United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 20-1020

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Anthony James Hanel

 Defendant - Appellant

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No. 20-1023

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Courtney Laparele Clark

 Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Nebraska - Omaha

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Submitted: November 20, 2020

 Filed: April 2, 2021

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Before BENTON, ERICKSON, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges. 

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GRASZ, Circuit Judge.

Based on evidence obtained during a traffic stop, the government filed charges 

against Anthony Hanel and Courtney Clark for illegally possessing guns and credit 

card counterfeiting equipment. Hanel and Clark sought to suppress all evidence 

obtained during what they claimed was an illegal search and seizure. The district 

court1 denied those motions after concluding that the officers had reasonable 

suspicion of unlawful conduct when they stopped the vehicle. We affirm. 

I. Background

Around 2:30 a.m., during a routine patrol of what they considered a highcrime area, Omaha Police Officers John Harney and Cory Buckley noticed a blue 

Dodge Durango with Minnesota license plates exiting a parking lot. Officer Buckley 

saw that the passenger was not wearing a seatbelt. 

The officers followed the Durango onto an interstate highway, and Officer 

Buckley used the in-cruiser computer to try to verify the vehicle’s license plates 

using the National Crime Information Center (“NCIC”) database. His first search in 

NCIC returned no record. Officer Buckley verified the license plate number and 

reran it. This second search returned a response of “not on file.” Officer Buckley 

then asked dispatchers to check the license plate in the NCIC database. 

Simultaneously, the officers saw the Durango make what they believed to be an

improper lane change. Based on that lane change, they pulled over the vehicle. As 

1

The Honorable John M. Gerrard, Chief Judge, United States District Court

for the District of Nebraska, adopting the findings and recommendations of the 

Honorable Michael D. Nelson, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of 

Nebraska. 
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the officers exited their squad car, the dispatchers reported there was no valid 

registration for the vehicle. 

Officer Harney approached the Durango’s driver’s side to speak with Clark. 

Officer Buckley approached the passenger’s side to speak with Hanel, who refused 

to identify himself. Based on that refusal and other suspicious behavior, the officers 

requested a portable fingerprint identification machine and a drug dog. The dog

indicated that narcotics were in the vehicle. The officers then searched the Durango 

and detained Hanel and Clark.

Based on evidence obtained during that traffic stop, a grand jury indicted both 

Hanel and Clark for illegally possessing counterfeit access-device making 

equipment, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and possessing 

counterfeit and unauthorized access devices. It also indicted Hanel for illegally 

possessing a firearm as a felon. 

Hanel and Clark both moved to suppress all evidence obtained during the 

traffic stop. They argued that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment to the United 

States Constitution because the officers lacked probable cause or reasonable 

suspicion. Specifically, they argued that the stated reason for the stop—Clark’s lane 

change—did not violate Nebraska law. While conceding that the lane change was

legal, the government argued that the officers’ mistake was objectively reasonable. 

The magistrate judge concluded otherwise. However, the magistrate judge

recommended denying both motions after concluding the officers had reasonable 

suspicion that the Durango lacked proper registration. 

The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s findings and 

recommendations, but it also explained its own rationale for why the officers’ belief 

about the registration status justified the stop. It found that the officers were 

“competent in the use of their laptop and in accessing the NCIC database” and that 

the database was sufficiently reliable “to allow the officers to have a reasonable 

suspicion that the Durango might not have been registered[.]” Relying on United 
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States v. Hollins, 685 F.3d 703, 706 (2012), the district court concluded this 

sufficiently justified the stop because “an officer’s initial incomplete observations 

may provide reasonable suspicion for the officer to stop a vehicle and investigate 

further.” After the district court denied their motions to suppress, Hanel and Clark 

both pled guilty to the illegal possession of counterfeit access-device making 

equipment, and Hanel also pled guilty to possession of a firearm as a felon. After 

sentencing, Hanel and Clark challenged the denials of their motions to suppress, 

arguing the stop was unconstitutional.

2

 We consolidated their appeals. 

II. Analysis

“In an appeal from a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence, 

this court reviews factual findings for clear error, and questions of constitutional 

law de novo.” United States v. Hollins, 685 F.3d 703, 705 (8th Cir. 2012). 

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. 

Const. amend. IV. “A traffic stop constitutes a seizure of [a] vehicle’s occupants, 

including any passengers.” United States v. Sanchez, 572 F.3d 475, 478 (8th Cir. 

2009). For a traffic stop to be constitutional under the Fourth Amendment, it “must 

be supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause.” United States v. Houston, 

548 F.3d 1151, 1153 (8th Cir. 2008). “A law enforcement officer has reasonable 

suspicion when the officer is aware of ‘particularized, objective facts which, taken 

together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant suspicion that 

a crime is being committed.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Martin, 706 F.2d 263, 

265 (8th Cir. 1983)). “Any traffic violation, however minor, provides probable 

cause for a traffic stop.” United States v. Bloomfield, 40 F.3d 910, 915 (8th Cir. 

1994). 

2

Neither Clark nor Hanel challenge the constitutionality of the search of the 

vehicle performed after the stop. Only the stop itself is at issue in this appeal.
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To determine if probable cause or reasonable suspicion existed, we look at

what the officers “reasonably knew at the time,” rather than looking back with the 

benefit of hindsight. Hollins, 685 F.3d at 706. But “[m]istakes of law or fact, if 

objectively reasonable, may still justify a valid stop.” Id. Furthermore, “subjective 

intent is not determinative in deciding whether the stop was reasonable.” United 

States v. Mallari, 334 F.3d 765, 767 (8th Cir. 2003). “[E]ven if an officer invokes 

the wrong offense” at the time, probable cause may still support the stop if an officer 

has an objective basis to make it. United States v. Demilia, 771 F.3d 1051, 1054–

55 (8th Cir. 2014). 

Applying these principles, we affirm the district court’s judgment. At the time 

they initiated the traffic stop, the officers had grounds for reasonable suspicion that 

the Durango lacked proper registration in violation of Nebraska law. See Neb. Rev. 

Stat. § 60-362 (providing that no unregistered motor vehicle may be operated on 

Nebraska’s highways); Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-3,170 (providing that a violation of the 

Motor Vehicle Registration Act is a Class III misdemeanor). Although the officers 

cited the lane change as their reason for stopping the vehicle, they already had an 

objective basis to stop it when the first two NCIC searches failed to indicate proper 

registration. See Demilia, 771 F.3d at 1054–55 (reversing grants of motions to 

suppress when one traffic offense could provide an objectively reasonable basis for 

the stop even though the officer relied on the wrong offense to justify it); United 

States v. Stephens, 350 F.3d 778, 779–80 (8th Cir. 2003) (holding that an

inconclusive vehicle dispatch computer check “provided the police with reasonable 

suspicion to stop the vehicle and investigate whether the vehicle was properly 

registered”). The fact that dispatchers had yet to report the results of their separate 

registration search does not change this conclusion. Although the officers later 

learned that the vehicle was properly registered, the information they had when they 

stopped the vehicle justified the stop. See Hollins, 685 F.3d at 707. 

 

We have previously upheld a traffic stop based on a mistaken belief about a 

vehicle’s registration. In Hollins, police officers stopped an SUV that had no license 

plates. Id. at 705. Approaching the SUV, an officer then, for the first time, saw an 
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apparently valid Nebraska “In Transit” sticker. Id. But the officer continued the 

stop because he could not see the expiration date and knew from experience that In 

Transit stickers could often be falsified. Id. at 706. Ultimately, before the initial 

officer and his colleagues impounded the vehicle, they found an illegal firearm 

inside. Id. at 705. The driver moved to suppress the firearm, arguing the valid

sticker negated reasonable suspicion. Id. We rejected that argument, reasoning that 

“[a]lthough the officers were mistaken . . ., their actions were objectively reasonable 

because they could not then see the In Transit sticker.” Id. at 706. And we also 

concluded that the officers justifiably prolonged the stop after seeing the sticker 

because “the [initial] officer did not see its expiration date, and his experience taught 

him that even facially valid stickers” may not be “legally valid” given the prevalence 

of illicit stickers. Id. at 707 (emphasis in original). 

Similar to the SUV in Hollins, the Durango was properly registered despite 

the officers’ suspicions. But the officers had experience searching the NCIC 

database and had not previously encountered any problem running Minnesota plates. 

It is objectively reasonable, then, that the two inconclusive results could lead the 

officers to believe that the Durango violated Nebraska law by lacking proper 

registration. The officers justifiably stopped the Durango to investigate its 

registration status. 

Our holding should not be interpreted as justifying all warrantless vehicle 

stops based on ambiguous results from data searches. Rather, we emphasize our 

holding depends on the express factual findings that: (1) the NCIC database was not 

inherently unreliable; (2) the officers were competent in the use of their laptop; and 

(3) the officers were competent in accessing the NCIC database. Hanel and Clark

have failed to convince us that the district court clearly erred in reaching those 

factual findings. Under these circumstances, the officers had reasonable suspicion 

to initiate the stop.

 
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III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

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