Title: State v. Hawkins

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
v. Hawkins, Slip Opinion No. 2019-Ohio-4210.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2019-OHIO-4210 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. HAWKINS, APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State v. Hawkins, Slip Opinion No. 2019-Ohio-4210.] 
When an officer encounters a vehicle the whole of which is painted a different color 
from the color listed in the vehicle-registration records and the officer 
believes, based on his experience, that the vehicle or its displayed license 
plates may be stolen, the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion of 
criminal activity and is authorized to perform an investigative traffic stop. 
(No. 2018-1177—Submitted April 24, 2019—Decided October 16, 2019) 
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Fayette County, 
No. CA2017-07-013, 2018-Ohio-1983. 
__________________ 
KENNEDY, J. 
{¶ 1} This case was accepted as a certified conflict between judgments of 
the Twelfth District and Fifth District Courts of Appeals.  The Twelfth District 
certified the issue in conflict as follows: 
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“Does the discrepancy between the paint color of a vehicle 
and the paint color listed in vehicle registration records accessed by 
a police officer provide the officer with reasonable articulable 
suspicion to perform a lawful investigative traffic stop where the 
officer believes the vehicle or its displayed license plates may be 
stolen[?]” 
 
153 Ohio St.3d 1474, 2018-Ohio-3637, 106 N.E.3d 1259, quoting the court of 
appeals’ journal entry. 
{¶ 2} We answer the question in the affirmative and hold, based on these 
facts, that when an officer encounters a vehicle the whole of which is painted a 
different color from the color listed in the vehicle-registration records and the 
officer believes, based on his experience, that the vehicle or its displayed license 
plates may be stolen, the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal 
activity and is authorized to perform an investigative traffic stop. 
{¶ 3} Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Twelfth District Court of 
Appeals. 
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
Traffic Stop 
{¶ 4} Around 3:00 a.m. on May 20, 2016, Washington Court House Police 
Officer Jeffery Heinz was completing a traffic stop when a vehicle drove past his 
patrol car and Heinz heard his license-plate reader beep.  A license-plate reader 
(“reader”) is a computer-controlled camera system installed in some law-
enforcement vehicles.  The cameras, which are mounted to the trunk of the vehicle, 
capture images of the license plates of cars nearby.  The system beeps to alert the 
officer that a plate has been captured, and an image of the plate is displayed on the 
computer’s screen. 
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{¶ 5} Upon hearing the beep, Heinz looked at the computer screen and saw 
an image of a license plate with a Franklin County sticker.  He ran the license-plate 
number and was informed by the dispatcher that the license plate was registered to 
a white 2001 GMC SUV.  Heinz looked in his rearview mirror and saw that the 
vehicle, a GMC SUV, was black.  He finished the traffic stop and began searching 
for the vehicle. 
{¶ 6} Heinz located the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop.  The driver, 
appellant, Justin Hawkins, pulled over.  Heinz explained to Hawkins that the color 
discrepancy was the reason for the stop and asked to see Hawkins’s identification.  
Hawkins told Heinz that he did not have identification with him.  Heinz was able 
to verify that the vehicle’s identification number matched the number registered 
with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (“BMV”) while he was attempting to learn 
Hawkins’s personal information. 
{¶ 7} Hawkins provided Heinz with a Social Security number; however, the 
dispatcher informed Heinz that the number was not associated with the name 
Hawkins.  Heinz then verified with Hawkins his name and date of birth and asked 
him again for his Social Security number.  Hawkins provided a second Social 
Security number.  At this time, Hawkins informed Heinz that he was running low 
on gas.  Heinz told Hawkins the location of a gas station. 
{¶ 8} Hawkins pulled away, and Heinz followed in his patrol car.  While 
following Hawkins, Heinz was notified by the dispatcher that the second Social 
Security number also was not Hawkins’s.  Heinz, still following Hawkins, then 
provided the dispatcher with Hawkins’s name and date of birth.  The dispatcher 
advised Heinz that Hawkins did not have a valid driver’s license and that there was 
an outstanding warrant out of Delaware County for Hawkins’s arrest. 
{¶ 9} Heinz activated his lights to initiate a second traffic stop.  Hawkins 
pulled his vehicle over, and Heinz approached.  Heinz informed Hawkins of the 
outstanding warrant, and Hawkins sped away at a high rate of speed. 
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{¶ 10} Hawkins was apprehended after crashing the vehicle and fleeing on 
foot.  Upon his arrest, the vehicle was inventoried and two credit cards that had 
been reported stolen were found in the glove compartment. 
Trial-Court Proceedings 
{¶ 11} On June 3, 2016, Hawkins was indicted on two counts of receiving 
stolen property in violation of R.C. 2913.51(A) and (C), felonies of the fifth degree, 
and one count of failing to comply with an order or signal of a police officer in 
violation of R.C. 2921.331(B) and (C)(5)(a)(ii), a felony of the third degree.  He 
moved to suppress the evidence obtained relating to the traffic stop on the basis that 
Heinz had lacked reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop. 
{¶ 12} At the suppression hearing, Heinz was the only witness to testify.  
He explained the basis for initiating the traffic stop.  He stated that in his experience 
the discrepancy between the color in the BMV registration and the actual color of 
the vehicle could indicate that the vehicle and the license plates had been stolen.  
“[W]ith my experience, if someone would steal a vehicle, they would just go 
through a parking lot anywhere and find a vehicle that would match the vehicle in 
which they were driving.  Throw [the license plate from that vehicle] on there and 
then drive around.”  He indicated that he had never encountered this personally, but 
he knew that it had occurred in the Washington Court House area. 
{¶ 13} The trial court overruled Hawkins’s motion to suppress.  After a jury 
trial, Hawkins was convicted of failure to comply and acquitted of receiving stolen 
property.  The trial court imposed a sentence of 36 months in prison. 
Appellate-Court Proceedings 
{¶ 14} Hawkins appealed to the Twelfth District Court of Appeals and 
advanced one assignment of error.  He argued that the color discrepancy did not 
amount to a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity on which to 
base the traffic stop. 
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{¶ 15} The appellate court disagreed.  It affirmed the trial court, concluding 
that the color discrepancy was sufficient to raise Heinz’s suspicion that the vehicle 
was either stolen or that the license plate had been taken from another vehicle.  
2018-Ohio-1983, 101 N.E.3d 520, ¶ 21.  However, the Twelfth District granted 
Hawkins’s motion to certify that its judgment was in conflict with the Fifth 
District’s judgment in State v. Unger, 5th Dist. Stark No. 2016 CA 00148, 2017-
Ohio-5553.  We recognized that a conflict exists.  153 Ohio St.3d 1474, 2018-Ohio-
3637, 106 N.E.3d 1259. 
ANALYSIS 
Standard of Review 
{¶ 16} Appellate review of a ruling on a motion to suppress presents a 
mixed question of law and fact.  State v. Burnside, 100 Ohio St.3d 152, 2003-Ohio-
5372, 797 N.E.2d 71, ¶ 8.  An appellate court must accept the trial court’s findings 
of fact if they are supported by competent, credible evidence.  See State v. Fanning, 
1 Ohio St.3d 19, 20, 437 N.E.2d 583 (1982).  But the appellate court must decide 
the legal questions independently, without deference to the trial court’s decision.  
Burnside at ¶ 8. 
The Fourth Amendment and Investigatory Stops 
{¶ 17} The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: 
 
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable 
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing 
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 
 
 
{¶ 18} We have held that in felony cases, Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio 
Constitution provides the same protection as the Fourth Amendment to the United 
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States Constitution.  State v. Jones, 143 Ohio St.3d 266, 2015-Ohio-483, 37 N.E.3d 
123, ¶ 12. 
{¶ 19} “The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigative stops * * * 
when a law enforcement officer has ‘a particularized and objective basis for 
suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.’ ”  Navarette v. 
California, 572 U.S. 393, 396, 134 S.Ct. 1683, 188 L.Ed.2d 680 (2014), quoting 
United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 
(1981).  This rule traces its beginning to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 
20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and therefore, the type of stop involved is referred to as a 
“Terry stop.”  In Terry, the United States Supreme Court “implicitly acknowledged 
the authority of the police to make a forcible stop of a person when the officer has 
reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be 
engaged in criminal activity.”  (Emphasis deleted.)  United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 
696, 702, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). 
{¶ 20} Precisely defining “reasonable suspicion” is not possible, and as 
such, the reasonable-suspicion standard is “ ‘not readily, or even usefully, reduced 
to a neat set of legal rules.’ ”  Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 695-696, 116 
S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996), quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231, 
103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983).  The reasonableness of a Terry stop 
“depends on a balance between the public interest and the individual’s right to 
personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.”  United States v. 
Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975).  The 
level of suspicion required to meet the reasonable-suspicion standard “is obviously 
less demanding than that for probable cause,” and “is considerably less than proof 
of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence” but is “something more than 
an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch.” ’ ”  United States v. 
Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), quoting Terry at 27. 
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{¶ 21} To determine whether an officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct 
a Terry stop, the “totality of circumstances” must be considered and “viewed 
through the eyes of the reasonable and prudent police officer on the scene who must 
react to events as they unfold.”  State v. Andrews, 57 Ohio St.3d 86, 87-88, 565 
N.E.2d 1271 (1991).  “This process allows officers to draw on their own experience 
and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the 
cumulative information available to them that ‘might well elude an untrained 
person.’ ”  United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 
740 (2002), quoting Cortez at 411. 
{¶ 22} “A determination that reasonable suspicion exists, however, need 
not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct.”  Id. at 277.  In permitting 
detentions based on reasonable suspicion, “Terry accepts the risk that officers may 
stop innocent people.”  Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 126, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 
L.Ed.2d 570 (2000). 
Heinz Had Reasonable, Articulable Suspicion to Stop Hawkins 
{¶ 23} In this case, Heinz’s suspicions were aroused when he saw a vehicle 
the entirety of which was a different color from the color indicated in the BMV 
records for the vehicle associated with the license plate that was captured by 
Heinz’s reader.  The facts that the color discrepancy itself is not a crime and that 
there may be an innocent explanation for the discrepancy do not mean that the 
discrepancy may be disregarded in determining whether Heinz had reasonable 
suspicion.  See Arvizu at 274 (reviewing the totality of the circumstances requires 
consideration of an observation that “was by itself readily susceptible to an innocent 
explanation”).  To assign noncriminal behavior no weight would “seriously 
undercut the ‘totality of the circumstances’ principle which governs the existence 
vel non of ‘reasonable suspicion.’ ”  Id. at 274-275.  Behavior and circumstances 
that are noncriminal by nature may “be unremarkable in one instance * * * while 
quite unusual in another.”  Id. at 276.  An officer is “entitled to make an assessment 
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of the situation in light of his specialized training and familiarity with the customs 
of the area’s inhabitants.”  Id. 
{¶ 24} In this case, Heinz testified that in his experience, the color 
discrepancy could signify that the vehicle either was stolen or had an illegal license 
plate.  He knew that in the past, car thieves in the area had stolen a vehicle and then 
switched the license plates with a vehicle of the same make and model.  Based on 
his professional experience, Heinz suspected that Hawkins was engaged in criminal 
activity.  Therefore, we hold that under the totality of the circumstances, Heinz met 
the reasonable-and-articulable-suspicion standard necessary to perform a lawful 
investigative traffic stop. 
CONCLUSION 
{¶ 25} Based on these facts, when an officer encounters a vehicle the whole 
of which is painted a different color from the color listed in the vehicle-registration 
records and the officer believes, based on his experience, that the vehicle or its 
displayed license plates may be stolen, the officer has a reasonable, articulable 
suspicion of criminal activity and is authorized to perform an investigative traffic 
stop. 
{¶ 26} We affirm the judgment of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and FRENCH, FISCHER, and DEWINE, JJ., concur. 
STEWART, J., concurs in judgment only. 
DONNELLY, J., dissents, with an opinion. 
_________________ 
DONNELLY, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 27} This certified-conflict case began here with a poorly worded 
question, and it has ended with an erroneous answer.  I would answer the conflict 
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question in the negative and reverse the judgment of the Twelfth District Court of 
Appeals. 
{¶ 28} It is not reasonable for a police officer to infer that a vehicle’s driver 
has stolen the vehicle, stolen license plates from a second vehicle, and switched the 
license plates whenever the officer notices a discrepancy between the color of a 
vehicle and the color listed in its registration records.  In direct response to the 
conflict question, I would hold that such a discrepancy, by itself, does not provide 
the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory seizure pursuant to 
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). 
{¶ 29} Additionally, although the certified question focuses on the specific 
context of vehicle-registration records, I have grave concerns about the state using 
the holding in this case in broader contexts.  I would hold that a totality-of-the-
circumstances analysis is inapplicable in cases in which only one fact is relied upon 
to justify an investigatory seizure.  I would also hold that a police officer’s 
knowledge of secondhand anecdotal information from an unidentified source does 
not constitute personal experience or specialized training. 
{¶ 30} This case is a far cry from Terry and United States v. Arvizu, 534 
U.S. 266, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002), both of which involved multiple 
facts that cumulatively led an officer to infer criminal activity, requiring a totality-
of-the-circumstances analysis.  Here, instead of having a single inference based 
upon a wealth of assorted facts, we have a wealth of inferences based upon a single 
fact.  And the single fact in this case is that a 15-year-old black GMC SUV was 
registered as a 15-year-old white GMC SUV. 
{¶ 31} Rather than asking whether such a color discrepancy alone provides 
a police officer with reasonable suspicion that the vehicle or its license plates may 
be stolen, the certified question asks whether such a color discrepancy and the 
officer’s belief that the vehicle or license plates may be stolen provides a police 
Supreme Court of Ohio 
 
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officer with reasonable suspicion that the vehicle or its license plates may be stolen.  
My belief is that the certifying appellate court confounded an officer’s inferences 
from the circumstances with the circumstances themselves in order to portray the 
case as one requiring a consideration of the totality of multiple circumstances. 
{¶ 32} In a review of a police officer’s assertion of reasonable suspicion, 
“due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 
‘hunch,’ but to the specific reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from 
the facts.”  (Emphasis added.)  Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 
889.  An officer’s experience and background are certainly important 
considerations when determining whether the inferences he drew from the facts 
were reasonable.  Id.; Arvizu at 273.  But an officer’s inferences drawn from the 
facts, as well as the background and experience informing those inferences, are not 
part of the facts themselves.  Thus, in this case, Officer Jeffery Heinz’s background 
and his personal belief that the vehicle driven by Hawkins might have been stolen 
cannot be used to pad the sole fact supporting his investigatory seizure of Hawkins 
in order to justify a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis. 
{¶ 33} In addition to accepting the false premise that this case involves the 
consideration of multiple facts, the majority defends the reasonableness of Officer 
Heinz’s inferences by referencing the notion that police officers “ ‘draw on their 
own experience and specialized training’ ” when making inferences about those 
facts.  Majority at ¶ 21, quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 
740.  But Officer Heinz did not testify as to any personal experience or specialized 
training to justify the connection he drew between vehicle/registration color 
discrepancies and the switching of license plates on stolen vehicles. 
{¶ 34} If anything, Officer Heinz’s testimony regarding his personal 
experience on the police force suggested that license-plate-switching was not likely 
to have happened.  Officer Heinz testified that he had been a police officer in 
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Washington Court House for over 14 years.  Over the course of his career, he had 
investigated more vehicle thefts than he could count.  He had investigated both 
vehicle thefts and license-plate thefts.  But he had not once in his entire 14-year 
career encountered a situation in which a person had stolen a vehicle and replaced 
its license plates with plates that he had stolen from a similar vehicle of a different 
color.  He assured the court, though, that “it is done.”  He did not cite any 
specialized training that had led to his understanding that “it is done.”  He simply 
indicated that such a crime had occurred one or more times in his city.  The majority 
quotes a portion of Officer Heinz’s testimony in which he implies that his 
knowledge of these crimes comes from his own experience.  Majority opinion at 
¶ 12.  But that testimony was clarified when the officer was asked whether he had 
personal experience involving stolen vehicles with switched plates and he said that 
he did not. 
{¶ 35} Because Officer Heinz’s belief was based on secondhand anecdotal 
information from an unknown source rather than personal experience or specialized 
training, his personal belief does not add much weight to the analysis, let alone 
dispositive weight.  More importantly, Officer Heinz’s testimony about his 
secondhand information seemed to be an attempt to demonstrate the likelihood that 
a car thief might switch license plates in order to evade detection.  But his testimony 
in no way demonstrated the likelihood that anyone driving a car with a 
vehicle/registration color discrepancy might be a car thief who had switched license 
plates. 
{¶ 36} Ohio’s laws and regulations governing vehicle registration, R.C. 
Chapter 4503 and Ohio Adm.Code 4501:1-7, do not address vehicle color at all, let 
alone require a driver to immediately file a new registration application to update 
or correct a vehicle’s registered color.  There is nothing unlawful in Ohio about 
Supreme Court of Ohio 
 
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driving a vehicle whose color does not match the color listed on the vehicle’s 
registration.  The baseline here, then, is that driving such a vehicle is consistent 
with innocent conduct.  If behavior is consistent with innocent conduct, it must be 
combined with additional conduct if it is to be used to establish reasonable 
suspicion of illegal conduct.  Terry, 392 U.S. at 22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889; 
United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 9-10, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); 
United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 419-420, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 
(1981); United States v. Manzo-Jurado, 457 F.3d 928, 935 (9th Cir.2006) 
(“Seemingly innocuous behavior does not justify an investigatory stop unless it is 
combined with other circumstances that tend cumulatively to indicate criminal 
activity”). 
{¶ 37} It is true that the proper inquiry for making a determination of 
reasonable suspicion is not whether each individual act is innocent or guilty.  
Sokolow at 10, citing Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 243, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 
L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), fn. 13.  But it is also true that the reasonable-suspicion inquiry 
requires that some acceptable “degree of suspicion” must attach to a noncriminal 
act.  Id.  So what degree of suspicion attaches here?  Is driving a vehicle with a 
color that does not match the color listed on the vehicle’s registration the kind of 
behavior to which reasonable suspicion of illegal activity readily attaches, as is true 
of running away after seeing police, Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124, 120 
S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000), or smelling distinctively of marijuana, United 
States v. Ramos, 443 F.3d 304, 308 (3d Cir.2006)?  Or is this the kind of behavior 
that, although unusual, does not yield a high enough degree of suspicion on its own 
to justify an investigatory seizure, such as possessing luggage that smells of an 
unidentified chemical, United States v. Little, 18 F.3d 1499, 1506 (10th Cir.1994), 
wearing a wig and sunglasses, People v. Tate, 367 Ill.App.3d 109, 116-117, 853 
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N.E.2d 1249 (2006), or having more than one air freshener in a vehicle, United 
States v. Rodriguez-Escalera, 884 F.3d 661, 670 (7th Cir.2018)? 
{¶ 38} I believe that driving a vehicle that is a color other than the color 
listed on its registration falls solidly in the second category.  The majority of 
jurisdictions addressing this issue tend to agree: so long as a color discrepancy does 
not constitute a violation of state law, then the discrepancy, standing alone, does 
not adequately support reasonable suspicion absent some other indicia of criminal 
activity.  United States v. Uribe, 709 F.3d 646 (7th Cir.2013); Schneider v. State, 
2015 Ark. 152, 459 S.W.3d 296; State v. Teamer, 151 So.3d 421 (Fla.2014); 
Commonwealth v. Mason, Va.App. No. 1956-09-2, 2010 WL 768721 (Mar. 9, 
2010) (unpublished decision); State v. O’Neill, N.H.Super. Nos. 06-S-3456 and 06-
S-3457, 2007 WL 2227131 (Apr. 17, 2007).  Compare Smith v. State, 713 N.E.2d 
338, 342 (Ind.App.1999) (court upheld traffic stop; held that mismatch in color 
constituted a traffic violation under Indiana law). 
{¶ 39} In this case, it was within the realm of possibility that Hawkins stole 
a black 2001 GMC SUV, drove around until he found another 2001 GMC SUV 
(which happened to be white), stole the license plates from the white 2001 GMC 
SUV, and put those plates on the black 2001 GMC SUV.  It was also quite possible 
that the vehicle was originally white but was painted black at some point in the 
previous 15 years.  And it was also quite possible that the vehicle had always been 
black and a mistake was made at some point in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ 
(“BMV’s”) record keeping or in the transfer of the vehicle-registration information 
to the police.1  Although it is unusual for a vehicle’s color not to match the color 
listed on its registration, there is nothing in Hawkins’s suppression hearing 
                                                     
 
1.  The latter circumstance seems to have been the case for the vehicle that Hawkins was driving: 
all of the BMV records prior to June 2016 that are in the record before this court do not indicate any 
color for the 2001 GMC SUV, and the only document indicating the color as white is a document 
that was printed from police records and was submitted by the state.     
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establishing that the drivers of such vehicles are not, by and large, innocent 
travelers.  Thus, subjecting all such drivers to random investigatory seizures offends 
the Fourth Amendment’s basic protections.  See Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 
441, 100 S.Ct. 2752, 65 L.Ed.2d 890 (1980). 
{¶ 40} Officer 
Heinz’s 
testimony 
did 
not 
establish 
that 
a 
vehicle/registration color discrepancy, alone, gives rise to a reasonable suspicion 
that the vehicle’s driver is engaged in criminal activity.  Instead, Officer Heinz’s 
testimony established that he had a hunch that this might be one of those instances 
in which the innocent conduct might not actually be innocent.  Because nothing 
more than an inchoate suspicion of criminal activity was present in this case, I 
would reverse the judgment of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals. 
_________________ 
Jess C. Weade, Fayette County Prosecuting Attorney, and John M. Scott Jr., 
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
Shannon M. Treynor, for appellant. 
_________________