State v. Carter, A-66-19
| Decision Date | 02 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | A-67-19,A-66-19 |
| Parties | State of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Darius J. Carter, a/k/a Buddah Buddah, and Buddha J. Carter, Defendant-Appellant. State of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Miguel A. Roman-Rosado, a/k/a Miguel Roman, Damian Rosado, Miguel A. Roman, and Miguel A. Rosado, Defendant-Respondent |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Argued April 27, 2021
State v. Darius J. Carter (A-66-19): On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division.
State v. Miguel A. Roman-Rosado (A-67-19): On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 462 N.J.Super. 183 (App. Div. 2020).
Regina M. Oberholzer, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant in State v. Miguel A. Roman- Rosado (A-67-19) and argued the cause for respondent in State v. Darius J. Carter (A-66-19) (Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General attorney; Regina M. Oberholzer, of counsel and on the briefs and Nicole Handy, Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor, on the briefs).
Alison Perrone, First Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for respondent in State v. Miguel A. Roman-Rosado (A-67-19) (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Emma R. Moore, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the briefs).
Joseph J. Russo, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant in State v. Darius J. Carter (A-66-19) (Joseph E Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Joseph J. Russo and Emma R. Moore, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the briefs, and Amira R. Scurato, Designated Counsel, on the briefs).
Karen Thompson argued the cause for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey Foundation, attorneys; Karen Thompson Alexander Shalom, and Jeanne LoCicero, on the briefs).
CJ Griffin argued the cause for amicus curiae Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey (Pashman Stein Walder Hayden attorneys; CJ Griffin, of counsel and on the briefs).
RABNER, C.J., writing for a unanimous Court.
In recent years, more than 100, 000 drivers annually have been ticketed for violating N.J.S.A. 39:3-33 (section 33), which includes a prohibition against "driv[ing] a motor vehicle which has a license plate frame . . . that conceals or otherwise obscures any part of any marking imprinted upon the vehicle's registration plate." The defendants in these consolidated appeals were stopped while driving. The stops were pretextual: officers stopped each defendant because part of their license plates were covered, but the purpose was to try to develop a criminal investigation. The police found contraband in both cases, which formed the grounds for defendants' convictions.
Defendants argue that if section 33 is read expansively, the statute is unconstitutionally vague and overly broad, and also invites discriminatory enforcement. The State opposes those arguments and relies in the alternative on Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014), for the proposition that a stop and conviction based on an officer's reasonable but mistaken interpretation of the law should be upheld.
Defendant Darius Carter was stopped in September 2014. The words "Garden State" were covered on his car's license plate, and the basis for the stop was a suspected violation of section 33. Carter was driving without a license, and the police learned that he had two outstanding arrest warrants. The police arrested Carter and later found heroin and a small amount of cocaine on him. Carter moved to suppress the drugs seized. The parties did not dispute that a license plate frame covered the words "Garden State" on the plate, and neither party argued that any other part of the plate was covered.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress, concluding the stop was pretextual but that the law unambiguously barred concealing any markings on a license plate, not just the plate's registration numbers. The Appellate Division affirmed, finding that the statute's plain language "expressly prohibits even the partial concealment of any marking on the license plate," including the words "Garden State."
In April 2016, a police officer stopped the car Miguel Roman-Rosado was driving. The officer testified he "was on a proactive detail" -- "stop[ping] a lot of cars for motor vehicle infractions and . . . then try[ing to] develop criminal investigations from that." While driving right behind Roman-Rosado, the officer noticed a bracket around the rear license plate that covered about ten or fifteen percent of the words "Garden State." The officer stopped the car based on a suspected violation of section 33 and learned that Roman-Rosado had two outstanding arrest warrants. After spotting a garment wrapped around something bulky, the officer found an unloaded handgun. Roman-Rosado moved to suppress the gun as the fruit of an unlawful stop.
The trial court denied the motion. The court acknowledged there were minimal obstructions on the plate -- a portion of the bottom of "Garden State" as well as the top of the "N" and the "J" in New Jersey -- but found that the statute barred the "obstruction of any marking on the" plate. The Appellate Division reversed, finding that the plate's markings were not concealed or obscured within the meaning of the statute. 462 N.J.Super. 183, 190 (App. Div. 2020). The court found that there was no reasonable basis for the police to stop Roman-Rosado's car, that the subsequent search of the car was unconstitutional, and that the handgun should have been suppressed. Id. at 199-200.
The Court granted certification. 241 N.J. 498 (2020); 241 N.J. 501 (2020).
HELD: *To avoid serious constitutional concerns, the Court interprets the statute narrowly and holds that N.J.S.A. 39:3-33 requires that all markings on a license plate be legible or identifiable. If a frame conceals or obscures a marking in a way that it cannot reasonably be identified or discerned, the driver would be in violation of the law. In practice, if a registration letter or number is not legible, the statute would apply; but if a phrase like "Garden State" is partly covered but still recognizable, there would be no violation.
*Under that standard, defendant Darius Carter's license plate frame, which covered the phrase "Garden State" entirely, violated the law, so the stop was lawful. In contrast, defendant Miguel Roman-Rosado's plate frame did not cover "Garden State." It partially covered only ten or fifteen percent of the slogan, which was still fully legible, so the stop was unlawful.
*The Court declines to adopt the standard set forth in Heien under the New Jersey Constitution. The State Constitution is designed to protect individual rights, and it provides greater protection against unreasonable searches and seizures than the Fourth Amendment. Under Article I, Paragraph 7 of the State Constitution, it is simply not reasonable to restrict someone's liberty for behavior that no actual law condemns, even when an officer mistakenly, although reasonably, misinterprets the meaning of a statute. Because there was no lawful basis to stop Roman-Rosado, evidence seized as a direct result of the stop must be suppressed.
1. The Court reviews the text of section 33 and notes that violations of that section carry a fine and imprisonment for failure to pay the fine. A related provision in Title 39 requires that the words "Garden State" "be imprinted" on license plates for passenger cars. N.J.S.A. 39:3-33.2. Yet other statutes authorize specialty plates, which do not contain the phrase "Garden State." A companion statute to section 33 addresses groups that supply license plate frames or holders and prohibits the distribution of merchandise "knowing that such merchandise is designed or intended to be used to conceal or degrade the legibility of any part of any marking imprinted upon a vehicle's license plate for the purpose of evading law enforcement." N.J.S.A. 39:3-33c (section 33c). The police issue more than 100, 000 violation notices for section 33 in a year. Not a single violation notice was issued for section 33c from 2012 to 2019. (pp. 15-17)
2. The Court reviews principles of statutory construction and the parties' arguments about the meaning of section 33. The State contends that the statute's words are clear: a license plate frame cannot cover any part of any marking on a license plate. Defendants stress that section 33 bars the use of license plate frames only insofar as they conceal or otherwise obscure certain markings. The Court notes first that the term "marking" in section 33 extends to any impressions on a license plate, not just the registration numbers and letters. But, after reviewing the ordinary definitions of the key terms of section 33 -"conceal" and "obscure" -- the Court understands those terms to focus on legibility, not on every minor covering of otherwise recognizable markings. Reading the statute in that way avoids absurd results and comports with the view that the Legislature "writes motorvehicle laws in language that can be easily grasped by the public so that every motorist can obey the rules of the road." State v. Scriven, 226 N.J. 20, 34 (2016). (pp. 17-22)
3. Noting that section 33 -- unlike section 33c -- does not expressly include language about legibility, the Court considers the statute's legislative history. That history sheds little light on the scope of the provision at issue here or the meaning of its key terms, but amendments to other portions of N.J.S.A. 39:3-33 reflect the Legislature's concern about the legibility of license plates. (pp. 22-24)
4. Defendants argue that a broad reading of section 33 does not pass constitutional muster. They argue that a law that criminalizes de minimis obstructions of phrases like "...
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