Do your suppression argument in full at the trial court, or you default

A lesson on getting your argument right: Inventory search issue was not fully explored at the suppression hearing, and the defendant made it clear to the trial court that the real issue was the length of detention after stop under a noise ordinance led to the officer finding the driver without a valid license. [This is an example of make the full argument to the trial court and don’t change your argument on appeal. In some states, the quoted paragraph would not appear because the court would rest on default without elaboration.] State v. McComb, 2008 Ohio 425, 2008 Ohio App. LEXIS 382 (2d Dist. February 1, 2008):

[*P60] Bell testified that the inventory search was performed because the car was going to be towed. Bell’s testimony concerning the nature of the inventory search performed was brief, and it is not altogether clear whether he was describing the nature of an inventory search in general, as prescribed by the regulations and policies of the Dayton Police Department, or whether he was describing the particular nature of the inventory search he performed in this case. Any deficiencies in this regard are understandable in view of the fact that the State was led to believe that the challenge to the search and seizure of the evidence went to the propriety of the initial stop, exclusively.

Stop was justified by obscured temporary tag, and what followed was all reasonable, including the slight delay. United States v. Daniels, 265 Fed. Appx. 219 (5th Cir. 2008)* (unpublished):

Appellants argue that the arrest was unreasonably extended by an arbitrarily delayed initiation of the computer check and Officer Esqueda’s pre-computer check questioning, that Officer Esqueda should not have run the computer check on the passenger’s license, and that the traffic stop should have concluded when Officer Esqueda declared an intention to issue a warning citation. All these arguments are foreclosed by Brigham and Shabazz, which hold that an officer may run computer checks on the driver and passengers of a car, and that there is no unlawful detention prior to completion of those computer checks. Here, Officer Esqueda initiated the computer check a short number of minutes after stopping Appellants. Because an officer need not immediately initiate a computer check on a car’s driver and its occupants, and because the questioning and consent to search occurred before the computer check was complete, Officer Esqueda did not unlawfully extend the detention of Appellants.