Opinion
No. 12–P–219.
2013-03-12
COMMONWEALTH v. Henry A. HACKETT.
By the Court (MEADE, SIKORA & HANLON, JJ.).
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28
The Commonwealth appeals from a decision by a judge of the District Court allowing the defendant's motion to suppress evidence obtained after a motor vehicle stop, arguing that the police lawfully stopped the defendant because the license plate of the car he was driving was partially obscured in violation of G.L. c. 90, § 6. The defendant counters, and the motion judge found, that the arresting officer did not have a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting a traffic violation” and therefore the stop was unwarranted. We reverse.
Background. The motion judge indicated in his findings that he found credible the testimony of the police officer who stopped the car.
We therefore supplement his findings of fact with other, uncontested testimony by the officer from the hearing on the motion to suppress. The record indicates that, at approximately 3:30 A.M. on January 14, 2011, the defendant was traveling through the downtown area of Amherst in a white Lexus sedan with four passengers. Officer Chandler, of the Amherst police department, was responsible for patrolling that area. Chandler was parked, facing northbound on North Pleasant Street, when he received a radio call from Sergeant Arocho, who was traveling southbound on the same street. Arocho told Chandler that he was unable to read the license plate on a white sedan as he passed it; he asked Chandler to obtain the license number since the car was heading in Chandler's direction. The defendant's car then passed Chandler, who followed it into the travel lane. Chandler only was able to identify the first three digits on the vehicle license plate, as “[t]he remaining three digits were unreadable. They were covered with snow.”
Specifically, the judge stated, “[T]he Court appreciates Officer Chandler's honesty and professional demeanor when testifying....”
Chandler informed Sergeant Arocho that he was going to stop the vehicle because, from two car lengths away, he was “unable to gather the license plate of that vehicle.” He “activated [his] overhead emergency blue lights, stopping the vehicle in the area of North Pleasant Street.” After stopping, Chandler approached the vehicle and first “cleared the registration plate so [that he] was able to read the final two numerics ... by brushing off the snow with [his] hand.” He then went to the driver's side door to “identify[ ] and speak[ ] with the driver.”
Although there was snowfall earlier in the day, the streets and sidewalks had been already cleared and there was “very little” snow that had not yet melted. At the time of the stop, the snow had been cleared from the windows of the defendant's vehicle.
It is this stop that is at issue here. Every motor vehicle traveling on “any way in this commonwealth shall have its register number displayed conspicuously thereon by the number plates furnished by the registrar.... The said number plates shall be kept clean with the numbers legible....” G.L. c. 90, § 6, as amended through St.1968, c. 293. “Where the police have observed a traffic violation, they are warranted in stopping a vehicle.” Commonwealth v. Santana, 420 Mass. 205, 207 (1995), quoting from Commonwealth v. Bacon, 381 Mass. 642, 644 (1980).
Chandler testified that, although he was familiar with the defendant from previous encounters, he did not recall having seen the defendant drive the white Lexus in the past, and he did not recognize the driver as the defendant until he approached the driver side door after the stop was made. Despite his remarks about the officer's credibility, the judge appears to have discredited this testimony when he concluded his findings with the following observation: “[I]t appears that the defendant was stopped for DWHH (driving while Henry Hackett).” The officer's subjective reason for the stop, however, is irrelevant. See Commonwealth v. Santana, 420 Mass. 205, 208 (1995), and cases cited therein (“The fact that the troopers may have believed that the defendants were engaging in illegal drug activity does not limit their power to make an authorized stop”). Rather, police “conduct is to be judged under a standard of objective reasonableness without regard to the underlying intent or motivation of the officers involved.” Ibid., quoting from Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 138 (1978).
This case is unlike Commonwealth v. Brazeau, 64 Mass.App.Ct. 65, 68 (2005), on which the defendant relies. In Brazeau, we said that the fact that the defendant had “three small items hanging from a rearview mirror” of the vehicle he was driving did not rise to the level of impeding or impairing his operation in violation of G.L. c. 90, § 13. Despite the officer's testimony in that case that “[i]t was [his] determination that the items hanging were impeding the operation of the operator,” we concluded that he lacked “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting a traffic violation.” Id. at 67–68. We also noted that “the Legislature could have chosen specifically to prohibit “the hanging of objects from a vehicle's rearview mirror.” Id. at 68.
This case is different. In Brazeau, the officer made a subjective determination that the objects hanging from the mirror were impeding or impairing the operator's driving. Here, the undisputed testimony was that neither Sergeant Arocho nor Officer Chandler could read the numbers on the license plate, and the judge found that “three digits of the license plate were obscurbed by snow” and that “[a]s a result of this license obstruction Chandler conducted a vehicle stop.” The statute, G.L. c. 90, § 6, requires that “number plates shall be kept clean with the numbers legible,” leaving little to the officer's discretion, at least in the determination whether a violation of the statute had occurred. The subjective motivation of the officer was therefore irrelevant, as there was a valid objective reason for the stop—the violation of the statute. See note 3, supra. The question of whom to stop, from among those who are committing traffic violations, properly is left to the discretion of the responding police officer and does not require “a particularized and objective basis” to justify it. Brazeau, supra at 68.
Order allowing motion to suppress reversed.