State of Utah v. Friesen
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IN THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
----ooOoo----
State of Utah,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
Clark Roy Friesen,
Defendant and Appellee.
OPINION
(For Official Publication)
Case No. 981540-CA
F I L E D
September 16, 1999
1999 UT App 262
-----
Fourth District, Nephi Department
The Honorable Ray M. Harding,
Sr.
Attorneys:
Jan Graham and Marian Decker,
Salt Lake City, for Appellant
Michael D. Esplin, Provo,
for Appellee
-----
Before Judges Wilkins, Billings, and Jackson.
WILKINS, Presiding Judge:
¶1
The State appeals the trial
court's order of dismissal based on defendant Clark Friesen's successful
motion to suppress for lack of reasonable suspicion. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2
On October 20, 1997, a Utah
Highway Patrol trooper observed Friesen traveling northbound on Interstate
15 near Nephi, Utah. The trooper noticed that Friesen's vehicle was missing
a front license plate, and decided to pull Friesen over. Before the trooper
activated his lights and stopped Friesen, he observed a Wyoming license
plate attached to the rear bumper of Friesen's vehicle.
¶3
The trooper testified that
he stopped Friesen solely because his vehicle was missing a front license
plate. He also testified that although he knew some states did not require
a front license plate, he was unsure of Wyoming's license plate requirement.
However, based on the fact that he had observed other Wyoming vehicles
displaying both front and rear plates, the trooper assumed Wyoming required
two license plates.
¶4
While approaching Friesen's
vehicle, the trooper noticed the car had a damaged front bumper and observed
the front license plate resting on the dashboard. The trooper asked for,
and Friesen provided, a valid driver's license and vehicle registration.
The trooper testified that at that point he detected the odor of marijuana.
He also noticed a sprig of sage or juniper hanging on the rear view mirror
that the trooper believed is commonly used to mask the smell of marijuana.
¶5
The trooper asked Friesen
for consent to search his vehicle, to which Friesen reluctantly responded,
"if you have to." In the front of the vehicle the trooper found two marijuana
seeds. Based on this discovery, he searched the remainder of Friesen's
car, eventually finding a bag of marijuana.
¶6
Subsequently, Friesen filed
a motion to suppress all evidence obtained during the search of his vehicle.
He argued the trooper violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from
unreasonable search and seizure because the trooper did not have a reasonable
articulable suspicion justifying the stop. In granting Friesen's motion,
the trial court concluded the trooper's assumption that Wyoming requires
display of both front and rear license plates was insufficient to support
a reasonable suspicion that Friesen was engaged in criminal activity. The
State appeals.
ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW
¶7
We address two issues on
appeal: First, did the trial court err in finding the only purpose for
the traffic stop was the trooper's assumption that Friesen violated Wyoming
law by failing to properly display a front license plate? Second, did the
trooper have a reasonable articulable suspicion that Friesen was committing
a crime, sufficient to stop Friesen's vehicle?
¶8
In reviewing a challenge
to a trial court's suppression ruling, we will not reverse the factual
findings underlying that ruling unless they are clearly erroneous. See
State v. James, 858 P.2d 1012, 1014 (Utah Ct. App. 1993). Those
factual findings are clearly erroneous only if they are against the clear
weight of the evidence. See State v. Strickling, 844 P.2d 979, 981 (Utah Ct. App. 1992). However, "[w]hether a specific set of facts
gives rise to reasonable suspicion is a determination of law and is reviewable
nondeferentially for correctness . . . [with] a measure of discretion to
the trial judge when applying that standard to a given set of facts." State
v. Pena, 869 P.2d 932, 939 (Utah 1994).
ANALYSIS
I. The Stop
¶9
The State contends the trial
court erred in finding the only purpose for the traffic stop was the trooper's
assumption that Friesen violated Wyoming law by failing to display a front
license plate. More specifically, the State argues the trial court overlooked
the trooper's testimony that he believed the missing front license plate
not only violated Wyoming law, but that it was also indicative of an improperly
registered or stolen vehicle.
¶10
The trooper specifically
testified that he stopped Friesen solely because he did not see a front
license plate on Friesen's vehicle. The trial court accepted the trooper's
testimony, finding that "the only reason [the trooper] stopped [Friesen]
was because of the missing front plate." This determination was clearly
within the legitimate exercise of the trial court's discretion. See
Bruner v. Carver, 920 P.2d 1153, 1158 (Utah 1996) ("Trial courts
are accorded great discretion in determining factual matters. They are
in the best position to assess the credibility of witnesses and to derive
a sense of the proceeding as a whole. . . . '[T]he fact finder is free
to weigh the . . . evidence presented and to draw its own conclusions.'"
(citations omitted)); Pena, 869 P.2d at 936 (concluding trial court
is free to accord whatever weight it deems appropriate to testimony of
witness "because it is before that court that witnesses . . . appear and
the evidence is adduced"). The finding is not clearly erroneous, and accordingly
we affirm the trial court's ruling on this issue. The trial court did not
find that the trooper was motivated by a reasonable articulable suspicion
that Friesen's car was improperly registered or stolen. That too is within
the province of the trial court, and is also not clearly erroneous.
¶11
Having determined the trial
court did not err in finding the sole reason the trooper stopped Friesen
was because of the missing front plate, we now address the question of
whether this amounts to a reasonable suspicion to justify the stop when
considered under the prohibitions imposed by the constitution.
II. Reasonable Suspicion
¶12
The Fourth Amendment to
the United States Constitution protects "[t]he right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. The right to be free from
unreasonable searches and seizures extends to a person's automobile. See
State v. Lopez, 873 P.2d 1127, 1131 (Utah 1994). However, "[a] law
enforcement officer may stop a motor vehicle if the officer has a reasonable
suspicion the vehicle is being operated in violation of motor vehicle registration
laws." State v. Naisbitt, 827 P.2d 969, 971 (Utah Ct. App. 1992).
The reasonable suspicion necessary for an investigative stop of an automobile
must be judged against an objective standard--that is, whether there were
specific and articulable facts known to the officer, which taken together
with rational inferences from these facts, created a reasonable suspicion
of criminal activity to justify intrusion into the defendant's personal
security. See Provo City v. Warden, 844 P.2d 360, 362 (Utah
Ct. App. 1992), aff'd, 875 P.2d 557 (Utah 1994). In determining
whether this objective standard has been met, the focus necessarily centers
upon the facts known to the officer immediately before the stop. See
id. Thus, the critical issue in this case is whether the trooper's
suspicion that Friesen had violated Wyoming law by failing to properly
display a front license plate was reasonably inferable from what he observed.
In this case, the only thing the trooper observed was the absence
of the front license plate.
¶13
In support of the trooper's
action, the State urges us to consider not only the facts regarding the
condition of Friesen's vehicle, but also the "facts" of the trooper's knowledge
of Wyoming law as facts about which the trooper need only have a reasonable
articulable suspicion. In other words, the State argues the trooper
had a reasonable suspicion that Wyoming law required the display of a front
license plate on Friesen's car. The reasonableness of this suspicion rests
upon the trooper's past observation of automobiles from Wyoming that had
both front and rear plates, from which he "assumed" that the Wyoming law
was similar to Utah's in requiring both plates to be affixed to the vehicle.
The State offers no authority for this application of the notion of reasonable
suspicion.(1)
¶14
To enforce the law, an officer
must know what the law is, and what it prohibits. We hold that the facts
about which an officer must have a reasonable articulable suspicion at
the time of a traffic stop are those regarding the conduct of the person
stopped, not the nature of the law. If the trooper knows the law prohibits
certain conduct, and believes that the subject of his suspicion has violated,
or is about to violate that legal prohibition, such suspicion may rise
to the level of a reasonable articulable suspicion justifying the stop.
However, if the conduct of the suspected person is clearly known and the
officer's uncertainty--his suspicion--regards the prohibitions of the law,
the officer has no basis upon which to make or defend the stop.
¶15
The trooper in this instance
did not have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when he stopped
Friesen. The only articulable and specific fact known to him when he stopped
Friesen was that Friesen's car had only a rear plate and that some states
require vehicles to display front license plates. Having no specific knowledge
about Wyoming's licensing requirements, he made the decision to stop Friesen
only because he presumed Friesen violated Wyoming's motor vehicle law,
and that such a violation might be an indicator of other, possibly more
serious, offenses as well.
¶16
Determining whether a particular
governmental intrusion is reasonable requires balancing the public interest
with an individual's right to personal security free from arbitrary interference
by law enforcement. See United States v. Brignoni-Ponce,
422 U.S. 873, 878, 95 S. Ct. 2574, 2479 (1975). Although the people of
Utah have an interest in requiring individuals traveling our highways to
comply with the law, including the law regarding the display of license
plates, this interest does not justify arbitrarily stopping out-of-state
vehicles on the chance that there has been a violation of another state's
law. Were we to rule otherwise, "every out-of-state vehicle [could] be
stopped for no reason other than the officer's ignorance of th[at state's]
license plate [requirements]." State v. Baird, 763 P.2d 1214, 1217
n.1 (Utah Ct. App. 1988). Thus, we conclude the trial court did not err
in determining the trooper lacked a legally sufficient basis for making
the stop.
CONCLUSION
¶17
We hold the trial court
did not err in finding the only purpose for the traffic stop was the trooper's
assumption that Friesen violated Wyoming law by failing to properly display
a front license plate. Furthermore, we conclude the trooper was unable
to point to specific and articulable facts regarding Friesen's conduct
which, taken together with rational inferences, created a reasonable suspicion
of criminal activity by Friesen. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's
suppression ruling.
¶18
Affirmed.
______________________________
Michael J. Wilkins,
Presiding Judge
-----
¶19
WE CONCUR:
______________________________
Judith M. Billings, Judge
______________________________
Norman H. Jackson, Judge
1. Contrary to the State's position, the limited case law supports the opposite proposition: that reasonable articulable suspicion does not "extend beyond the relation of articulable facts to the law and [therefore does not] encompass an officer's reasonable suspicion of what the law is." State v. Longcore, 594 N.W.2d 412, 415 (Wis. Ct. App. 1999).
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