Worlds v. State
| Decision Date | 14 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. A14A1112.,A14A1112. |
| Citation | 762 S.E.2d 829,328 Ga.App. 827 |
| Parties | WORLDS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Grace Kokomma Akan, for Appellant.
Lee Darragh, Dist. Atty., Kelley Martin Robertson, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Appellee.
We granted Teresa Worlds' interlocutory application in this case to determine whether a trailer hitch ball installed on the bumper of a vehicle in front of the rear license plate "obstructs or hinders the clear display and legibility of a license plate" within the meaning of OCGA § 40–2–41. Worlds appeals from the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress, urging that the trial court erred in concluding that her license plate was obstructed, thus justifying a traffic stop. We disagree and affirm.
(Citation, punctuation, and footnote omitted.) Davis v. State, 302 Ga.App. 144, 144–145, 690 S.E.2d 464 (2010). Because Worlds "intensely cross-examined the officer and challenged his credibility" in the hearing on the motion to suppress, we "do not apply a de novo standard of review, which applies only where the facts are undisputed." (Citation and footnote omitted.) Id. at 145, 690 S.E.2d 464.
So construed, the evidence showed that in November 2012, a police officer stopped Worlds' vehicle after he observed "that the fourth digit [of her license plate] was obstructed by the attached ball hitch."1 During the stop, the officer discovered drugs in plain view in the vehicle. At the hearing on her motion to suppress, Worlds introduced photographs of her vehicle purporting to show that the license plate was not obscured by the hitch. The officer, however, testified that the photographs did not show the plate as it appeared to him when he made the traffic stop, because they were taken at a different angle and distance and not while the two vehicles were moving. At least one of Worlds' photographs, moreover, shows the fourth digit on the license plate partially obstructed by the bumper hitch, as testified to by the officer. The video recording of the stop is of poor quality, but the video shows the bumper hitch concealing at least one of the license plate numbers, and the officer's recorded comment to dispatch states that he cannot read the entire tag. The trial court concluded, "based upon the officer's testimony, the video recording and the photographs put into evidence by the defense, that the clear display and legibility of the plate was obstructed by the ball hitch in this case, giving the officer a valid basis to stop the vehicle driven by the Defendant."
1. Worlds contends that a single, partially obscured digit on a license plate does not violate the law. The applicable Code section provides:
(Citation and footnote omitted.) Bailey v. State, 283 Ga.App. 365, 367(1), 641 S.E.2d 548 (2006) (). State v. Aguirre, 229 Ga.App. 736, 494 S.E.2d 576 (1997), cited by Worlds, is not dispositive because of our standard of review. There, we deferred to the trial court's conclusion that the writing on a temporary tag was legible and that the officer's stop was pretextual, observing that Id. at 737, 494 S.E.2d 576.2 Here, the trial court's conclusion was supported by the evidence, including the officer's testimony that he was unable to read the entire license plate and the video showing that he gave several alternative numbers to dispatch based upon those numbers that he could read, and the evidence did not demand a contrary finding.
2. Worlds also argues that OCGA § 40–2–41 applies only to items such as a plate cover that are attached to the license plate itself, not to other items attached to the motor vehicle, such as a trailer hitch attached directly to the bumper. OCGA § 40–2–41 provides in pertinent part that the license plate "shall be at all times plainly visible," that "[i]t shall be the duty of the operator of any vehicle to keep the license plate legible at all times," and that "[n]o apparatus that obstructs or hinders the clear display and legibility of a license plate shall be attached to the rear of any motor vehicle required to be registered in the state." Georgia decisions have interpreted this Code section to forbid license plate frames and covers that obscure portions of the plate. See Davis, supra, 283 Ga.App. at 201(1), 641 S.E.2d 205 Bailey, supra; Nelson, supra; and Aguirre, supra; see also Wilson v. State, 306 Ga.App. 286, 286–287(1), 702 S.E.2d 2 (2010) (registration decal). But the question of whether the statute forbids items other than those attached to the license plate itself has not been addressed in Georgia.
Other states, however, have determined that a bumper hitch that obscures part of a license plate violates a statute requiring that a plate be "plainly visible" or "legible." In People v. White, 93 Cal.App.4th 1022, 113 Cal.Rptr.2d 584 (2001), a deputy testified that he stopped White because the bumper hitch on his pickup truck blocked the lower half of the middle numeral on the license plate. Id. at 1024, 113 Cal.Rptr.2d 584. The trial court granted White's motion to suppress because it believed the statute dealt only with "dirt or grit or grime or material on the license plate." Id. The California Court of Appeals considered the applicable Vehicle Code section 5201, which provided: "License plates shall at all times be ... mounted in a position to be clearly visible, ... and shall be maintained in a condition so as to be clearly legible." The court concluded that partial obstruction by a trailer hitch ball violated this Code section because "a license plate must not be obstructed in any manner and must be entirely readable." Id. at 1026, 113 Cal.Rptr.2d 584. It therefore reversed the trial court's grant of the motion to suppress. Id.
In Parks v. State, 2011 WY 19, 247 P.3d 857 (2011), as here, a "trailer hitch ball was mounted in a predrilled hole in the truck's factory bumper so that the license plate was partially obstructed." 247 P.3d at 858. The applicable law, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 31–2–205, provided that a license plate shall be "plainly visible" and "[m]aintained free from foreign materials and in a condition to be clearly legible." Id. at 858–859. The Wyoming Supreme Court concluded:
The requirements that a license plate be "plainly visible" and "clearly legible" indicate that a license plate must not be obstructed in any manner. This interpretation is in accord with the purpose of the statute. License plates need to be easily read in order to facilitate law enforcement and ordinary citizens in reporting and investigating hit-and-run accidents, traffic violations, gas-pump drive offs, and other criminal activity.... Law enforcement...
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Sherod v. State
...established that "[w]hen an officer observes a traffic law violation, the resulting stop is not pretextual." Worlds v. State, 328 Ga.App. 827, 831(1), 762 S.E.2d 829 (2014) (punctuation omitted). And here, the officer initially stopped Sherod's tractor-trailer after observing a failure to m......