McGuire v. Comm'r Safety
| Decision Date | 21 May 2018 |
| Docket Number | A17-1504 |
| Parties | Cole Gilbert McGuire, petitioner, Appellant, v. Commissioner of Public Safety, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
Affirmed
Olmsted County District Court
Grant M. Borgen, Bird, Jacobsen & Stevens, P.C., Rochester, Minnesota (for appellant)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Stephen D. Melchionne, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Peterson, Judge; and Ross, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
In this appeal from the district court's order sustaining the revocation of his driver's license, appellant argues that the police stop of the vehicle he was driving was unreasonable because it was based on the officer's mistaken belief as to the law. We affirm.
On March 12, 2017, at about 3 a.m., Officer Craig Sammon of the Rochester Police Department was working on foot patrol when he saw "a very large diesel pickup [that] accelerated at a rapid rate, causing a large puff of black smoke to come from [the] exhaust and the exhaust to emit a loud rapping, popping noise." As Sammon watched, the truck "rapidly accelerated" in an area with heavy foot traffic. Sammon got into his patrol car and followed the truck, and he saw that the truck did not have a rear license plate or a temporary registration permit. Sammon believed that vehicles driven in Minnesota had to have either a rear license plate or a temporary permit displayed in the rear window,1 and he decided to stop the truck. Sammon eventually cited the driver, appellant Cole Gilbert McGuire, for fourth-degree driving while impaired, and McGuire's driver's license was revoked.
McGuire challenged the revocation of his driver's license, arguing that there was no lawful basis for the stop. McGuire testified that he was a Missouri resident who was living in Rochester for a short period of time for a temporary job. He was driving "a full-size Mega Cab Truck 4 x 4" that was rated to pull an 18,000 pound trailer, and, under Missouri law, he was required to have only a front license plate.2 McGuire admitted that his truck was "loud," but he denied speeding. Sammon testified that he had no "reason based on [his] observations of the truck to know that it wasn't registered in Minnesota."
The district court sustained the revocation of McGuire's driver's license, concluding that Sammon had a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity that provided a basis for an investigatory stop. McGuire appeals.
In a proceeding challenging a driver's license revocation, we review de novo the district court's application of law, Pallas v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety, 781 N.W.2d 163, 167 (Minn. App. 2010), including the legality of an investigatory traffic stop. Wilkes v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety, 777 N.W.2d 239, 242-43 (Minn. App. 2010). We review findings of fact for clear error. Id. at 243. The petitioner has the burden of proving that he is entitled to reinstatement of his license. Pallas, 781 N.W.2d at 166.
A warrantless search or seizure is presumptively unreasonable. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. But a police officer may make a brief investigatory stop if "the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion [of] criminal activity." State v. Lugo, 887 N.W.2d 476, 486 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). The stop cannot be "the product of mere whim, caprice or idle curiosity." State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818, 823 (Minn. 2004). Even an insignificant violation of a traffic law provides a basis for an investigatory stop. State v. George, 557 N.W.2d 575, 578 (Minn. 1997).
Minn. Stat. § 169.79, subd. 1 (2016).
Minn. Stat. § 168.187, subd. 7 (2016).3
Thus, a vehicle properly registered or licensed in Missouri will be treated as properly licensed in Minnesota even if the Missouri licensing requirements are different from Minnesota licensing requirements, and, for a properly licensed Missouri vehicle, the requirement to have only a front license plate is an exception from the Minnesota requirement that there be a plate displayed on the front and the rear of the vehicle. See Minn. Stat. § 645.26, subd. 1 (2016) ().
McGuire argues that, because his vehicle was properly licensed under Missouri law, he was driving a vehicle with a legal license-plate configuration under Minnesota law when he was stopped, and Sammon's mistaken interpretation of Minnesota's license-plate law does not support a particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal activity, which is required for a valid stop. The supreme court has held that an officer's mistaken belief as to the law cannot provide an objective basis for an investigatory stop. George, 557 N.W.2d at 578-79. In George, an officer stopped a motorcyclist because he believed that the motorcycle had an unlawful headlight configuration, but the officer was mistaken as to the law, and the headlight configuration was lawful. Id. The supreme court concluded that there was no legal basis for the stop because the officer did not have an objective legal basis for suspecting that George was driving his motorcycle in violation of the law. Id. at 579.
Similarly, in Anderson, an officer believed that a statute required a driver to move far enough away from a stopped emergency vehicle so that there was an entire free "buffer" lane between the driver's car and the emergency vehicle. 683 N.W.2d at 821. Based on this interpretation of the statute, the officer stopped a car that had not moved far enough to the left and eventually arrested the driver for an impaired-driving offense. Id. The supreme court concluded that the officer had incorrectly interpreted the statute and held "that an officer's mistaken interpretation of a statute may not form the particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal activity necessary to justify a traffic stop." Id. at 823-24.
There is a significant difference between the circumstances in George and Anderson and the circumstances in this case. In both George and Anderson, the circumstances that the officers observed could not constitute a statutory violation, and, in both cases, the officer stopped the driver because the officer misunderstood the statute and incorrectly believed that he had observed a violation. Unlike George and Anderson, the circumstances that Sammon observed could be a violation of the general statute that requires both a front and a rear license plate, and, because Sammon was following McGuire's vehicle, he had no reason to know that McGuire's vehicle had a front license plate, as required in Missouri.
The supreme court addressed circumstances similar to this case in State v. Timberlake, 744 N.W.2d 390 (Minn. 2008). In Timberlake, police received a 911 call from an identified private citizen who reported that he saw something fall as a man got out of a white Pontiac Grand Prix at a gas station, and he then saw a gun lying on the ground. 744 N.W.2d at 392. The man quickly picked up the gun and got...
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