United States v. Miranda-Sotolongo, No. 14-2753 (7th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseOfficer Johnson spotted defendant driving on an interstate highway in Bloomington, Illinois. Defendant was not speeding, swerving, or committing any moving violation, but had an Indiana temporary vehicle registration tag “that was unlike any Indiana registration tag” Johnson had seen before. In Johnson’s experience temporary Indiana tags were normally “in the back of a window, not a piece of paper where the license plate normally goes.” When his own check and then a dispatcher’s separate check of the database found no record of the registration, Johnson made a traffic stop to investigate whether the tag might be a forgery. When Johnson asked defendant for his license, he admitted that he was driving on a suspended license. Johnson arrested him. During an inventory search, police discovered two guns that led to defendant’s conviction as a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of a motion to suppress. The officer based the stop on the fact that the number on the car’s temporary registration tag did not appear in the law enforcement database. That discrepancy gave the officer a reasonable suspicion that the car was either stolen or not properly registered. The court remanded for reconsideration of certain conditions of supervised release.
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