenness are sufficient to justify an investigatory traffic stop for OWI. The citizen informant, a female employee of the Family Dollar store in Durand, Wisconsin, called the police on two occasions approximately two and one-half hours apart, stating that an individual—later identified as Ewers—had entered the store, appeared “dazed and confused,” and then drove off in a vehicle. During the first call, she also reported that the individual had the “smell of intoxicants coming from his breath.” We conclude that, under these facts, the investigatory stop of the defendant’s vehicle in response to the second call was based on reasonable suspicion of OWI. Accordingly, we affirm.

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