White v. State
| Decision Date | 08 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals Case No. 22A-CR-978 |
| Citation | 199 N.E.3d 1249 |
| Parties | Avis Deforest WHITE, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Attorney for Appellant: Denise L. Turner, DTurner Legal, LLC, Indianapolis, Indiana
Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, J.T. Whitehead, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana
[1] In this interlocutory appeal, Avis Deforest White challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence stemming from a traffic stop. Police stopped White's car when an officer ran White's license plate and received a return from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles ("BMV") listing the car's registration as "inactive." Because we observe that the General Assembly has not made "inactive" registration an infraction, we conclude that the traffic stop was not justified by reasonable suspicion and was, therefore, impermissible. Accordingly, we reverse the ruling of the trial court.
[2] White raises a single issue: whether the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress.
[3] On October 10, 2020, Corporal Christopher Nelson was on patrol for the Brownsburg Police Department. Corporal Nelson observed a car shortly after midnight and submitted an inquiry to the BMV regarding the car's registration. The BMV record screen visible to Corporal Nelson showed that the registration's status was "inactive," but also showed that the expiration date for the license number was December 7, 2020. On the sole basis of the "inactive" registration status, Corporal Nelson initiated a traffic stop of the car, driven by White.
[4] As a result of the traffic stop,1 the State charged White on October 10, 2020 as follows: Count I, possession of cocaine, a Level 4 felony; Count II, theft of a firearm, a Level 6 felony; Count III, obstruction of justice, a Level 6 felony; Count IV, driving while suspended, a Class A misdemeanor; Count V, possession of marijuana, a Class B misdemeanor; and Count VI, an infraction relating to the car's registration.2
[5] On November 16, 2021, White filed a motion to suppress all evidence resulting from the traffic stop. The trial court held a hearing on White's motion to suppress on March 10, 2022. Corporal Nelson was the only witness to testify at the hearing. While being questioned about the BMV record screen, the following colloquy ensued:
[6] Under cross-examination, Corporal Nelson conceded that the registration for White's car was not expired. Corporal Nelson further testified that the car did not "currently have an active registration[,]" but that he did not know what the "inactive" designation actually meant. Id. at 10. When asked about his lack of understanding, Corporal Nelson testified as follows:
[7] At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court denied White's motion to suppress. On April 5, 2022, White filed a petition to certify the trial court's order denying the motion to suppress for interlocutory appeal, and the trial court granted that petition the same day. We accepted jurisdiction on May 27, 2022, pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule 14(B)(2).
[8] White contends that the trial court erred in concluding that Corporal Nelson had the requisite reasonable suspicion to effect a traffic stop. "Trial courts enjoy broad discretion in decisions to admit or exclude evidence." Marshall v. State , 117 N.E.3d 1254, 1258 (Ind. 2019) (citing Robinson v. State , 5 N.E.3d 362, 365 (Ind. 2014) ). "When a trial court denies a motion to suppress evidence, we necessarily review that decision ‘deferentially, construing conflicting evidence in the light most favorable to the ruling.’ " Id. "However, we ‘consider any substantial and uncontested evidence favorable to the defendant.’ " Id. "We review the trial court's factual findings for clear error, declining invitations to reweigh evidence or judge witness credibility." Id. (citing State v. Keck , 4 N.E.3d 1180, 1185 (Ind. 2014) ). "If the trial court's decision denying ‘a defendant's motion to suppress concerns the constitutionality of a search or seizure,’ then it presents a legal question that we review de novo." Id. at 1258 (quoting Robinson , 5 N.E.3d at 365 ). "In evaluating the validity of a stop such as this, we must consider ‘the totality of the circumstances—the whole picture.’ " United States v. Sokolow , 490 U.S. 1, 8, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (quoting United States v. Cortez , 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) ).
[9] Traffic stops, for even minor violations, fall within the protections of the federal ... constitution[ ]. When a law enforcement officer stops a vehicle for a suspected traffic infraction like speeding, that officer seizes the vehicle's occupants under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution ...; and that traffic stop must pass constitutional muster.
Marshall , 117 N.E.3d at 1258 (citing Heien v. North Carolina , 574 U.S. 54, 135 S.Ct. 530, 190 L.Ed.2d 475 (2014) ; Meredith v. State , 906 N.E.2d 867, 869 (Ind. 2009) ).3
[10] Ordinarily, the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant issued upon probable cause in order to effectuate a seizure. Id. at 1258-59. One exception to the warrant requirement, however, is the "brief investigatory stop" which does not require a warrant, and which need only be based upon "reasonable suspicion." Id. at 1259 ; see also Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Traffic stops fall under this exception to the warrant requirement. Whren v. United States , 517 U.S. 806, 809-10, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996).
[11] Police officers may "stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot.’ " Robinson , 5 N.E.3d at 367 (quoting Sokolow , 490 U.S. at 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581 ). Though reasonable suspicion is not easily defined, it is not an illusory standard. State v. Renzulli , 958 N.E.2d 1143, 1146 (Ind. 2011). The reasonable suspicion standard requires that a stop " ‘must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.’ " Robinson , 5 N.E.3d at 367 (quoting Armfield v. State , 918 N.E.2d 316, 319 (Ind. 2009) ). "[T]he reasonableness of official suspicion ‘must’ be measured by what officers knew before, not after, conducting an investigatory stop." Segar v. State , 937 N.E.2d 917, 922 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (quoting Florida v. J.L. , 529 U.S. 266, 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000) ). Crucially, our determination of the legality of a traffic stop, and, thus, the existence of reasonable suspicion, is objective, and must ignore "the subjective understanding of the particular officer involved." State v. Davis , 143 N.E.3d 343, 349 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020) (citing Heien , 574 U.S. at 66, 135 S.Ct. 530 ). The dispositive question is whether a reasonable officer, aware of the facts available to Corporal Nelson, would have concluded that White was in violation of the law. See Ornelas v. United States , 517 U.S. 690, 696, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996).
[12] A person operating a motor vehicle must both register the vehicle and maintain proof of registration. See Ind. Code § 9-18.1-2-3.4 "A certificate of registration or proof of registration issued under IC 9-18 (before its expiration on December 31, 2016) remains valid until it expires or is revoked, suspended, or canceled. " I.C. § 9-18.1-2-1(b) (emphasis added).
The Indiana Code makes clear that each of these words carries a different meaning. A registration may be "suspended," for example, if a motorist "fail[s] to maintain in good working order ... any air pollution control system or mechanism that is used to control air pollution of a vehicle ...." I.C. § 13-17-5-3. A motorist operating a vehicle with an "expired" registration, on the other hand, "commits a Class C infraction." I.C. § 9-18.1-11-2(c). The registration in the instant case was not expired. Corporal Nelson could plainly see this fact from the BMV readout which reflected an expiration date of December 7, 2020, then approximately two months away. See Ex. 1; see also Tr. Vol. II p. 8. The record suggests that Corporal Nelson conflated the status of "inactive" with that of "expired," and concluded that White was committing a traffic violation.
[13] In fact, a reading of Title 9 of the Indiana Code, which governs motor vehicles, reveals that the word "inactive" does not appear once. This suggests that "inactive" is a registration status contemplated by the BMV, not by the legislature. Indeed, Corporal Nelson's testimony seems to suggest that he is aware that the word "inactive" is used by the BMV internally for an administrative purpose, and that its meaning in that context may well differ from Corporal Nelson's understanding of the term.
[14] The State poin...
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