Mccain v. State Of Md..

• Decision Date: 03 September 2010
• Docket Number: No. 1465, Sept. Term, 2008.,1465, Sept. Term, 2008.
• Citation: 194 Md.App. 252,4 A.3d 53
• Parties: Shelton McCAIN v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

194 Md.App. 252

4 A.3d 53

Shelton McCAIN

v.STATE of Maryland.

No. 1465, Sept. Term, 2008.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Sept. 3, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Mark Colvin (Elizabeth L. Julian, Acting Public Defender, on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for appellant.

Ryan R. Dietrich (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen., on the brief) Baltimore, MD, for appellee.

Panel: HOLLANDER, WOODWARD, and KEHOE, JJ.

KEHOE, J.

Relying on vehicle registration information received from a mobile computer, Baltimore City police officers stopped an automobile driven by appellant, Shelton McCain. Mr. McCain and the passenger in the vehicle, Mr. McCain's wife, Tara McCain, were both arrested for violating provisions of Maryland's motor vehicle law. The police conducted a warrantless search of the vehicle and found a handgun. Mr. McCain then made an inculpatory statement. It transpired that the vehicle registration information may have been inaccurate and that the warrantless search of the vehicle may have been unreasonable under the Supreme Court's holding in Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009), which was decided after the search occurred.

Mr. McCain appeals his conviction by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of possession of a regulated firearm by a person convicted of a disqualifying crime in violation of Md. Code (2003), Pub. Safety § 5-133. He raises two questions, which we have rephrased:

I. Did the suppression court err in denying appellant's motion to suppress without making a factual finding as to whether the vehicle registration information the officers received from a mobile workstation and used to support the traffic stop was correct?

II. Should the case be remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings in light of Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1710 (2009)?

As to the first question, we conclude that the suppression court did not err because, under the facts of this case, the police officers were justified in relying on the registration information even if it ultimately would have been proven to have been inaccurate. As to the second, we conclude that the police officers had every reason to believe that their search, when it was conducted, was reasonable. As there was no police misconduct, application of the exclusionary rule would be inappropriate. Therefore, we answer both questions in the negative and affirm the circuit court's judgment.

FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

The Suppression Hearing

Appellant was charged with various firearms and traffic violations arising out of an incident occurring in Baltimore on October 11, 2007. Before his trial, he moved to suppress the evidence of a handgun and his statement to police that the handgun belonged to him.

The following facts were adduced at the suppression hearing.

At approximately 9:30 p.m. on the night in question, Baltimore City Police Detectives Justin Stinnett and Stephan Robinson and Baltimore City Police Officer Dornsife ¹ were patrolling East 28th Street in Baltimore City using their mobile workstation, an onboard computer that allowed them to access, among other databases, Motor Vehicle Administration vehicle registration information. While the officers were “running random tags” through the workstation, the license tag on a Chevrolet Cavalier came back as unregistered, or vehicle tag record not found. ² The officers then stopped the Cavalier.

Appellant, the driver, immediately pulled over. Stinnett approached the driver's side of the vehicle and asked appellant for his license and registration. Appellant stated that he did not have his license, but he provided Stinnett with his name and date of birth. Upon running the name and birth date through the mobile workstation, Stinnett discovered that appellant's Maryland driver's license had been suspended. Stinnett then asked appellant to exit the vehicle, and arrested him for driving on a suspended license. Appellant was patted down for contraband; none was discovered.

After the pat-down, appellant was seated on the curb while Robinson and Dornsife spoke with the passenger, appellant's wife, Tara McCain. She gave the officers a rental agreement for the vehicle listing her as the only authorized driver. The officers then arrested Ms. McCain for permitting an unauthorized person to drive a rental vehicle, in violation of Md. Code (1977, 2009 Repl.Vol.), Transp. (“TA”) § 18-106(a). The vehicle was then searched. ³ The search uncovered a purse in the passenger compartment with a handgun inside. When the handgun was discovered, appellant, without prompting by the police officers, immediately took responsibility for it, stating that he had placed it in his wife's purse without her knowledge.

At the suppression hearing, appellant and his spouse introduced into evidence a document from the MVA dated May 8, 2008, indicating that the registration for the rented Cavalier expired in February 2008 and that the registration was cancelled on December 12, 2007, two months after the traffic stop. It was thus possible, appellant argued, that the MVA information obtained through the officers' mobile workstation was incorrect when it indicated the tag was not registered to a vehicle on October 11, 2007.

Stinnett acknowledged the MVA's registration information was sometimes inaccurate.

He estimated that such inaccuracies occur perhaps once a month. Robinson also testified that such errors were uncommon, as he had not experienced that type of MVA error many times in the thousands of tags he had run through the mobile workstation. Robinson also stated that the MVA document indicating that the registration was cancelled on December 12, 2007, two months after the traffic stop, did not demonstrate that the vehicle was registered on October 11th. He posited that, within the two month period between October and December 2007, “anything coulda been done to renew the registration, get, fix the registration ... on the vehicle.”

Appellant testified that, upon being stopped on the night in question, Stinnett pulled him out of the car before running his name and date of birth and that when removed from the car, he had not been informed why he had been stopped. While appellant admitted claiming ownership of the handgun, he said that he did so in an effort to protect his wife. He stated that he had not seen the handgun before that night and did not know it was in her purse. He further admitted to not having a valid driver's license on the night in question and to having previous convictions for second degree assault, robbery, third degree burglary, and a handgun violation.

At the close of the testimony, the State argued that the traffic stop was valid because it was based on information derived from the MVA database, which the officers, in good faith, believed to be correct. Because the traffic stop was proper, the information learned by the police from their questioning of appellant and Ms. McCain supported their arrest. Since the arrest was valid, so too was the subsequent search of the vehicle for valuables, including Ms. McCain's purse, which turned up the handgun. ⁴

The defense countered that the warrantless arrest was without probable cause because it was based on incorrect information and there was no applicable good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Therefore, the handgun and the statement to police should be suppressed as fruits of a poisonous tree.

The suppression court ruled as follows:

We have a contest of dueling MVA records where the State from that night shows no registration and the defense produces something subsequently to it that implies that perhaps registration was still current until December.

It really doesn't matter whether the information is correct or not, because as far as the Baltimore City Police Department is concerned, and as much control as they have over acting upon the information, they subjectively rely in good faith on the information and objectively are not charged with imputed ignorance because it's not their act that acknowledges that the information is no longer operative and it's not their duty to take the information out of the computer.

Therefore, the initial stop was based on information that the officers had a right to rely on in the same way that in Michigan v. Defilipo ^{[ 5 ]} when the officers stop an individual for a statute that was in effect at the time, but was subsequently declared to be unconstitutional. It doesn't matter if it turns out that the statute's unconstitutional, just as it doesn't matter if it turns out that the MVA made a mistake.

There's nothing in this record that indicates that these officers knew that there were frequent occurrences of MVA mistakes, that they knew that the MVA wasn't a hundred percent perfect, but they were reliable, and that most of the time when they act upon the information it's correct to require them to inquire in the middle of the night when there's probably nobody to talk to at MVA to double-check and verify it is an impossible task to ask a police department to shoulder.

* * *

So I find the initial stop that allows the police to talk to these individuals to be stamped with reasonable suspicion.... I find that it ripened into probable cause to arrest the male Defendant when it turned out that he was driving on a suspended license, and that when the rental agreement showed that she was the only person who was authorized under the contract to drive and she allowed her husband to drive, and the officers had both the probable cause under that statute to arrest....

* * *

The officers talk about an inventory search because internally that's what they call it. But the Baltimore City Police Department is totally incapable of using the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement because they don't ... conduct inventories the way courts have indicated.... But that pocketbook was within her Shimmel ⁶ [sic] perimeter and the gun was taken...