United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 11-3055

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Mariano Valencia Mendoza

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant

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No. 11-3062

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Jose Francisco Garza Tovar

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Des Moines

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 Submitted: March 15, 2012

 Filed: September 10, 2012

Before WOLLMAN and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges, and HICKEY, DistrictJudge. 1

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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Mariano Valencia Mendoza and Jose Francisco Garza Tovar entered

conditional guilty pleas to possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of

methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A). On appeal,

they challenge the district court’s denial of their motions to suppress evidence. We

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affirm. 

I.

On December 21, 2010, Officer Stephanie Swartz of the Des Moines Police

Department was on routine patrol when she overheard a radio request from agents of

the Drug Enforcement Administration. The agents wanted a marked unit ofthe police

department to stop a black Volvo sedan that was under surveillance. Swartz saw the

vehicle, pulled behind it, and made a traffic stop. In explaining the basis for the stop,

Swartz testified:

There was what appeared to be a paper tag up in the left-hand corner of

the rear window, I was pretty confident that it wasn’t an Iowa tag, I

couldn’t read the state of origin, and I had had two recent cases that I

The Honorable Susan O. Hickey, United States DistrictJudge for the Western 1

District of Arkansas, sitting by designation.

The Honorable John A. Jarvey, United States District Judge for the Southern 2

District of Iowa. 

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had dealt with within the pastsix months where people had either forged

tags for themselves or bought fraudulent tags from other people to be

displayed in the vehicle. 

Swartz was approximately fifteen to twenty feet behind the vehicle when she

observed the tag and decided to stop the car. She was unfamiliar with temporary tags

from States other than Iowa and Illinois, and she was unable to read the name of a

State of origin on the tag. Swartz thought the tag looked improper and looked like

something a person could make with a printer. She also noticed that the tag’s

expiration date was written in large, handwritten block numbers. She thought this

was suspicious, because block numbering could be used to alter an expiration date. 

Swartz approached the car and asked the driver, Tovar, for his driver’s license.

Tovar said he did not have a license, and Swartz asked Tovar and his passenger,

Mendoza, to step out of the vehicle. Swartz asked Tovar if there was anything in the

car that she “needed to be concerned about,” to which Tovar replied, “no, go ahead

and look.” While Swartz issued Tovar a citation for driving without a license,

another officer searched the vehicle and found controlled substances.

A grand jury charged Tovar and Mendoza with possession with intent to

distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. Both defendants moved to

suppress the evidence obtained fromthe search ofthe vehicle. Noting that the vehicle

displayed a valid temporary tag fromanother State, they argued that Swartz’s decision

to stop the car was not supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Because

the stop was unlawful, they argued, Tovar’s consent to search the vehicle and his

subsequent statements to law enforcement were the fruits of an illegal seizure.

The district court, relying on our decision in United States v. Sanchez, 572 F.3d

475 (8th Cir. 2009), denied the motions to suppress. The court found that Swartz

“credibly testified that she could not read the state of origin of the temporary tag and

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that she genuinely believed based on her experience that the tag’s simple color

scheme made it appear like something that could be forged.” The court deemed

Sanchez indistinguishable and concluded that Swartz had reasonable suspicion to

make the traffic stop.

Tovar and Mendoza entered conditional guilty pleas, reserving the right to

appeal the denial of their motions to suppress. On appeal, Tovar argues that the

district court made clearly erroneous factual findings regarding Swartz’s credibility,

and both defendants argue that Swartz’s seizure of the car violated the Fourth

Amendment. 

II.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” A

traffic stop constitutes a seizure of the vehicle’s occupants. Brendlin v. California,

551 U.S. 249, 255-57 (2007). To be reasonable, the stop must be supported by at

least “reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity may be afoot.” United

States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (internal quotations omitted). We review

the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. 

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996). 

A.

We see no clear error in the district court’s factual findings. Tovar argues that

Swartz’s testimony was inconsistent with her report, in which Swartz stated that she

“could not read” the paper in the vehicle’s rear window. Tovar maintainsthat Swartz

“modified her story” when she testified that she “couldn’t really read any part of the

tag well.” He also argues that Swartz’s testimony regarding the tag’s coloring and

block numbers is inconsistent with her report, which did not mention these facts. 

Swartz’s testimony is not internally inconsistent or facially implausible. While

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documents or objective evidence may contradict a witness’s story and render her

testimony incredible, Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 575

(1985), there is no such contradiction here. Swartz’s testimony provided additional

details regarding her observations, but elaboration is not a contradiction that compels

a finding that the witness was incredible.

Tovar also argues that the court clearly erred in finding that Swartz believed

that the tag’s “simple color scheme” made it look like something that could be forged. 

This finding, however, was a reasonable inference from Swartz’s testimony. Swartz

testified that Iowa’s temporary tags include a “red kind of swirly symbol,” and that

the tag in this case did not feature the colors of an Iowa temporary tag. She testified

thatshe saw “blue bars of some kind” on the tag, but she did not recognize the colors,

and she observ ed that she “couldn’t verify that it was a legitimate tag and not

something that someone had made on their printer.” In light of this testimony, we

cannot say that the district court’s finding is clearly erroneous.

Tovar next contends that Swartz was “less than forthcoming” about her

experience with forged tags. He points to cross-examination in which Swartz

acknowledged telling an investigator that she “often” encountered fraudulent

temporary tags during traffic stops, even though the government produced reports of

only two such incidents at the hearing. Swartz also testified, however, that she has

stopped a number of cars with altered tags, but that not all of those incidents resulted

in citations or arrests. The district court thus reasonably inferred that Swartz had

recent experience with fraudulent tags, and thatshe “genuinely believed based on her

experience” that the tag could have been forged. There is no clear error on this point.

Finally, Tovar argues that Swartz’s testimony that she did not look at the tag

while approaching the vehicle is “so implausible on its face” that the district court

clearly erred in crediting any of Swartz’s testimony. Swartz explained that she did

not look at the tag because her “attention [was] on the driver and any other occupants

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of the vehicle for safety reasons.” She elaborated thatshe was “[t]rying to make sure

that nobody has a weapon, nobody is fleeing the vehicle, nobody is making any

furtive movements in the front seat or the back seat, ascertain how many passengers

there are, et cetera.” Especially in view of the fact that Swartz knew the occupants

were under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, this testimony is

not inherently implausible.

B.

The district court determined that this case is controlled by our decision in

Sanchez. In that case, a Nebraska state trooper observed a minivan without a front

or rear license plate, but with a piece of paper affixed where a rear license plate would

have been displayed. Sanchez, 572 F.3d at 476. As the trooper pursued the minivan

and approached it from the rear, he could read three lines of text on the paper. Id. at

476-77. At the bottom of the paper, in much smaller type, were the words “Arizona

Temporary Registration Plate.” Id. The law enforcement officer, however, could not

read these words from his vantage point, and he could not discern the name of any

issuing State. Id. at 477. “Suspecting that the paper was not an official document,

he decided to stop the minivan to investigate.” Id. The trooper eventually obtained

consent to search the minivan and found controlled substances. Id. The defendants

moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search. Id. They argued that the

piece of paper was a valid Arizona temporary plate, and because it was clearly visible

from the outside of the vehicle, the officer should have recognized that it was an

official document. Id. The district court denied the motions to suppress, and the

defendant was convicted.

On appeal, we noted that Nebraska law generally requires vehicles to display

front and rear license plates, but makes an exception for recently purchased vehicles,

which may display two temporary “In Transit” stickers. Id. at 478. Nebraska law

also provides an exception for out-of-state vehicles, which must comply with the

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requirements of the jurisdiction in which they are registered. Id. Even assuming that

the vehicle in Sanchez properly displayed registration from another jurisdiction, we

held that the traffic stop was lawful. Id. We thought it was “objectively reasonable

for [the trooper] to expect that the name of the issuing jurisdiction would appear

conspicuously on the face of an official document, and to investigate further if a name

was not visible.” Id. at 479. “[B]ecause the printing on the paper affixed to the rear

was too small to read in its entirety, and no issuing jurisdiction was identifiable, he

reasonably suspected that the paper was not an official document that complied with

the licensing requirements of another State.” Id.

Iowa law generally requires vehicles to display front and rear license plates. 

Iowa Code § 321.37(1). Owners of recently purchased vehicles, however, may

display a “registration applied for” card on the rear of the vehicle for forty-five days. 

Id. § 321.25. Iowa also makes exception for nonresidents’ vehicles, which need only

display the registration required by the nonresident’s jurisdiction. Id. § 321.53. 

The determination of whether reasonable suspicion existed “is not to be made

with the vision of hindsight, but instead by looking at what the officer reasonably

knew at the time.” Sanchez, 572 F.3d at 478 (internal quotation omitted). At the time

of the traffic stop, Swartz observed what appeared to be a paper tag in the vehicle’s

rear window. She was confident that it was not an Iowa temporary tag. Despite

observing it from a distance of fifteen to twenty feet, she was unable to identify an

issuing State. Her suspicions also were aroused by the large, handwritten block

numbers. In her experience, dealers write expiration dates with a single stroke, and

block numbers could be used to alter a date written in this manner. Given the tag’s

overall appearance, Swartz thought it looked like something a person could have

created on a printer. Considered in light of Swartz’s experience with falsified or

fraudulent tags, these observations provided her with a particularized and objective

basis to suspect that the tag was not a valid registration document. We therefore

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conclude that Swartz had reasonable suspicion to believe that the vehicle did not

display valid proof of vehicle registration, as required by Iowa law.

Mendoza and Tovar argue that this case is distinguishable from Sanchez

because, unlike Swartz, the trooper in Sanchez attempted to read the tag as he

approached the vehicle on foot, but he still did not see the name of any issuing State. 

See 572 F.3d at 477. We disagree. The issue in Sanchez was whether the trooper’s

“decision to stop the minivan” was lawful. Id. at 478 (emphasis added). Although

we noted the trooper’s post-stop effort to inspect the tag in Sanchez, Swartz’s failure

to do so has no bearing on whether she had reasonable suspicion to make the traffic

stop in the first place. Mendoza and Tovar do not argue that Swartz unreasonably

prolonged or exceeded the scope of the stop by failing immediately to inspect the tag. 

Cf. United States v. Hollins, 685 F.3d 703, 706-07 (8th Cir. 2012).

Mendoza and Tovar also emphasize our observation in Sanchez that it was

“objectively reasonable for [the officer] to expect that the name of the issuing

jurisdiction would appear conspicuously on the face of an official document, and to

investigate further if a name was not visible.” 572 F.3d at 479. They argue that

Swartz could not reasonably have the same expectation in this case, because even

Iowa’s temporary tags do not “conspicuously” display the name of the issuing State. 

In essence, the appellants suggest that if it is generally impossible for officers to

verify the validity of temporary tags without stopping a vehicle, then the presence of

that ordinary fact cannot amount to reasonable suspicion. The record here, however,

includes more than an assertion by Swartz that she could not verify the validity of a

tag that appeared on its face to be legitimate. She gave particularized reasons why

she suspected that this particular tag may have been fraudulently created on a printer

rather than issued by an official authority. The showing of reasonable suspicion in

this case does not depend on the sort of expectation mentioned in Sanchez.

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Mendoza suggeststhat the officer in Sanchez had greater grounds for suspicion

because he saw only a “piece of paper” attached to the vehicle, while Swartz,

according to Mendoza, “knew the document taped to the rear window was a

temporary registration tag.” As the district court found, however, Swartz saw only

“what appeared to be a paper tag” posted in the rear window. When asked whether

she could see that the vehicle had “some type of temporary tag,” Swartz stated only

that she “could see that it had a piece of paper.” The record does not establish that

Swartz knew the document was a legitimate temporary registration tag. 

This case is therefore distinguishable from United States v. Wilson, 205 F.3d

720 (4th Cir. 2000) (en banc), where an officer attempted to justify his stop of a

vehicle based simply on his inability to read the expiration date on a temporary tag

due to darkness and small print. In Wilson, the officer “admitted that he never saw

anything illegal about the tag or the operation of the car,” testified that “nothing

appeared illegal about the temporary tag,” and acknowledged that he had “no

suspicion at all” that the driver was operating an unregistered vehicle or otherwise

violating the law. Id. at 723. “Simply put, he saw nothing wrong, and he suspected

nothing,” so there was no reasonable suspicion. Id. at 724. The more analogous

authority is United States v. Edgerton, 438 F.3d 1043 (10th Cir. 2006), where an

officer lawfully stopped a vehicle not merely because he could not read a temporary

tag, but because “he could not determine whether the document posted in the rear

window was, in fact, a temporary tag.” Id. at 1047.

* * *

Because the traffic stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment, the evidence

obtained from the search of the vehicle and Tovar’s subsequent statements to law

enforcement were not the fruits of a constitutional violation. The judgments of the

district court are affirmed.

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