Hill v. State

321 Ga.App. 817

743 S.E.2d 489

HILL

v.The STATE.

No. A13A0405.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

May 21, 2013.

Thomas Michael Martin, Jason Michael Martin, for Appellant.

Jamie K. Inagawa, Sol.-Gen., Joseph B. Myers, Jr., Asst. Sol.-Gen., for Appellee.

MILLER, Judge.

Following a stipulated bench trial, Michael Jermaine Hill was convicted of possession of less than one ounce of marijuana (OCGA § 16–13–30(j)(1)), driving with a suspended license (OCGA § 40–5–121(a)), and driving a motor vehicle with improper registration (OCGA § 40–6–15(a)). Hill appeals, contending that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress on the ground that the officer lacked sufficient justification to conduct the traffic stop. We discern no error and affirm.

On reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, evidence is construed most favorably to uphold the findings and judgment, and the trial court's findings on conflicting evidence should not be disturbed if there is any evidence to support them, and its decisions regarding questions of facts and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Warren v. State, 314 Ga.App. 477, 481(3), 724 S.E.2d 404 (2012).

So viewed, the evidence shows that on August 9, 2010, a police officer was patrolling a two-lane highway in Fayette County in a patrol car equipped with License Plate Recognition (“LPR”) cameras. The LPR cameras automatically read license plate tags and reference the National Crime Information Center (“NCIC”) database to determine if a vehicle is stolen or if a missing or wanted person is connected to the vehicle. As the officer drove down the highway, the LPR system alerted to a vehicle on the opposite side of the highway, and the system gave the officer a “screen shot” of the vehicle's tag. The screen shot showed the vehicle's license number, the make and model of the vehicle—a black Nissan Sentra, where the vehicle was registered and information that a wanted person could be driving the vehicle.

The officer turned his vehicle around, got behind the Nissan Sentra and visually confirmed the tag number. The officer then gave the tag information to his dispatcher and conducted a traffic stop. When the officer approached the vehicle, Hill rolled down the window. The officer noticed a strong odor of burnt marijuana coming from inside the vehicle, and a small infant in the back seat. When the officer asked for Hill's driver's license, Hill informed the officer that his license was suspended. The dispatcher confirmed that the vehicle's registration had been suspended, and that Hill was known to drive the vehicle, although he was not the registered owner.

The officer called for backup and arrested Hill for driving on a suspended license. The officer then asked for and received Hill's consent to search the vehicle. During the search, the officer found a partially-smoked marijuana cigarette under the ashtray in the vehicle's center console.

Hill was subsequently charged with possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, driving with a suspended license, and driving on an improper registration. Hill moved to suppress all evidence seized during the traffic stop on the basis that he committed no crime that would justify the stop, and any probable cause to detain him should have dissipated upon the officer's discovery that he was not the vehicle's owner. Following a hearing, the trial court denied Hill's motion to suppress. The trial court specifically found that the LPR system provided the officer with a reasonable and articulable suspicion to believe that there was a wanted person in the vehicle which justified the stop.

In his sole enumeration of error, Hill contends that the traffic stop was not justified.¹ We disagree.

Stopping and detaining a driver to check his license and registration is appropriate when an officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the driver or the vehicle is subject to seizure for violation of the law. See Humphreys v. State, 304 Ga.App. 365, 366, 696 S.E.2d 400 (2010). Moreover, visual surveillance of vehicles in plain view does not constitute an unreasonable search for Fourth Amendment purposes, even if the surveillance is aided by an officer's use of a license plate tag reader, because a defendant does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a plainly visible license plate. See Hernandez–Lopez v. State, 319 Ga.App. 662, 664(1), 738 S.E.2d 116 (2013).²

Here, the officer based the stop on the information he received from the LPR system, as well as his personal observation of the vehicle's tag to confirm that the LPR alerted to the correct tag number. The information from the LPR system was similar to the information an officer retrieves when running vehicle tag information through the Georgia Crime Information Center (“GCIC”). See Humphreys, supra, 304 Ga.App. at 367, 696 S.E.2d 400 (upholding an initial traffic stop based on information from the GCIC that the driver of the vehicle in question was possibly operating the vehicle with a...