Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Napa County Super. Ct. No. CR128485
Pollak, J.
Defendant Stacey Lorraine Frost appeals from a judgment entered following a plea of no contest to one count of possessing methamphetamine. Her plea was entered after the trial court denied her motion to suppress evidence seized following a traffic stop of a car in which she was a passenger. She contends the trial court erred in denying her motion because there were no articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that anyone in the vehicle was engaged in illegal activity. We affirm.
Background
Early in the morning on April 14, 2006, Napa County Sherriff’s Deputy Chet Schneider was patrolling in the City of American Canyon when he stopped a car in which defendant was a passenger. As the driver was stepping out of the car as he was asked to do, he attempted to conceal a small black object between his seat and the center console. Defendant, who was seated in the front passenger seat, reached over and tried to move the object. Schneider ordered defendant to drop the object and then grabbed her wrists, causing the object to fall on the seat. A search of the case revealed four plastic bags of methamphetamine. After being removed from the car and advised of her constitutional rights, defendant told Schneider that she had used methamphetamine the previous evening. She admitted that she knew what was in the case, which she explained she tried to hide because “she didn’t want [the driver] to get in trouble.” She also acknowledged that she assisted the driver in selling methamphetamine by recording the amounts sold.
Defendant was charged by information with possession for sale of methamphetamine (count 1 - Health & Saf. Code, § 11378); transportation of methamphetamine (count 2 - Health & Saf. Code, § 11379, subd. (a)); possession of methamphetamine (count 3 - Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)) and being under the influence of a controlled substance (count 4 - Health & Saf. Code, § 11550, subd. (a)).
Defendant joined in her codefendant’s motion to suppress. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5.) At the suppression hearing, Schneider testified that about 4:00 a.m. on April 14, he was driving eastbound on Flosden Road when he saw a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix coming towards him at 10 to 15 miles per hour. When he was about 10 to 15 yards from the car, he saw a beaded necklace hanging from its rear view mirror. He also saw that a paper license plate was on the front bumper. After he made a U-turn and pulled behind the car, he saw that there was also a paper dealer’s plate on the back of the car. Schneider testified that while paper license plates are commonly found on new cars, “[e]arlier in the evening a Napa deputy had arrested someone for a stolen vehicle and that stolen vehicle had a paper plate on it.” Schneider explained that he decided to stop the Pontiac to determine whether it was required to have license plates and if so, to “advise [the driver] that he [should] get the plate on, if it was stolen to arrest the person responsible and recover the stolen vehicle, and also to advise of any Vehicle Code violations like an object that would block the vision of the driver . . . .” After Schneider had stopped the vehicle he observed for the first time a temporary operating permit affixed to the right front windshield of the car.
The court denied defendant’s motion to suppress, concluding that the initial traffic stop was a lawful detention. The court explained that Schneider had given “two reasons for making the stop. The . . . first was that there was a dangling item from the rear view mirror that might obstruct the driver’s view, and the second reason was to determine whether the car was properly registered based upon a suspicion that maybe the car was stolen.” While the court rejected the first reason, it concluded that the second reason did provide “a reasonable suspicion that the car may not be properly registered under the totality of the circumstances in this case and . . . therefore the stop was a lawful detention. And the reason I find that is because it was nighttime in this case, the visibility was poor, the car had dealer paper plates, the officer didn’t see a temporary window sticker as he passed the car and the officer doesn’t know whether or not the car is properly registered because there is no visible registration tag or any registration tags and there’s no way to verify the vehicle’s registration status by radio inquiry because there was no license number to run. [¶] . . . I believe the officer did have the right to briefly stop the car, contact the driver, determine whether there was a window sticker and look at it to confirm proper registration.” The court noted that “ordinarily if that’s all there was that’s all the officer would have been able to do. [¶] However, in this case, as soon as he approached, the officer stated that he immediately became . . . suspicious of criminal activity and saw the possible signs of drug use . . . .” Consistent with the court’s observation, defendant challenges only the inception of the stop and does not present any arguments with regard to the permissible scope or duration of the detention.
The court added that Schneider’s testimony that he thought the car might be stolen based on an unrelated theft earlier that evening was irrelevant to the analysis because “[t]he earlier arrest had nothing to do with this situation.”
Thereafter, defendant pled no contest to count 3 and the remaining counts were dismissed. Imposition of sentence was suspended and defendant was ordered to pay fees and penalties and placed on probation for a period of three years. Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.
Discussion
“The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits seizures of persons, including brief investigative stops, when they are ‘unreasonable.’ ” (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 229.) In Brendlin v. California (2007) __ U.S. __ [127 S.Ct. 2400], the United States Supreme Court held that a traffic stop is a seizure of both the driver and the passengers of the car within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In general, “ ‘[p]ersons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police officers.’ [Citation.] However, when there is articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed, that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, the vehicle may be stopped and the driver detained in order to check his or her driver’s license and the vehicle’s registration.” (People v. Saunders (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1129, 1135; see also People v. Brown (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 493, 496 [“A police officer may legally stop a motorist he suspects of violating the Vehicle Code for the purpose of issuing a citation. The officer may detain the motorist for the period of time necessary to discharge the duties related to the traffic stop”].)
Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress because Schneider failed to articulate facts that would support a reasonable suspicion that the driver or occupants of the car had violated the law. The Attorney General does not dispute the trial court’s conclusions that the traffic stop was not justified by the officer’s observation that the beaded necklace may have been interfering with the driver’s vision or by his suspicion that the car might have been stolen. The Attorney General argues, however, that the trial court correctly determined that the lack of license plates justified the stop.
We note that the California Supreme Court is currently considering a similar issue in In re Raymond C. (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th 1320, review granted March 21, 2007, S149728, and People v. Hernandez (2006) 146 Cal.App.4th 773, review granted March 21, 2007, S150038). “The case presents the following issue: If a police officer sees that a motor vehicle lacks a rear or both license plates, may the officer make a traffic stop to determine if the vehicle has a temporary permit or if a displayed temporary permit is a valid one?”
In reviewing the denial of a suppression motion, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, and we defer to the court’s factual findings if supported by substantial evidence. We then independently review the determination of whether the seizure was reasonable in light of those facts. (People v. Woods (1999) 21 Cal.4th 668, 673-674; People v. Memro (1995) 11 Cal.4th 786, 846.)
Here, Schneider testified that he stopped the car in which defendant was riding to “[m]ake sure . . . if it did need to have a license plate . . . .” That is, the stop was made, among other reasons, because of an apparent violation of Vehicle Code section 5200. This section provides in relevant part that “[w]hen two license plates are issued by the department for use upon a vehicle, they shall be attached to the vehicle for which they were issued, one in the front and the other in the rear.” Defendant contends the absence of license plates did not justify the traffic stop because there was a temporary operating permit clearly displayed on the front windshield of the car. She relies on Vehicle Code section 4456, subdivision (c), which authorizes a vehicle to be operated “without license plates or registration card” as long as it properly displays a copy of the “report of sale” paperwork.
While defendant may be correct that an officer is not entitled to stop a car without license plates based on the suspicion that it is unregistered if aware that the car has a facially valid temporary operating permit (see United States v. Wilson (4th Cir. 2000) 205 F.3d 720; People v. Nabong (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th Supp. 1), that is not the scenario here. Schneider testified that he did not see the temporary permit until after he completed the stop. He explained that as he was first passing the car he looked for the sticker and did not see it. Then, after stopping the car, “[the officer] approached from the driver’s side and within a very very short amount of time . . . became suspicious that illegal activity was occurring, and that sticker, or the search for that sticker didn’t cross [his] mind at that time.” He did not notice the sticker until after the driver had been asked to step outside the vehicle.
The trial court expressly found that “the officer didn’t see a temporary window sticker as he passed the car.” On appeal, we are bound to uphold this factual finding because it is supported by substantial evidence. (People v. Woods, supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 673-674.) Moreover, as the trial court noted, there was nothing objectively unreasonable about Schneider’s failure to see the temporary permit prior to stopping the vehicle. Schneider testified that there were “numerous street lights and porch lights and vehicle lights” on at that time “[b]ut it was dark out as far as the time of day.” Both vehicles were in motion coming towards each other and Schneider had a limited amount of time in which to observe the passing car. Because the permit was affixed to the right front windshield, Schneider would have been unable to see it once the car passed and he pulled up behind it. Accordingly, Schneider had a reasonable suspicion that the car was being operated without license plates in violation of the Vehicle Code.
That suspicion justified a brief detention in order to verify the registration of the car. The fact that the car in fact was properly registered does not defeat the reasonableness of Schneider’s suspicion that it was being operated in violation of the Vehicle Code. As the Supreme Court recently observed in a similar setting, “The question for us, though, is not whether [the] vehicle was in fact in full compliance with the law at the time of the stop, but whether [the officer] had ‘ “articulable suspicion” ’ it was not.” (People v. Saunders, supra, 38 Cal.4th at p. 1136, citing Illinois v. Rodriguez (1990) 497 U.S. 177, 184 [“ ‘reasonableness,’ with respect to this necessary element, does not demand that the government be factually correct in its assessment”].) The possibility of an innocent explanation for the missing license plates does not preclude an officer from detaining the motorist to investigate the potential Vehicle Code violation. (People v. Saunders, supra, at p. 1136.)
United States v. Wilson, supra, 205 F.3d 720 and People v. Nabong, supra, 115 Cal.App.4th Supp. 1, cited by defendant, are distinguishable. In United States v. Wilson, apolice officer stopped defendant, who was driving a used 1984 Mercury Cougar he had purchased for his wife two days previously. The temporary tag placed on the car by the dealer reflected its expiration date. The officer saw the tag but was unable to read the expiration date in the dark. He saw “nothing illegal about the tag or the operation of the car” and stopped defendant solely because he could not read the expiration date on the tag. (Id. at p. 723.) The court concluded that “[a]n objective assessment of the facts and circumstances of this stop compels the conclusion that the officer lacked any articulable, reasonable suspicion that a violation had occurred. Simply put, he saw nothing wrong, and he suspected nothing. Upholding a stop on these facts would permit the police to make a random, suspicionless stop of any car with a temporary tag. The Fourth Amendment does not afford the police such unbridled discretion.” (Id. at p. 724.) In People v. Nabong, a police officer saw Nabong driving a car with expired registration tags but also saw a temporary registration permit in the rear window. On its face, the temporary registration permit was valid, but the police officer testified that only about half of the approximately 30 to 40 vehicles he had stopped displaying apparently valid temporary registration permits turned out to be valid. (115 Cal.App.4th Supp. at pp. 2-3.) The court acknowledged that “[g]enerally, of course, special training and experience of a police officer may be taken into account in determining whether there is a reasonable suspicion a crime has taken place,” but concluded that the police officer’s experience was not sufficient to justify the stop. The police officer did not have reasonable suspicion that this particular temporary registration permit was invalid. (Id. at p. 4.) In both of these cases, unlike the present case, the officer observed a facially valid temporary permit prior to making the stop. Here, Schneider testified that although he looked for the sticker, he did not see the temporary permit prior to stopping the car. Unlike these other cases, he did articulate a reasonable suspicion that this particular vehicle was being driven without license plates in violation of the Vehicle Code section 5200.
In light of this conclusion we do not reach the Attorney General’s additional arguments that even if the traffic stop was invalid, defendant’s attempt to hide the black case attenuated the illegality of the stop, so that the methamphetamine recovered in the search is not the product of the illegal stop, and that defendant has no standing to challenge the search because she disclaimed ownership of the case.
Disposition
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: McGuiness, P. J. Horner, J.
Judge of the Alameda County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.