Opinion
No. COA11–1050.
2012-05-15
STATE of North Carolina v. Scotty Wade RADFORD.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Tammera S. Hill, for the State. Richard Croutharmel for Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 26 April 2011 by Judge Patrice A. Hinnant in Superior Court, Surry County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 23 January 2012. Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Tammera S. Hill, for the State. Richard Croutharmel for Defendant.
McGEE, Judge.
Scotty Wade Radford (Defendant) was indicted by a grand jury on 25 October 2010 on the charge of habitual impaired driving. Defendant filed a motion to suppress on 2 December 2010. Defendant based his motion on an alleged Fourth Amendment violation, arguing that the evidence was the result of an unconstitutional stop. Judge Judson D. DeRamus conducted a hearing on Defendant's motion to suppress on 17 March 2010, and denied Defendant's motion. Defendant pled guilty to habitual impaired driving on 26 April 2011, and preserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.
At Defendant's 17 March 2011 hearing on his motion to suppress, Sergeant Darisse of the Surry County Sheriff's Office, testified that on 16 June 2010 he was on stationary patrol on Interstate 77 when he observed a black Ford truck (the truck) pass his location. Sergeant Darisse said that the driver of the truck, later identified as Defendant, displayed “criminal indicators.” According to Sergeant Darisse, “criminal indicators” would include a vehicle “putting on ... brakes [while] trying to slow down[,]” the driver's “hands [being] at 10:00 and 2:00[,]” and the driver being “real stiff, staring straight ahead.” Sergeant Darisse stated that “what first caught [his] attention” was when Defendant passed Sergeant Darisse's location, Defendant “was real stiff, and appeared nervous to [Sergeant Darisse].” Sergeant Darisse also testified that Defendant “remained stiff” the whole time Sergeant Darisse was behind Defendant. Sergeant Darisse called in the license tag number on the truck to a dispatcher. The dispatcher told Sergeant Darisse the license tag number belonged to a Mercury passenger vehicle. Sergeant Darisse then pulled over Defendant's truck to investigate the improper registration. Sergeant Darisse asked Defendant for his driver's license, which Defendant could not produce. Sergeant Darisse also detected the odor of alcohol on Defendant during the stop. After further investigation, Sergeant Darisse discovered that Defendant's vehicle was properly registered. The license tag number had been entered incorrectly by the dispatcher. Prior to initiating the stop, Sergeant Darisse did not observe Defendant engaging in any moving violations.
Sergeant Darisse stated that he would not have pulled Defendant over simply for being stiff, having a blank stare, or for the other “indicators” he observed. Sergeant Darisse's sole reason for stopping Defendant was his belief that the license tag on the truck was registered to a different vehicle.
The trial court denied Defendant's motion to suppress, stating that a mistake of fact was made by Sergeant Darisse, and that there was no evidence that the information concerning the license tag was not provided to Sergeant Darisse in good faith. Accordingly, the trial court found that Sergeant Darisse's actions were based upon a good faith, reasonable objective belief that Defendant's vehicle did not have a proper license tag. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. Defendant appeals.
Standard of Review
“When evaluating a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, the standard of review is whether the court's findings of fact are supported by competent evidence and whether those findings of fact support the trial court's conclusions of law.” State v. Parker, 183 N.C.App. 1, 7, 644 S.E.2d 235, 240 (2007) (citation omitted).
“Findings of fact that are supported by competent evidence are conclusive on appeal, and conclusions of law “ ‘must be legally correct, reflecting a correct application of applicable legal principles to the facts found.” ‘ “ Id. (citations omitted) “However, a trial court's conclusion that a police officer had either probable cause or reasonable suspicion to detain or search a defendant is reviewable de novo.” Id. (citations omitted).
Argument
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in finding that Sergeant Darisse stopped Defendant based upon Sergeant Darisse's objectively reasonable belief that Defendant displayed an incorrect license tag. While Defendant argues that Sergeant Darisse lacked probable cause to make the stop, our Supreme Court has held that only reasonable suspicion is required for traffic stops such as the one in the present case. State v. Styles, 362 N.C. 412, 665 S.E .2d 438 (2008).
Police officers may conduct a brief investigatory stop of a vehicle when there are specific, articulable facts which give rise to a reasonable suspicion of illegal conduct. State v. Burke, ––– N.C.App. ––––, ––––, 712 S.E.2d 704, 706 (2011). The specific, articulable facts must be based on the objective view of a “ ‘reasonable, cautious officer, guided by his experience and training .’ “ Id. (citation omitted). This standard requires an “ ‘objective justification to validate the detention or seizure.’ “ Id. (citations omitted); see also State v. Watkins, 337 N.C. 437, 441–42, 446 S.E.2d 67, 69–70 (1994).
This Court has held that mistakes by investigators are not dispositive of whether the traffic stop was lawful. State v. Williams, –––N.C.App. –––, –––, 703 S.E.2d 905, 911 (2011). The reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment demands that the officers be reasonable, not that they always be correct. Id. at ––––, 703 S.E.2d at 911–12 (citing Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185, 111 L.Ed.2d 148, 159 (1990)). However, the mistakes allowed “ ‘must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions[.]’ “ Williams, ––– N.C.App. at ––––, 703 S.E.2d at 912 (citation omitted).
In Williams, officers received information that the defendant and a companion were engaged in the illegal sale of controlled substances. After setting up surveillance at a local hotel, the officers observed the defendant and his companion leave the hotel, and observed the defendant's companion entering the driver's side of the vehicle. The officers believed that the defendant's companion was someone known to have a revoked driver's license. The officers stopped the vehicle based on their belief that the defendant's companion was driving with a revoked license, and because of information they had received that the defendant and his companion were engaged in the illegal sale of controlled substances. However, once the officers stopped the defendant and his companion, they discovered that the defendant's companion was not the person they had initially identified as the person with a revoked driver's license and, in fact, discovered that the defendant's companion had a valid driver's license. Id. at –––, 703 S.E.2d at 907–09.
The trial court held that the officers possessed a reasonable and articulable suspicion to stop the vehicle, based upon the good faith belief that the person identified was someone who had a revoked driver's license. Id. at –––, 703 S.E.2d at 912. Thus, though the officers made a mistake, because it was based upon a good faith belief, this Court held that the stop was reasonable.
In the present case, the trial court found and concluded that Sergeant Darisse, by reason of mistake, believed that the truck driven by Defendant was displaying an improper license plate. The trial court further concluded that the mistake of Sergeant Darisse and the dispatcher was “an objective one, based upon mistake in facts, and was a reasonable objective belief on the part of [Sergeant] Darisse, observing the [truck] being driven without proper registration or an objective belief that there was no proper registration on the [truck] on the streets and highways of North Carolina[.]”
It is unlawful for any person to “display ... [a] registration number plate knowing the same to be fictitious[.]” N.C. Gen.Stat. § 20–111(2) (2011). Sergeant Darisse stopped Defendant's truck because he had a reasonable suspicion that Defendant was displaying a fictitious license tag. Sergeant Darisse had called in the license tag number on Defendant's truck and had received information from the dispatcher that that tag was not registered to the make and model of Defendant's truck. A reasonable officer in Sergeant Darisse's position could lawfully stop the vehicle based on the totality of circumstances as presented to him, which indicated that Defendant was in violation of a North Carolina statute.
According to the information provided to Sergeant Darisse, Defendant was in violation of N.C.G.S. § 20–111(2). The record shows that this was the basis for the stop. What happened after the traffic stop is irrelevant to the analysis of the legality of the initial stop. Defendant makes no argument that, absent any illegality associated with the stop itself, any of his rights were violated after the stop had been made. Therefore, because the stop was legal, the evidence recovered as a result of the stop was not illegally obtained and the trial court properly dismissed Defendant's motion to suppress.
No error. Chief Judge MARTIN and Judge CALABRIA concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).