2018 UT App 211

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH,

Appellee,

v.

JENNIFER ORYALL,

Appellant.

Opinion

No. 20170110-CA

Filed November 8, 2018

Fourth District Court, Provo Department

The Honorable James R. Taylor

No. 161400218

Douglas J. Thompson, Margaret P. Lindsay, and

Dustin M. Parmley, Attorneys for Appellant

Sean D. Reyes and Marian Decker, Attorneys

for Appellee

JUDGE RYAN M. HARRIS authored this Opinion, in which 

JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and JILL M. POHLMAN concurred.

HARRIS, Judge:

¶1 May a police officer, without reasonable suspicion of 

criminal activity, run a license plate check on a passing vehicle? 

The federal courts, interpreting the U.S. Constitution, have 

answered this question in the affirmative. Jennifer Oryall, who 

was found to be driving under the influence of drugs after an 

officer checked her license plate and detained her, asks us to 

conclude that law enforcement officers violated the Utah 

Constitution by performing such a check without reasonable 

suspicion that Oryall was engaged in criminal activity. The 

district court was not persuaded by Oryall’s arguments, and 

neither are we. Accordingly, we affirm.
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BACKGROUND

¶2 Jennifer Oryall was driving on State Road 198 in Payson, 

Utah, when she passed a police officer (Officer) who was parked 

on the side of the road running license plate checks on passing 

cars. Officer ran Oryall’s license plate number through a

government-managed electronic database containing vehicle 

registration records. This check revealed that the vehicle was 

registered to Oryall, a person Officer had previously 

encountered in his law enforcement career. Intrigued, Officer 

then ran a check on Oryall’s driver’s license records in a separate 

government-managed electronic database. This check revealed 

that Oryall’s driver’s license was suspended. Officer then sought 

to confirm that Oryall was indeed the driver of the vehicle, and 

he watched as the car parked at a nearby convenience store. He 

then saw Oryall exit the vehicle and go inside, allowing him to 

confirm her identity.

¶3 After Oryall walked out of the convenience store, she got 

back in her car and resumed driving, and Officer initiated a 

traffic stop. Officer immediately observed that Oryall manifested 

several signs of impairment, including white powder in and 

around her nostrils, glossy eyes, constricted pupils, foam on her 

lips, muscle and eyelid tremors, and slurred speech. Officer then 

performed field sobriety tests and determined that Oryall was 

impaired. Oryall later confessed to having ingested a number of 

controlled substances prior to driving. Oryall was arrested and 

later charged with driving under the influence, a third degree 

felony, possessing drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor, 

and driving on a suspended license, a class C misdemeanor.

¶4 Following a preliminary hearing, the magistrate 

dismissed the drug paraphernalia charge, but bound Oryall over 

for trial on the two remaining charges. Oryall then moved to 

suppress all evidence from her traffic stop. In the memorandum 

accompanying her motion, Oryall argued that the Utah 

Constitution “[conferred] an expectation of privacy in motor 
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20170110-CA 3 2018 UT App 211

vehicle and driver records,” that the Utah Government Records 

Access and Management Act (GRAMA) recognized that 

expectation, and that therefore, under Utah law, police officers 

are not entitled to check license plates against the governmentmanaged databases containing vehicle registration or driver’s 

license information without a reasonable suspicion of criminal 

activity. The district court denied Oryall’s motion to suppress. 

Later, Oryall entered into a plea agreement with the State 

pursuant to which she entered a conditional guilty plea to the 

felony DUI charge, reserving the right to appeal the court’s 

denial of her motion to suppress,1 and the State agreed to the 

dismissal of the remaining misdemeanor count.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶5 Oryall now exercises that right to appeal, and asks us to 

reverse the district court’s denial of her motion to suppress. A 

district court’s denial of a motion to suppress presents a mixed 

question of law and fact. State v. Fuller, 2014 UT 29, ¶ 17, 332 

P.3d 937. In this context, we review a district court’s factual 

findings for clear error and its legal conclusions, including its 

application of law to the facts of the case, for correctness. Id.

ANALYSIS

¶6 The Utah Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people 

to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against 

 

1. Under rule 11(j) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure, if 

approved by the court and consented to by the prosecution, a 

criminal defendant may enter a conditional guilty plea, 

reserving the right to appeal an “adverse determination of any 

specified pre-trial motion,” and the right to “withdraw the plea” 

if the appeal is successful. 
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20170110-CA 4 2018 UT App 211

unreasonable searches and seizures.” Utah Const. art. I, § 14. As 

pertinent here, this provision “prohibits state actors from 

unreasonably intruding into areas where citizens have a 

legitimate expectation of privacy.” Schroeder v. Utah Attorney 

Gen.’s Office, 2015 UT 77, ¶ 22, 358 P.3d 1075. Thus, before 

properly invoking article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution, a 

defendant must, as a “threshold” matter, “demonstrat[e] a 

legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched.” State v. 

Atwood, 831 P.2d 1056, 1058 (Utah Ct. App. 1992) (“The 

requirement of demonstrating a legitimate expectation of 

privacy in the area searched is a threshold requirement that a 

defendant must satisfy in order to establish a violation of 

constitutional rights.”); see also State v. Larocco, 794 P.2d 460, 469 

(Utah 1990) (stating that “this court will continue to use the 

concept of expectation of privacy as a suitable threshold criterion 

for determining whether article I, section 14 is applicable”).

¶7 In this case, Oryall contends that, under article I, section 

14 of the Utah Constitution, she has a “right to privacy” in both 

her motor vehicle registration records and her driver’s license 

records that prevents police officers from accessing those records 

without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, even though 

those records are collected and kept by governmental agencies.

She asserts that this “right to privacy” was violated in this case, 

because it is undisputed that Officer accessed her records before 

forming a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Accordingly, 

she argues that the district court erred in denying her motion to 

suppress all of the evidence resulting from Officer’s check of her 

license plate, vehicle registration, and driver’s license records.

¶8 Before examining Oryall’s argument in detail, we pause 

first to note that federal appellate courts, interpreting the federal 

constitution, have unanimously determined that law 

enforcement officers may conduct warrantless and suspicionless 

checks of passing motorists’ vehicle registration and driver’s 

license information. See, e.g., United States v. Miranda-Sotolongo, 

827 F.3d 663, 667 (7th Cir. 2016) (stating that “[a] police officer’s 
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20170110-CA 5 2018 UT App 211

check of a vehicle registration in a database is not a Fourth 

Amendment search,” and noting that “every other circuit that 

has considered this issue has [so] held”). Federal courts reason 

that, because a vehicle registration check “involves only 

checking publicly displayed registration information against 

official public records,” it is not substantively different from 

comparing “a photograph of a person against mug shots or 

latent fingerprints against FBI fingerprint records.” Id. at 668.

¶9 Furthermore, we are aware of no other state that has 

construed its own constitution to require an officer to have a 

warrant (or at least reasonable suspicion) before checking a 

motorist’s vehicle registration or driver’s license records. See, 

e.g., State v. Richter, 765 A.2d 687, 688 (N.H. 2000) (holding that 

an officer’s check of “motor vehicle licenses and records” did not 

constitute a search within the meaning of the state constitution, 

because “the state is the very body that issues, controls, and 

regulates such licenses and records” (quotation simplified)); see 

also People v. Bushey, 75 N.E.3d 1165, 1166–68 (N.Y. 2017) 

(holding that a defendant had no “reasonable expectation of 

privacy in either his license plate or the information lawfully 

obtained and accessible through the DMV database”). 

¶10 Oryall asks us to strike a different path under the Utah 

Constitution, and makes two specific arguments in support of 

her position. First, she cites State v. Thompson, 810 P.2d 415 (Utah 

1991), and points out that, on occasion, our supreme court 

has interpreted the Utah Constitution’s prohibition on 

“unreasonable searches and seizures,” see Utah Const. art I, § 14, 

more broadly than federal courts have interpreted the similarlyworded Fourth Amendment, and argues that we should do 

likewise here. Second, she asserts that our legislature, in passing 

GRAMA, “recognized” a state constitutional right to privacy in 

documents such as the ones found in the databases containing 

vehicle registration and driver’s license information. We find 

neither of Oryall’s arguments persuasive. 
State v. Oryall

20170110-CA 6 2018 UT App 211

¶11 First, Thompson is entirely distinguishable from the case at 

hand. In that case, a prosecutor issued a subpoena—ultimately 

determined to be an illegal subpoena, see Thompson, 810 P.2d at 

4192—to a third-party financial institution in an effort to obtain 

bank records relevant to various defendants suspected of 

bribery, racketeering, and antitrust violations. Id. at 415. The 

prosecutor was able to obtain the documents from the bank, and 

presented some of those documents as evidence at trial. Id. at 

416. Defendants were convicted after a jury trial and appealed, 

arguing that, unlike the federal Constitution, the Utah 

Constitution afforded to individuals a right of privacy in bank 

records held by a third-party financial institution and, therefore, 

that they had a constitutional right against unreasonable

searches of those records. Id. at 415–16. Our supreme court 

agreed with the defendants, stating that “it is virtually 

impossible to participate in the economic life of contemporary 

 

2. In Thompson, the Utah Supreme Court made clear that, had the 

subpoena in question been legally issued, there would have been 

no constitutional problem with the prosecutor obtaining the 

bank records. See State v. Thompson, 810 P.2d 415, 418 (Utah 1991) 

(stating that “[a] bank can be compelled to turn over a 

customer’s records when served with a lawful subpoena,” and 

that “the depositor or customer cannot maintain a constitutional 

challenge to evidence gathered pursuant to a subpoena duces 

tecum lawfully issued to his bank”). Indeed, the Utah Supreme 

Court recently noted that Thompson “stands for the 

unremarkable proposition that there is no violation of article I, 

section 14 when the state obtains bank records through a 

reasonable search and seizure,” and that “whatever ‘right of 

privacy’ individuals may have in their bank records, the Utah 

Constitution permits the state to intrude upon it ‘pursuant to a 

subpoena’ that is ‘lawfully issued’ to a bank.” See Schroeder v. 

Utah Attorney Gen.’s Office, 2015 UT 77, ¶ 24, 358 P.3d 1075 

(quoting Thompson, 810 P.2d at 418).
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20170110-CA 7 2018 UT App 211

society without maintaining an account with a bank,” and that 

therefore “opening a bank account is not entirely volitional and 

[does not] constitute[] a waiver of an expectation of privacy.” Id.

at 418 (quotation simplified). The court concluded that “it is 

reasonable for our citizens to expect that their bank records will 

be protected from disclosure” to the government. Id. (quotation 

simplified). Accordingly, the court held that that the Utah 

Constitution establishes a right to privacy for all records 

“supplied to [a] bank to facilitate the conduct of . . . financial 

affairs upon the reasonable assumption that the information 

[will] remain confidential.” Id. (quotation simplified). 

¶12 Oryall urges that vehicle registration and driver’s license 

records, like bank records, contain information that the subject of 

the record may consider private or confidential. Oryall further 

contends that “it is reasonable for our citizens to expect [that] 

personal data compiled by the government” will be protected 

from disclosure because, like opening a bank account, “it is 

virtually impossible to participate in contemporary society 

without . . . registering motor vehicles [or] obtaining drivers 

licenses or other ID cards.” Accordingly, Oryall contends that 

her vehicle registration and driver’s license records should have 

been protected from Officer’s suspicionless search.

¶13 We see the matter differently. Significant details 

distinguish the sort of search contemplated in Thompson from 

Officer’s examination of Oryall’s records, not least of which is 

the fact that, in Thompson, government officials sought records 

that were in the possession of third-party banks, Thompson, 810 

P.2d at 416, whereas in this case the records Officer sought were 

issued, controlled, and regulated by the very government from 

which Oryall sought to protect them. It is one thing to hold that 

the constitution recognizes a right to privacy that prevents the 

government—without a lawful warrant or subpoena—from 

accessing information that a citizen has entrusted to a third 

party, such as a bank or a mobile phone provider. See Thompson, 

810 P.2d at 418; see also Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206,
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20170110-CA 8 2018 UT App 211

2217, 2219-20 (2018) (declining to extend the federal “third-party 

doctrine” to cell-site location information, and holding that 

citizens have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in cell-site 

location information held by third-party mobile phone 

providers). But it is quite another thing to hold that the 

constitution recognizes a right of privacy that would prevent a 

law enforcement officer—part of the state or local government—

from accessing information that another part of that same 

government already lawfully possesses. We therefore decline

Oryall’s invitation to extend Thompson in such a way as to 

prohibit the government from accessing information already in 

its lawful possession. 

¶14 Next, Oryall directs our attention to GRAMA, and points 

out that, in the “legislative intent” section of that statute, our 

legislature expressly “recognize[d]” the citizenry’s constitutional 

“right of privacy in relation to personal data gathered by 

governmental entities.” See Utah Code Ann. § 63G-2-102(1) 

(LexisNexis 2016). But even assuming GRAMA applies here,3

GRAMA cannot shoulder the load that Oryall attempts to place 

upon it. As an initial matter, GRAMA was enacted to balance 

two competing rights: the “public’s right of access to information 

concerning the conduct of the public’s business,” and the 

public’s right of privacy in whatever personal data the 

government may have already collected. See id. The “right of 

privacy” to which GRAMA refers is, in context and generally 

speaking, a reference to a conceptual limit on the public’s right 

 

3. The State argues that GRAMA’s protections “extend only to 

‘personal data gathered’ by the State,” and that because 

automobile registration certificates and driver’s licenses are 

issued by the State, GRAMA does not apply to those records. We 

do not reach the merits of this argument, and simply assume, for 

purposes of our analysis, that automobile registration and 

driver’s license records fall within the ambit of GRAMA. 
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20170110-CA 9 2018 UT App 211

to access governmental information, and not a general 

prohibition on one government agency accessing information 

possessed by another government agency. 

¶15 This principle is borne out by the provisions of GRAMA 

itself. Three separate statutory subsections appear to give law 

enforcement officers the right to access records such as vehicle 

registration and driver’s license information. First, GRAMA 

expressly authorizes one governmental entity to provide private 

records in its possession to another governmental entity if the 

requesting entity “enforces . . . or investigates civil, criminal, or 

administrative law, and the record is necessary to a proceeding 

or investigation.” See id. § 63G-2-206(1)(b). Second, GRAMA 

provides that any governmental entity may disclose private 

records in its possession to “a government prosecutor [or] peace 

officer,” as long as those records “evidence or relate to a 

violation of law.” Id. § 63G-2-206(9). Finally, GRAMA provides

that records “to which access is governed . . . pursuant to . . . 

another state [or] federal statute” are “governed by the specific 

provisions of” the other statute. Id. § 63G-2-201(6)(a). Federal law 

provides that personal information in the possession of “[a] State 

department of motor vehicles” “shall be disclosed for use in 

connection with matters of motor vehicle or driver safety,” and 

“may be disclosed . . . [f]or use by any government agency, 

including any court or law enforcement agency, in carrying out 

its functions.” See 18 U.S.C. § 2721(a) (2000), (b)(1). Oryall does 

not argue that any of these statutory exceptions built into 

GRAMA are inapplicable here. And Oryall likewise does not 

attempt to argue that any of these statutory exceptions are 

unconstitutional. Accordingly, these statutory provisions are 

dispositive of Oryall’s second argument. 

¶16 Having considered and rejected Oryall’s two arguments, 

we are left with nothing else from which we might conclude that 

Oryall had a reasonable expectation of privacy in her driver’s

license and vehicle registration records. Therefore, Oryall has 

failed to make the threshold showing required to establish a 
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20170110-CA 10 2018 UT App 211

constitutional violation. See Atwood, 831 P.2d at 1058 (“The 

requirement of demonstrating a legitimate expectation of 

privacy in the area searched is a threshold requirement that a 

defendant must satisfy in order to establish a violation of 

constitutional rights.”). Accordingly, we have no reason to 

disturb the district court’s denial of Oryall’s motion to suppress.

CONCLUSION

¶17 Oryall has failed to establish, as a threshold matter, that 

she possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy in her motor 

vehicle registration or driver’s license records, and has therefore 

failed to establish that Officer was constitutionally prohibited 

from accessing those records, even in the absence of reasonable 

suspicion that Oryall committed a crime. Accordingly, we affirm 

the district court’s order denying Oryall’s motion to suppress.