State v. Jacobe Michael Gimmel

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.
January 29, 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 Nos.
2025AP1037 Cir. Ct. No. 2025TR572
2025CT43
2025AP1537-CR
STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV

NO. 2025AP1037

IN THE MATTER OF THE REFUSAL OF JACOBE MICHAEL GIMMEL:

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

JACOBE MICHAEL GIMMEL,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

NO. 2025AP1537-CR

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

JACOBE MICHAEL GIMMEL,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.
Nos. 2025AP1037
2025AP1537-CR

APPEALS from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for
Jefferson County: ROBERT F. DEHRING, JR., Judge. Affirmed.

¶1 NASHOLD, J.1 In these consolidated appeals, Jacobe Gimmel
appeals his conviction for operating while intoxicated (“OWI”) as a second
offense, as well as the revocation of his driver’s license for refusing a chemical
test. In each case, the sole issue presented is whether the police officer who
stopped Gimmel’s truck had reasonable suspicion to do so. Because I conclude
that there was reasonable suspicion that Gimmel had violated a local noise
ordinance, I affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Both of these cases resulted from a traffic stop in Watertown, and
the testimony on which both cases turn was given at a single hearing. The lone
witness was the Watertown police officer who stopped Gimmel. He testified as
follows.

¶3 On a January evening, the officer was in his squad vehicle when he
saw a pickup truck, later determined to be driven by Gimmel, stopped at a stop
sign at a four-way intersection. The officer then saw the pickup “accelerate
rapidly, squealing the back tires and then proceed through the intersection.” The
truck’s front end “lifted higher” during this acceleration, then leveled off at the
same time the officer turned on the squad’s headlights. The officer testified that in

1
This appeal is decided by one judge pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 752.31(2)(c) (2023-24).
All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2023-24 version.

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his experience, when vehicles rapidly accelerate from a stopped position, the front
end will often rise relative to the rest of the vehicle. The truck did not fishtail or
lose traction, and there was no smoke from the tires nor marks left on the road.
Although the truck’s initial acceleration was rapid, the officer testified that it
ceased this acceleration, and the associated squealing, before it fully entered the
intersection, and passed through the intersection at approximately the same speed
as other traffic.

¶4 The officer was familiar with a Watertown ordinance, which he
described as saying “something in the nature of that no person may accelerate their
vehicle [in] any way to squeal their tires.” The officer further recalled the
ordinance to prohibit sounds that would cause a disturbance to an ordinary person.
The officer answered “yes” when asked if the truck he saw had made “an audible
squeal.” The officer was unable to characterize the duration of the noise, although
he testified that he thought it was loud enough to disturb a reasonable person of
normal sensibilities. He testified that he had stopped and cited motorists “for less
than” the noise the truck emitted. The officer also testified that he had no reason
to think that the maneuver that caused the squeal was made to protect against harm
to a person or property.

¶5 The officer pulled Gimmel’s truck over and, eventually, arrested
Gimmel for operating while intoxicated. The officer requested that Gimmel
consent to a chemical test, and Gimmel refused to consent. Gimmel was charged
with OWI as a second offense, as well as with refusing a chemical test.

¶6 The officer’s squad camera captured video of the truck passing
through the intersection, but the audio recording function was not turned on. The
video was introduced at the hearing.

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2025AP1537-CR

¶7 The circuit court concluded that the officer had reasonable suspicion
to stop Gimmel’s vehicle, based on the officer’s testimony that he believed
Gimmel had violated the Watertown noise ordinance by squealing his tires.

¶8 The above-described hearing was scheduled solely to determine
whether Gimmel was guilty of the refusal. However, after the circuit court’s
ruling, Gimmel noted that he intended to seek suppression in the pending criminal
case as well, based on the same grounds upon which he had challenged the refusal:
lack of reasonable suspicion for the stop. Because the court had just decided this
question, the court and parties agreed that Gimmel could orally move for
suppression in the criminal case, and that this motion would be denied as well.
Gimmel later pleaded guilty to the OWI and was sentenced. He challenged the
court’s ruling on reasonable suspicion in each case. This court consolidated the
cases for disposition.2

DISCUSSION

¶9 As noted above, both of these cases turn on a single question:
whether there was reasonable suspicion to stop Gimmel’s truck. This matters to
the criminal case because if no reasonable suspicion existed, the stop would be
unlawful and any evidence derived from the stop would be suppressed. See State
v. Amos, 220 Wis. 2d 793, 798, 584 N.W.2d 170 (Ct. App. 1998). Whether there
was reasonable suspicion for the stop is also an issue in the refusal case because
one of the matters to be decided in such a case is “whether the person was lawfully
placed under arrest,” WIS. STAT. § 343.305(9)(a)5.a., and an arrest may be

2
These cases were consolidated pursuant to WIS. STAT. RULE 809.10(3) by order dated
December 8, 2025.

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Nos. 2025AP1037
2025AP1537-CR

unlawful if “the traffic stop that preceded it was not justified by probable cause or
reasonable suspicion,” State v. Anagnos, 2012 WI 64, ¶42, 341 Wis. 2d 576, 815
N.W.2d 675. In each case, I review the circuit court’s determination that
reasonable suspicion existed using a mixed standard of review, upholding the
circuit court’s factual findings if they are not clearly erroneous, but independently
determining whether the facts as found satisfy the legal standard. See State v.
Nimmer, 2022 WI 47, ¶20, 402 Wis. 2d 416, 975 N.W.2d 598.

¶10 The sole basis the officer testified to for stopping Gimmel’s truck
was the officer’s belief that Gimmel had violated the Watertown noise ordinance
referred to above. See State v. Colstad, 2003 WI App 25, ¶9, 260 Wis. 2d 406,
659 N.W.2d 394 (traffic stop justified by reasonable suspicion of violation of
traffic ordinance). This provision states:

No person shall make or cause to be made any noise
disturbance within the City of such volume or nature as to
annoy or disturb any other reasonable person of normal
sensitivities. This section prohibits, but is not limited to,
the following noise disturbances:

….

B. No person shall intentionally cause a vehicle to
accelerate, brake or make a turn at such rate or in such
manner as to cause its tires to squeal, except in reaction to a
situation which a reasonably prudent operator would
perceive to be necessary to protect against harm to a person
or property.

CITY OF WATERTOWN, WIS., ORDINANCE, ch. 410, art. VII, § 410-40 (2025)
(https://ecode360.com/29261064#29261064) (“the ordinance”).

¶11 As the circuit court observed, subsection B of the ordinance appears,
on its face, to prohibit any intentional maneuver that causes any squealing,
regardless of loudness or duration, if that maneuver is not taken to protect people

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or property. But the first sentence of the ordinance—not specific to any of the
types of noise later enumerated—also prohibits more generally noises “of such
volume or nature as to annoy or disturb any other reasonable person of normal
sensitivities.” The court suggested that this sentence might limit the squealing-
specific provision to particularly loud or lengthy squeals. Gimmel makes a similar
argument on appeal, asserting that to violate the ordinance, a tire squeal “must be
of such volume or nature [as] to annoy or disturb someone of normal sensitivities.”

¶12 I need not resolve whether the ordinance prohibits any intentional
tire squealing, or instead prohibits only intentional tire squealing “of such volume
or nature as to annoy or disturb any other reasonable person of normal
sensitivities.” This is because the officer’s testimony, which the circuit court
credited, demonstrated reasonable suspicion of a violation of the ordinance under
either interpretation.

¶13 Specifically, when asked whether any noise from the tires would
justify a traffic stop, the officer testified that it would not, and added that his
“threshold” for stopping a vehicle is “the loud, high-pitched squeal that most
people would identify.” Also, when asked whether he thought the squeal from
Gimmel’s tires was “loud enough to annoy or disturb a reasonable person of
normal sensitivities,” the officer responded “[y]es.” He continued, testifying he
had “stopped people and cited people … for less than [the noise Gimmel’s tires
made].”

¶14 The circuit court, in making its ruling, cited the officer’s testimony
about the squeal from Gimmel’s tires being loud enough to disturb a reasonable
person of normal sensitivities, and remarked, “I don’t find anything incredible
about that statement or observation in conjunction with what I view in the video.”

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Nos. 2025AP1037
2025AP1537-CR

¶15 Assessing the credibility of testimony is for the circuit court, and this
court will not disturb its determinations. State v. Oswald, 2000 WI App 3, ¶47,
232 Wis. 2d 103, 606 N.W.2d 238 (1999). The officer’s testimony that he
believed the squealing of Gimmel’s tires would annoy or disturb a reasonable
person of normal sensitivities, and the circuit court’s crediting of that testimony, is
more than sufficient to satisfy the state’s burden to demonstrate reasonable
suspicion. See Nimmer, 402 Wis. 2d 416, ¶25 (“Reasonable suspicion is ‘a low
bar.’”) (quoted source omitted).

¶16 Gimmel challenges the circuit court’s ruling on the basis that the
officer was not able to precisely describe the sound of the squeal, and suggests that
perhaps the noise from his tires was more of a “squawk or chirp” than a squeal.
He cites State v. Mauermann, No. 2012AP2568-CR, unpublished slip op. (WI
App July 25, 2013), as persuasive authority. Mauermann involved a vagueness
challenge to a different local noise ordinance that also concerned tire squeals. Id.,
¶11. Part of the opinion considered dictionary definitions of “squeal” and
“squawk,” and also invoked the term “squeak,” in the course of concluding that
the noise the deputy in that case described fell squarely within the noise the
ordinance prohibited. Id., ¶¶15-17.

¶17 Gimmel argues that the officer believed that “any noise from a tire is
sufficient to establish a violation” and that “Mauermann supports the conclusion
that this is not the case.” Gimmel’s arguments are not persuasive because, once
again, the officer in this case testified that the “squeal” he heard was of the type
that would disturb a reasonable person of normal sensitivities, and because the
circuit court accepted this testimony as credible. Given the court’s finding, there
is no basis to conclude that the sound the officer heard fell outside the prohibition
of the ordinance.

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Nos. 2025AP1037
2025AP1537-CR

CONCLUSION

¶18 The circuit court did not err in concluding that the officer had
reasonable suspicion to stop Gimmel’s truck. Accordingly, I affirm both the
judgment of conviction for operating while intoxicated and the order revoking
Gimmel’s license for refusing a chemical test.

By the Court.—Judgment and order affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)4.

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