Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-07-03087/USCOURTS-ca10-07-03087-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Henry Osvaldo Martinez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

March 3, 2008

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court PUBLISH

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

HENRY OSVALDO MARTINEZ, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

No. 07-3087

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Kansas

(D.C. No. 06-CR-40080-RDR)

Melody Evans, Assistant Federal Public Defender (David J. Phillips,

Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Topeka, Kansas, for

Defendant-Appellant.

James A. Brown, Assistant United States Attorney (Eric F. Melgren, United

States Attorney, with him on the brief), Topeka, Kansas, for PlaintiffAppellee.

Before TACHA, ANDERSON, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 1 
1

 K.S.A. § 8-133 provides in its entirety:

The license plate assigned to the vehicle shall be attached to

the rear thereof and shall be so displayed during the current

registration year or years, and no Kansas registration plate for any

other year shall appear on the front of the vehicle, except that: (a) The

license plate issued for a truck tractor shall be attached to the front of

the truck tractor; (b) a model year license plate may be attached to the

front of an antique vehicle, in accordance with K.S.A. 8-172, and

amendments thereto; or (c) a personalized license plate as authorized

under subsection (c) of K.S.A. 8-132, and amendments thereto, may

(continued...)

-2-

Traffic stops based on allegedly defective temporary vehicle

registration tags have given rise to a whole body of law in our court. This

case presents yet another twist in that ongoing story. Today, we hold that a

trooper who effected a traffic stop because an out-of-state temporary

registration permit was not displayed on the rear of the car, as required by

Kansas law, did not act unreasonably for purposes of the Fourth

Amendment, and we affirm the district court’s judgment to the same effect.

I

Kansas State Trooper Andrew Dean stopped Henry Osvaldo Martinez

and his traveling companion, Jennifer Candelas, on I-70 in Riley County,

Kansas, because he saw no license plate attached to the rear of Mr.

Martinez’s black Jeep Liberty, as required by K.S.A. § 8-133, which

provides that a license plate “shall be attached to the rear” of virtually every

vehicle. 1

 

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 2 
1

(...continued)

be attached to the front of a passenger vehicle or truck. Every license

plate shall at all times be securely fastened to the vehicle to which it is

assigned so as to prevent the plate from swinging, and at a height not

less than 12 inches from the ground, measuring from the bottom of

such plate, in a place and position to be clearly visible, and shall be

maintained free from foreign materials and in a condition to be clearly

legible. During any period in which the construction of license plates

has been suspended pursuant to the provisions of K.S.A. 8-132, and

amendments thereto, the plate, tag, token, marker or sign assigned to

such vehicle shall be attached to and displayed on such vehicle in such

place, position, manner and condition as shall be prescribed by the

director of vehicles.

-3-

When Trooper Dean approached the Jeep and explained the problem,

Mr. Martinez pointed to the front windshield, where a document was taped

on the passenger’s side. The document indicated that it was a “One Trip

Permit” from the State of California. The permit was made out to Mr.

Martinez, had the vehicle identification number or “VIN” of the Jeep, and

was dated the previous day. According to the back of the permit, visible to

those inside the car, it was good for, among other things, “one continuous

trip from a place within this state to a place within or without this state.” 

The front of the permit indicated that the departure point of the vehicle was

Lawndale, California, and that Mr. Martinez’s destination was Buffalo, New

York. According to the instructions accompanying the permit, it had “to be

affixed to the inside lower right-hand corner of the windshield with the face

of the permit showing to the front of the vehicle,” just as, in fact, it was. 

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 3 
-4-

Next to the permit was a “New Vehicle Dealer Notice Temporary

Identification” from a California Jeep dealership purporting to show that the

vehicle was originally sold new several months earlier to a Bradley R.

Wirtz. 

At trial, Trooper Dean, a five and a half year veteran of the Kansas

state patrol, testified that he did not recognize either document, was

unfamiliar with One Trip permits, and did not know whether the car was

lawfully registered. So Trooper Dean asked Mr. Martinez for his license

and registration, which Mr. Martinez provided along with a salvage title to

the vehicle. Asked about his travel plans, Mr. Martinez replied that he was

driving from Los Angeles to Buffalo to start a tattoo parlor. Mr. Martinez

added that he and Ms. Candelas had a place to stay in Buffalo, but later

seemed to backtrack and indicate that the pair was going to have to look for

a place to stay. 

Trooper Dean took the documentation to his car and ran a computer

check on Mr. Martinez’s license. It proved valid and no criminal history

involving drugs appeared. The salvage title, however, was not signed over

to Mr. Martinez, and neither did his name appear anywhere on the title. 

Although Mr. Martinez also provided Trooper Dean with a document

indicating that the Jeep had been sold to Mr. Martinez, Trooper Dean

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 4 
-5-

testified that he thought it odd that the title itself did not indicate that Mr.

Martinez owned the vehicle. 

Trooper Dean decided to issue a written warning for violating K.S.A.

§ 8-133, prepared the warning, and then returned to the Jeep. There, he

handed Mr. Martinez his paperwork along with the ticket, told the driver to

“have a good one,” and walked back in the direction of his patrol car. 

Before getting there, Trooper Dean turned, retraced his steps, approached

Mr. Martinez again, and inquired whether he could ask a few more

questions. Mr. Martinez assented and Trooper Dean asked if he could

search the Jeep. Mr. Martinez again agreed, and in a hidden compartment

Trooper Dean discovered 9 kilograms of powder cocaine.

After his indictment on a single count of possession with intent to

distribute, Mr. Martinez moved to suppress the drugs. In doing so, Mr.

Martinez did not challenge his initial detention, conceding that Trooper

Dean had sufficient cause to stop the Jeep for suspicion of violating K.S.A.

§ 8-133. Neither did he complain about the trooper’s request, at the end of

the stop, for consent to search the vehicle. Instead, Mr. Martinez focused on

what we might call the middle part of his stop – after his initial detention

and before the trooper’s request for consent to search. Mr. Martinez

contended that Trooper Dean should’ve immediately realized there was no

traffic infraction when he saw the One Trip permit attached to the front

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 5 
-6-

windshield in accord with California law; Mr. Martinez’s continued

detention while Trooper Dean prepared a written warning was, he alleged,

unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. 

 The district court denied the motion to suppress, reasoning that

K.S.A. § 8-133 requires license plates to be placed on the rear of vehicles in

Kansas; that the law applies to temporary registrations tags, as well as outof-state vehicles; and that Mr. Martinez’s display of his tag on the front of

his vehicle was therefore unlawful. Given all this, the court reasoned, Mr.

Martinez’s detention while the trooper prepared a ticket was reasonable. 

Following the district court’s ruling, Mr. Martinez pled guilty, reserving the

right to challenge the adverse suppression ruling on appeal. 

II

Traffic stops in connection with allegedly defective out-of-state and

temporary tags have given rise in our circuit to a long line of Fourth

Amendment cases. See, e.g., United States v. Ledesma, 447 F.3d 1307 (10th

Cir. 2006); United States v. Edgerton, 438 F.3d 1043 (10th Cir. 2006);

United States v. DeGasso, 369 F.3d 1139 (10th Cir. 2004); United States v.

McSwain, 29 F.3d 558 (10th Cir. 1994); United States v. ArcigaBustamante, 2006 WL 1659779 (10th Cir. 2006). But none of these cases

answers directly the narrow question posed to us. Because Mr. Martinez

does not challenge the beginning or end of his particular stop, the only

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 6 
-7-

question we are called upon to answer is whether, after having viewed the

One Trip permit but before he sought permission to search, Trooper Dean

had reasonable suspicion of a traffic infraction to justify detaining Mr.

Martinez while he prepared and issued a ticket. Because no material dispute

of fact exists between the parties, this appeal poses purely a question of law

that we consider de novo, namely whether the trooper’s conduct was

objectively reasonable in light of existing Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. 

A traffic stop, after all, must be reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes

not merely in its inception but throughout its duration and in the entirety of

its scope. 

In approaching this question, we begin where the district court did: 

with the plain language of K.S.A. § 8-133. That statute expressly requires

that “[t]he license plate assigned to the vehicle shall be attached to the rear

thereof.” Id. (emphasis added). And it is undisputed that Mr. Martinez’s

permit was posted on the front, rather than the back, of the vehicle. So,

syllogistically, it would appear, at least on first blush, that the statute rather

straightforwardly gave the trooper a reasonable basis for suspecting an

ongoing traffic infraction and thus for detaining Mr. Martinez, at least for a

period sufficient to write a ticket. 

Before us, Mr. Martinez does not allege that his detention exceeded

the period appropriate for the preparation of a traffic ticket, but argues

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 7 
-8-

instead that, in his view, after seeing the One Trip permit, Trooper Dean

immediately should’ve let Mr. Martinez go on his way, the apparently plain

language of K.S.A. § 8-133 notwithstanding. In support of his cause, Mr.

Martinez offers several arguments.

1. Mr. Martinez contends that, read in context, the requirement that

a license plate be displayed on the rear of the car applies only to license

plates issued by the State of Kansas, not out-of-state plates. But the first

clause of the first sentence of K.S.A. § 8-133 makes no mention of Kansas

license plates, and instead refers generically to the “license plate assigned

to the vehicle,” thus suggesting its application to all vehicles operated in the

state. Id. To our minds, this reading is confirmed by the fact that, in the

very same sentence, the Legislature placed an express limitation on

placement of old Kansas license plates (“no Kansas registration plate for

any other year shall appear on the front of the vehicle, except that . . .”). Id. 

Where the Legislature wished to single out Kansas license plates, then, it

seemed to do so expressly, and it is our practice to give respect and meaning

to a legislative decision to employ different language in different parts of

the same statute. As the Supreme Court has instructed, “when the

legislature uses certain language in one part of the statute and different

language in another, the court assumes different meanings were intended.” 

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 8 
2

 The district court held that K.S.A. § 126a, which defines temporary

permits as license plates, includes temporary out-of-state permits, and thus

California’s One Trip permit is a “license plate” within the meaning of

Kansas law. Cf. Edgerton, 438 F.3d at 1046 n.2. Although Mr. Martinez

appears to raise this issue in his reply brief on appeal, he did not challenge

the district court’s ruling in his opening brief, and thus this argument is

waived. Headrick v. Rockwell Int’l. Corp., 24 F.3d 1272, 1277-78 (10th Cir.

1994) (White, J., sitting by designation). 

3

 K.S.A. § 8-138a provides that:

The provisions of this section shall apply only to the nonresident owner

or owners of any motor vehicle constructed and operated primarily for

the transportation of the driver or the driver and one or more nonpaying

passengers. Such nonresident owners, when duly licensed in the state of

residence, are hereby granted the privilege of operation of any such

vehicle within this state to the extent that reciprocal privileges are

granted to residents of this state by the state of residence of such

nonresident owner.

-9-

Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 712 n.9 (2004) (internal quotations

omitted). We see no reason to depart from that practice here. 2

 

2. Mr. Martinez points us to Kansas’s motor vehicle reciprocity

statute, K.S.A. § 8-138a, 3

 and argues that, by its terms, his compliance with

California motor vehicle laws sufficed to render him in compliance with

Kansas law. We think this argument fails for two reasons. 

a. In the first place, Kansas appears not to have read its motor

vehicle reciprocity statute so broadly. In State v. Hayes, 660 P.2d 1387

(Kan. Ct. App. 1983), the Kansas Court of Appeals suggested that, while an

out-of-state driver who complies with his or her home state’s licensing laws

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 9 
4

 The case cited by Mr. Martinez, State v. Wakole, 959 P.2d 882 (Kan.

1998), says nothing generally about whether the reciprocity statute exempts

out-of-staters authorized to operate vehicles in Kansas from complying with

provisions of Kansas law about the manner of operation and likewise does

not specifically address K.S.A. § 8-133. 

-10-

is granted “the privilege of operat[ing]” a motor vehicle in Kansas, K.S.A.

§ 8-138a (emphasis added), this does not mean that the manner in which such

a motor vehicle is operated is “total[ly] exempt[] from Kansas law.” Hayes,

660 P.2d at 1389. The court in Hayes then went on to state that “the display

of an illegible or obscured vehicle tag is a violation of K.S.A. § 8-133 even

if the vehicle is duly licensed in another state.” Id. (emphasis added). We

have already read Hayes to just this effect, Ledesma, 447 F.3d at 1313, and

are of course bound not just by Kansas’s interpretation of its own law but

also by our own precedent. 4

To be sure, we face today the application of a slightly different

portion of K.S.A. § 8-133 – not its prohibition against obscuring a license

plate, as in Hayes and Ledesma, but its related specifications about where

the plate should be placed in order to be most visible. And Hayes, of course,

did not definitively hold that out-of-state drivers are subject to all Kansas

regulations concerning the manner in which they operate their vehicles,

indicating rather that out-of-state vehicles are not “total[ly] exempt[]” from

Kansas laws. However, the court’s decision in Hayes rested on “[t]he

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 10 
5

 We do not, of course, foreclose an argument in the future by noting

we have not been presented with one to decide in this case. 

-11-

purpose of requiring display of a tag in the first place, and legibility of the

tag displayed,” namely to facilitate “routine license plate check[s].” Hayes,

660 P.2d at 1389. The inclusion of both of these regulations in the same

section of the Kansas code suggests that they have the same purpose, and

Mr. Martinez offers no reasoned basis why Kansas would be inclined to

enforce one clause of K.S.A. § 8-133 but not another against out-of-state

vehicles, or why the rear placement of license plates is any more or less

important to Kansas than its dictates about keeping plates themselves free

from obstructions. 5

While one might argue that Kansas seems tough on out-of-staters –

requiring them to move temporary tags from the front to the back as they

pass through Kansas – we are not free to rewrite Kansas law. Our obligation

instead is to follow the law of Kansas as set forth in Hayes and interpreted

in Ledesma. In passing, Mr. Martinez replies that Hayes and Ledesma’s

understanding of Kansas’s reciprocity statute may be so narrow that it

amounts to an unconstitutional burden on his right to travel, an argument

that would of course trump any application of Kansas law. But this

contention appears only in a fleeting sentence at the conclusion of Mr.

Martinez’s opening brief, supported by no analysis or citation; without any

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 11 
-12-

such development, our precedent instructs us to deem the point waived and

leave any such challenge for another day. See Williams v. W.D. Sports,

N.M., Inc., 497 F.3d 1079, 1095 (10th Cir. 2007).

b. Even if the reciprocity statute authorized not only Mr. Martinez’s

operation of the Jeep in Kansas but also his non-compliance with K.S.A.

§ 8-133’s dictates about the placement of his temporary tag, one might ask

whether a reasonable officer is fairly chargeable, for Fourth Amendment

purposes, with knowledge of obscure details of the motor vehicle licensing

regimes of distant states. While run of the mine out-of-state license plates

cannot reasonably be presumed invalid per se, Trooper Dean testified that in

his five and half year career he had never seen a One Trip permit, there is

apparently no analog to it in Kansas law, and we have previously held that

state troopers “cannot be expected to possess encyclopedic knowledge of the

traffic regulations of other states.” Ledesma, 447 F.3d at 1313. Mr.

Martinez himself concedes, too, that a reasonable officer “would not be

expected” to possess knowledge of the arcania of distant states’ licensing

regimes. Op. Br. at 27. It therefore seems to us that, under these particular

circumstances and on this record, even if the reciprocity statute might’ve

afforded Mr. Martinez a good defense against any effort to prosecute him

for a violation of K.S.A. § 8-133, we cannot say that, for the purposes of the

Fourth Amendment, the trooper’s skepticism about the propriety of the

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 12 
-13-

permit and its placement, as well as his concomitant decision to detain Mr.

Martinez briefly to run a computer check, was objectively unreasonable.

3. Whatever the impact of the reciprocity statute, Mr. Martinez

argues that our decision in Edgerton controls this case and requires its

reversal. A limited number of remarkable parallels in the two cases cannot

be denied. Edgerton involved the self-same Trooper Dean now before us,

pulling over a car for violating the very statute now at issue before us. And,

as here, Trooper Dean was unable to see any license plate on the rear of

defendants’ car and effected a stop. 

But from there, the cases diverge. After the stop in Edgerton, the

driver drew Trooper Dean’s attention to a Colorado temporary license tag

that was visibly affixed to the rear window. Trooper Dean nonetheless

continued the detention for purposes of writing a warning for a putative

violation of K.S.A. § 8-133. After issuing the warning, Trooper Dean, just

as here, briefly walked away only to return and ask for permission to search

the vehicle, soon to discover drugs. We held that, while the initial stop was

reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, once Trooper Dean saw that a tag

existed, that it was properly placed on the rear of the car, and given that he

had no basis for suspecting its invalidity, “any suspicion that Defendant had

violated § 8-133 dissipated.” 438 F.3d at 1051; see also McSwain, 29 F.3d

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 13 
-14-

at 561 (holding that traffic stop should’ve ended when any reasonable

suspicion of traffic infraction dissipated). 

By contrast, in our case reasonable concern about a possible infraction

of Kansas’s law requiring display of a license plate on the rear of a vehicle,

minor though such an infraction may be, did not dissipate once Trooper

Dean approached and viewed the One Trip permit. In fact, closer inspection

confirmed that no license plate was affixed to the rear of the Jeep as

required by K.S.A. § 8-133, and thus supported the detention of Mr.

Martinez for a reasonable time to prepare a traffic citation – a period the

trooper, again, is not alleged to have exceeded. 

4. Mr. Martinez charges that Trooper Dean decided to issue the

warning under K.S.A. § 8-133 not out of concern over the temporary tag’s

placement on the front of the Jeep but because he (wrongly) thought it was

illegible. As the government points out, however, Trooper Dean testified

that he thought the placement of the tag, and not merely its legibility,

violated Kansas law. In any event, the trooper’s subjective intent is not

relevant to a Fourth Amendment analysis, see, e.g., United States v.

Santana-Garcia, 264 F.3d 1188, 1192 (10th Cir. 2001); instead, our charge

is to ask whether, from an objective point of view, reasonable suspicion

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 14 
-15-

existed that Mr. Martinez had violated K.S.A. § 8-133 and, for reasons

already explored, we agree with the district court that it did. 

Affirmed.

Appellate Case: 07-3087 Document: 0101138011 Date Filed: 03/03/2008 Page: 15