Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-05139/USCOURTS-ca10-90-05139-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Leonard Dewaine White
Appellant

Document Text:

FI LED 

United Sraces Court of Appeals 

Tenrh Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

JUN 12 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

V • ) 

) 

LEONARD DEWAINE WHITE, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

No. 90-5139 

(D.C. No. 90-CR-022-C) 

( N. D. Okla. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT! 

Before McKAY and LOGAN, Circuit Judges, and BRIMMER, Chief 

District Judge.2 

On May 22, 1990, Leonard Dewaine White entered a conditional 

plea of guilty in the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Oklahoma to one count of removal of a motor 

vehicle identification number. See 18 u.s.c. § 511 (1988). The 

defendant reserved the right to appeal the district court's denial 

of his motion to suppress evidence seized as a result of a 

warrantless search of the vehicle. That is the sole issue on 

1 This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

2 Honorable Clarence A. Brimmer, Chief Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Wyoming, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 90-5139 Document: 010110119405 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 1 
appeal. Because the defendant does not contest the findings of 

fact made by the trial court, we are concerned only with whether 

the law enforcement officers conducted an unlawful search. 

On June 20, 1990, Tulsa police officer Stephen R. Wood 

received from his sergeant a note describing a stolen vehicle that 

would be at a given location at an approximate time. The note was 

written by a fellow officer and addressed to the sergeant. The 

original source of the information, however, was unknown. The 

information included the name of a possible driver of the vehicle 

and two possible vehicle license tags under whose authority the 

vehicle was being driven. 

After running a registration check on the two possible 

license tag numbers, Officer Wood drove to the location identified 

in the note and parked across the street. A truck matching the 

description of the suspected stolen vehicle was parked in the 

parking lot. The license tag on the truck, which matched one of 

the two numbers in the note, had expired in December of 1987. 

Approximately forty minutes after Officer Wood arrived, the 

defendant drove the vehicle off the parking lot and onto a public 

street. Officer Wood stopped the truck. The police officer testified at the suppression hearing that he stopped the defendant's 

vehicle both because he suspected it was a stolen truck and 

because it had an expired license tag. 

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Appellate Case: 90-5139 Document: 010110119405 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 2 
Officer Wood escorted the defendant back to Officer Wood's 

patrol car. Another police officer examined the vehicle identification number located on the driver's side door that the defendant 

left open when he exited the truck. Afterward, a third officer 

who supervised the commercial auto theft unit of the police 

department arrived. He examined the VIN plate and concluded that 

it had been taken off another vehicle's door and reattached to the 

door of the truck driven by the defendant. After an unsuccessful 

attempt to locate another vehicle identification number elsewhere 

on the truck, the third officer had the truck towed to the police 

auto theft garage. A later inspection of the truck at the auto 

theft garage revealed a second vehicle identification number; a 

vehicle under that VIN was listed as stolen. 

The defendant filed a motion before the district court to 

suppress all evidence seized as a result of the warrantless search 

and seizure of the truck. After hearing evidence, the district 

court denied defendant's motion. The district court found that 

the officers had the right to view the VIN number on the pickup 

and that the search of the pickup was justified as an inventory 

search. 

After reviewing the record and arguments of the parties, we 

affirm the judgment of the trial court. The expired tag alone 

provided sufficient probable cause for the officer's stop of the 

vehicle driven by defendant. In addition, the defendant does not 

seek to exclude any evidence obtained from the interior of the 

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Appellate Case: 90-5139 Document: 010110119405 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 3 
vehicle. The altered VIN plate on the open driver's door was in 

plain view to the officers; moreover, it is well-settled that no 

reasonable expectation of privacy exists in an automobile 

identification number. New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 118-19 

(1986). We need not therefore reach the district court's finding 

of a lawful inventory search. 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court 

Monroe G. McKay 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 90-5139 Document: 010110119405 Date Filed: 06/12/1991 Page: 4