— Unreported Opinion —
6
because of the window tint and the vehicle appearing to be more than twelve inches from
the curb, “skimpy as it is.”
6
As to the vehicle stop and the vehicle search, the motions court reasoned as follows:
“Well, what I’m just going to hang my hat on here, I think it was
justified that the officer before completing a traffic stop had a right to
get back information under the circumstances, and there’s a little bit
of confusion with the dispatcher and the name and so forth, and I take
into consideration he had seen the name the day before and the license,
but people run around with somebody else’s license or what have you,
you know.
Checking it in the database, it seems to me, on the tinting
aspect, you know, is appropriate. So when he gets back—on page 4
of Defendants 1, came back to—you could read it Maryan, I think that
was his testimony that she said Maryan and it seemed to be—he
says—Friend, at line 5 page 4, ‘I got a’—you know, and then he says,
‘There’s somebody else driving. Can you run a Soundex number and
see what he’s about? 10-4.’ He comes back and it comes—Mr.
Carter’s valid under that, et cetera.
So I think that this is, you know, valid, what otherwise would
not make this a valid prolongation of the processing of the traffic stop.
I, you know, up until that point they’ve got no indicia of guns or drugs,
et cetera, in the car. It’s only the dog scan. The dog certified for
narcotics, that does a hit, which I fully understand, but, nevertheless,
the case law and a number of cases that I think were cited earlier here
is that a valid—qualified dog sniff furnishes valid probable cause to
search your vehicle.
So for those reasons, and based on a number of cases that were
cited, I will deny the motion to suppress the seizure of the weapon in
the vehicle. Close decision, I will concede, at any rate.”
6
In the court’s summation, the judge stated: “So…it’s a factor here about him not using
his tint meter until afterwards and not measuring, but in looking at the picture here I have,
you know, it appears to be more than twelve inches from the curb….As minor as that is
and as skimpy as it is, nevertheless, in my judgment, you know, it furnishes probable cause
that a traffic—that a parking and whatever—equipment violation, you know, has occurred
to make a stop.”