Post details: NM: RS not required for an NCIC check of vehicle tags

02/09/10

Permalink 09:07:12 am, by fourth, 318 words, 155 views   English (US)
Categories: General

NM: RS not required for an NCIC check of vehicle tags

Reasonable suspicion is not required to call in a license plate for an NCIC check. Suppression order reversed. State v. Herrera, 2010 NMCA 6, 224 P.3d 668 (2009), Certiorari Denied, No. 32,057, December 11, 2009:

[*12] We agree with this reasoning of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits. Because a license plate is located in plain view, a license plate check is not intrusive, and because the United States Supreme Court has held that VIN searches are not Fourth Amendment violations because of the lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy, see Class, 475 U.S. at 118-19 (holding that "as part of an undoubtedly justified traffic stop," officers checking for the VIN in order to run a search is "sufficiently unintrusive to be constitutionally permissible in light of the lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy in the VIN"), license plate checks are not searches under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, they do not require reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. As such, Investigator Hubbard did not need reasonable suspicion to conduct a license plate check on Defendant's car, and the ensuing investigation, including the VIN check and questioning of Defendant to explain the discrepancy discovered from the license plate check, was permissible. We additionally note that although "police may not randomly stop a vehicle solely to check a driver's license or car registration because a seizure of this nature is arbitrary," Reynolds, 119 N.M. at 385, 890 P.2d at 1317 (citing Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1979)), there was no seizure of Defendant in this case because Investigator Hubbard conducted the NCIC check while Defendant was inside the building.

. . .

[*14] We reverse the district court order granting Defendant's motion to suppress and remand for the district court to answer the issues raised below regarding whether evidence obtained after any of the following actions should be suppressed: (1) the alleged seizure of the gun, (2) the question posed to Defendant regarding his felony status, or (3) the inventory search after Defendant's arrest.

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