U.S. v. Diaz-Castaneda

• Decision Date: 18 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-30047.,06-30047.
• Citation: 494 F.3d 1146
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ismael DIAZ-CASTANEDA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

494 F.3d 1146

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ismael DIAZ-CASTANEDA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-30047.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted November 17, 2006.

Submission Withdrawn February 20, 2007.

Resubmitted July 9, 2007.

Filed July 18, 2007.

Laura Graser, Portland, OR, for the defendant-appellant.

Baron C. Sheldahl, Assistant United States Attorney, Portland, OR, for the plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon; Malcolm F. Marsh, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-04-00381-MFM.

Before: ALFRED T. GOODWIN, RAYMOND C. FISHER and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

FISHER, Circuit Judge:

We are presented with a question this court has not yet resolved: Does a license plate check by a law enforcement officer that reveals information about a person's car ownership, driver status and criminal record constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment? We agree with all the other courts that have considered the issue that it does not. We therefore hold that Defendant Ismael Diaz-Castaneda's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when a Clackamas County Deputy Sheriff stopped the truck in which Diaz-Castaneda was a passenger, asked him for identification and checked his driver's license or Oregon identification card with radio dispatch. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Diaz-Castaneda's motion to suppress.

I. Background

On the morning of August 27, 2004, Deputy Sheriff Brad Helzer ran a computer check of the license plate on a Ford pickup truck that was ahead of him on the highway. The check identified a Soilio Diaz as the vehicle's registered owner and revealed that Diaz's license was suspended. Helzer decided to stop the vehicle because the driver, consistent with its registered owner, was a middle-aged Hispanic male. As Helzer testified, "[t]he registered owner matched the description of the driver of the vehicle. And that was my probable cause." After stopping the vehicle, Helzer confirmed that Diaz was the driver and arrested him for driving with a suspended license in violation of Or.Rev.Stat. § 811.182.

Helzer also saw a passenger, Diaz-Castaneda, in the vehicle. Diaz-Castaneda, Diaz's brother, is a Mexican citizen who has previously been deported five times from the United States and who was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in 1987. Helzer said "licencia" (Spanish for "license") to Diaz-Castaneda, who handed over either an Oregon driver's license or Oregon ID card (Helzer could not remember which) accurately showing his true name. Helzer checked the identification document with radio dispatch and discovered an immigration detainer for Diaz-Castaneda's arrest as an illegal alien. Helzer testified that his reason for running the identification check on Diaz-Castaneda was "to discover if he had a valid license so he could take the vehicle so we didn't have to tow it." Helzer arrested Diaz-Castaneda on the detainer and took him to the Clackamas County jail, but did not fingerprint him or conduct any further investigation into the matter.

A few days later, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") Agent Melinda Carrasco fingerprinted Diaz-Castaneda, placing one copy in his immigration "A" file and sending another copy to the FBI. Diaz-Castaneda's "A" file contained his photograph as well as multiple prior fingerprint cards. ICE Senior Special Agent Ruben Vela subsequently referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution and forwarded the most recent fingerprint card to fingerprint expert Joel Mann. Mann confirmed that it matched earlier fingerprints of Diaz-Castaneda.

Diaz-Castaneda was indicted on a charge of illegal re-entry into the United States subsequent to an aggravated felony conviction in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b)(2). He moved to suppress evidence stemming from the August 2004 stop (including his identity and illegal alien status). The district court denied the motion, finding that there was no Fourth Amendment violation and that, even if there were, Diaz-Castaneda's identity and immigration status would inevitably have been discovered.

Diaz-Castaneda entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge in the indictment, retaining his right to raise on appeal the issues implicated in his motion to suppress. In January 2006, the district court sentenced him to 84 months imprisonment. Diaz-Castaneda timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 1294.

II. Standard of Review

The district court's factual findings are reviewed for clear error. Its denial of Diaz-Castaneda's motion to suppress is reviewed de novo. See United States v. Miranda-Guerena, 445 F.3d 1233, 1236 (9th Cir.2006).

III. Discussion

Diaz-Castaneda argues that several aspects of the traffic stop — Helzer's initial license plate check, his decision to pull over the vehicle, his request for Diaz-Castaneda's identification and his check of Diaz-Castaneda's driver's license or Oregon ID card — violated the Fourth Amendment. We hold that none of these claims has merit. Because there was no Fourth Amendment violation we do not reach the question of whether suppression of Diaz-Castaneda's identity would be warranted if there were such a violation.

A. Standing

Though neither party raises the issue, we note at the outset that Diaz-Castaneda has standing to pursue all of his Fourth Amendment claims. Under Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 134, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), he would lack standing to object to a search of the vehicle. But the Supreme Court has recently held, consistent with decisions in this and other circuits, that a passenger in a vehicle does have standing to claim that a traffic stop was unconstitutional. See Brendlin v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 2403, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007) ("We hold that a passenger is seized [when a traffic stop occurs] and so may challenge the constitutionality of the stop."); United States v. Twilley, 222 F.3d 1092, 1095 (9th Cir.2000) ("As a passenger, Twilley has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a car that would permit [his] Fourth Amendment challenge to a search of the car. . . . But Twilley challenged the initial stop, and a passenger may challenge a stop of a vehicle on Fourth Amendment grounds even if she has no possessory or ownership interest in the vehicle.") (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d 1158, 1163-64 (10th Cir.1995) (same). Diaz-Castaneda thus has standing to object to the traffic stop and the license plate check that prompted it. He also, of course, has standing to argue that Helzer's request for his identification and Helzer's subsequent check of his driver's license or ID card were unconstitutional searches or seizures. These actions were directed at Diaz-Castaneda himself, rather than Diaz or Diaz's vehicle, and hence do not come under Rakas.

B. The License Plate Check

Diaz-Castaneda first contends that Helzer's check of Diaz's truck's license plate was an unreasonable search because Helzer had no articulable suspicion of any wrongdoing when he initiated the check. Diaz-Castaneda is correct that Helzer does not appear to have had any reason to run the check. Indeed, at the suppression hearing, Helzer explained why he thought he had probable cause to stop the vehicle after checking its license plate, but offered no explanation for why the check was conducted in the first place. Although running the check simply because Diaz and Diaz-Castaneda were Hispanic males would raise serious questions, Diaz-Castaneda's claim founders because we hold that a license plate check does not qualify as a search under the Fourth Amendment.

No binding decision of this court has addressed whether license plate checks constitute Fourth Amendment searches. Cf. Hallstein v. City of Hermosa Beach, 87 Fed.Appx. 17, 19 (9th Cir.2003) (unpublished) ("Nor does Hallstein have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily exposed to other people, such as his license plate. . . . [A]s Hallstein does not claim that the data stored in the DMV and police department databases were acquired by those institutions in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, he cannot complain under the Fourth Amendment about access to that information by others."); United States v. $277,000 U.S. Currency, 941 F.2d 898, 901 (9th Cir.1991) (holding that individual had no "legitimate expectancy of privacy" in backyard where cars were parked and thus "cannot contest the observation of the covered vehicles or the fact that they had Mexican license plates"). However, every circuit that has considered the issue in a precedential opinion has held that license plate checks do not count as searches under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Ellison, 462 F.3d 557, 561 (6th Cir.2006); Olabisiomotosho v. City of Houston, 185 F.3d 521, 529 (5th Cir.1999); United States v. Walraven, 892 F.2d 972, 974 (10th Cir. 1989); cf. United States v. Sparks, 37 Fed Appx. 826, 829 (8th Cir.2002) (unpublished); 1 Wayne R. Lafave, Search & Seizure § 2.5(b) (4th ed. 2004) ("[I]t is apparent that when a vehicle is [at a] location where it is readily subject to observation by members of the public, it is no search for the police to look at the exterior of the vehicle.").

We agree that people do not have a subjective expectation of privacy in their license plates, and that even if they did, this expectation would not be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Cf. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring) (setting forth criteria for searches under Fourth Amendment). First, license plates are located on a vehicle's exterior, in plain view of all passersby, and are specifically intended to convey information about a vehicle to law enforcement authorities, among others. No one can reasonably...