Title: P. v. Saunders
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S122744
State: California
Issuer: California Supreme Court
Date: June 29, 2006

1
Filed 6/29/06 (This opn. should follow companion case of P. v. Brendlin, also filed 6/29/06.) 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
) 
 
 
) 
S122744 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 6 H025674 
DEVANCE SAUNDERS, 
) 
 
) 
Santa Clara County 
 
Defendant and Appellant. 
) 
Super. Ct. No. CC246493 
___________________________________ ) 
 
May a peace officer order a traffic stop to investigate possible Vehicle 
Code violations when the vehicle’s front license plate is missing and the 
registration tabs on the rear license plate have expired but the vehicle’s rear 
window displays what appears to be a current temporary operating permit?  We 
conclude that such an investigative stop does not run afoul of the Fourth 
Amendment, at least when the officer has no other ready means of verifying the 
vehicle’s compliance with the law.  We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court 
of Appeal.   
BACKGROUND 
Defendant Devance Saunders appeals the denial of his motion to suppress 
evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (i)) after having pleaded guilty to carrying a 
concealed weapon (id., § 12025, subd. (a)(2)), carrying a loaded firearm (id., 
§ 12031, subd. (a)(2)), and being a felon in possession of a firearm (id., § 12021, 
 
 
2
subd. (a)) and ammunition (id., § 12316, subd. (b)).  The following uncontradicted 
facts are taken largely from the Court of Appeal opinion in this case.   
On March 31, 2002, San Jose Police Officers Mark Womack, Brian 
Simuro, and Javier Acosta were in an unmarked car near Club Rodeo on Coleman 
Avenue in San Jose.  They were patrolling a gathering of motorcycle clubs 
engaged in an annual ritual called a “blessing.”  The blessing included members of 
the Hell’s Angels, the Mongols, and several other clubs, including the Soul 
Brothers, who were associated with the Hell’s Angels.  The officers had 
knowledge of ongoing tensions between the Hell’s Angels and the Mongols and of 
the clubs’ involvement in violence and weapons possession on previous occasions.  
At the previous year’s blessing, members of the Hell’s Angels were arrested for 
possession of automatic weapons and ammunition.  Additionally, Officer Womack 
had earlier that day participated in a traffic stop of a Hell’s Angels vehicle and 
found weapons and body armor inside the vehicle.  
Around 10:30 a.m., the officers saw a Chevy pickup truck following 
directly behind 15 to 20 Soul Brothers members riding their motorcycles on 
Coleman Avenue.  The officers were aware that the vehicle preceding or following 
a group of motorcycle club members is often the “load” or “tail” car, which carries 
other members, wives or girlfriends of the members, weapons, and drugs.  After 
Officer Womack noted that the pickup had expired registration tabs and no front 
license plate, the officers stopped the vehicle.  Both the driver, Roosevelt Ingram, 
and defendant, the passenger, wore leather jackets with “Soul Brothers” patches.  
When Officer Simuro went to the driver’s side of the truck, Ingram asked why he 
had been stopped.  The officer explained it was because of the missing front 
license plate and asked Ingram for his driver’s license and registration.  After 
Ingram complied, Officer Womack, who was on the passenger side, asked 
defendant “if he had any I.D. with him.”  Officer Womack could not recall 
 
 
3
whether he saw a temporary operating permit taped to the pickup’s rear window.  
Officer Acosta collected the identification cards and radioed in a records check.  
Four or five minutes later, the officers learned that Ingram’s license was 
suspended.        
When the driver has a suspended license, it is San Jose Police Department 
policy to impound the vehicle.  Consequently, the officers asked both men to get 
out of the truck.  As defendant stepped outside, Officer Womack noticed that 
defendant was shaking and trembling and appeared to be very nervous.  His large 
and bulky jacket covered his waistband, where weapons are often concealed.  
Based on these facts and the possibility that this was a “tail” car containing 
weapons—like the Hell’s Angels vehicle containing weapons and body armor he 
had seen earlier that morning—Officer Womack decided to patsearch defendant.  
As he stepped behind defendant to begin the patsearch, he asked defendant “if he 
had anything illegal on him.”  Defendant replied, “Yes, I have a gun in my 
pocket”—and, indeed, there was a loaded .25-caliber semiautomatic weapon in the 
inner left pocket of defendant’s jacket.  An inventory search of the pickup 
uncovered .25-caliber bullets and a speed loader containing .357-caliber bullets in 
a plastic baggie inside a work glove on the passenger-side floorboard.     
Ingram testified at the suppression hearing that he had purchased the pickup 
from a wrecking yard four or five months prior to the stop.  He had applied to 
register the vehicle in his wife’s name and to get new license plates, but he “hadn’t 
finished the smog and some few other things [he] had to do to the truck before [he] 
got the new license.”  The truck was also “missing the bumpers.”  The Department 
of Motor Vehicles (DMV) had issued Ingram a temporary operating permit 
sticker, which he placed in the upper right corner of the rear window.  The sticker 
bore a large number “3,” which corresponded to the month of March, and allowed 
him to operate the vehicle through March 31, 2002.  
 
 
4
Connie Gonzalez, a clerk at the DMV who handles licenses and 
registrations, testified that a temporary operating permit is issued to a vehicle to 
enable the owner to legally use the vehicle on the public roads while the 
application for registration is being completed.  The permit, which is always red, 
displays a large, bold face number in white, indicating that the vehicle may be 
lawfully operated until the last day of the corresponding month.  Other 
information on the permit specifies, among other things, the make of the vehicle, 
the license plate number, the vehicle identification number (VIN), and the 
applicable year.  An officer would not be able to determine whether the sticker is 
for the current year, or whether it is associated with the particular vehicle, without 
stopping the vehicle and verifying the information on the sticker.  
Defendant’s motion to suppress argued that the initial traffic stop was 
unlawful; that if the seizure of his person began only when Officer Womack took 
possession of his driver’s license, it too was unlawful; that the traffic stop, even if 
lawful, was unreasonably prolonged; and that the patsearch was unlawful.  The 
trial court denied the motion, finding that the officer was justified in making a 
traffic stop to investigate the apparent violation of Vehicle Code section 5200, 
which requires a vehicle to have two license plates; that the officer had a right to 
ask the driver for identification; and that the officer had ample concern for his 
safety to justify the patsearch of defendant.   
Following the denial of the motion to suppress, defendant pleaded guilty as 
charged and admitted a prior strike conviction.  At sentencing, the trial court 
exercised its discretion under Penal Code section 1385 to dismiss the strike and 
placed defendant on probation for three years, with the condition that defendant 
serve six months in jail and not associate with motorcycle gangs.    
The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment.  It found that the Fourth 
Amendment rights of defendant, as a passenger, were not infringed by the traffic 
 
 
5
stop; that the traffic stop was in any event justified by the missing front license 
plate and the expired registration tab; that the traffic stop was not unlawfully 
prolonged; and that the officer’s concern that defendant might be concealing a 
weapon justified the patsearch.  We granted review, limited to (1) whether 
defendant, as a passenger in a vehicle subjected to a traffic stop, was seized within 
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; and (2) whether reasonable suspicion of 
Vehicle Code violations relating to the missing front license plate and the expired 
registration tab could exist where the pickup also displayed a current temporary 
operating permit. 
DISCUSSION 
In ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court must find the historical 
facts, select the rule of law, and apply it to the facts in order to determine whether 
the law as applied has been violated.  We review the court’s resolution of the 
factual inquiry under the deferential substantial-evidence standard.  The ruling on 
whether the applicable law applies to the facts is a mixed question of law and fact 
that is subject to independent review.  (People v. Brendlin (June 29, 2006, 
S123133) __ Cal.4th ___, ___ [at pp. 4-5] (Brendlin).)  In this case, the facts are 
largely undisputed.     
During a patsearch following a traffic stop of a pickup in which defendant 
was a passenger, the police discovered a loaded semiautomatic firearm in 
defendant’s jacket pocket.  The police also found ammunition on the passenger-
side floorboard of the truck.  Defendant seeks suppression of the evidence seized 
from his person and the vehicle in which he was riding, asserting that the traffic 
stop was not supported by reasonable suspicion.  The Attorney General responds 
that we need not consider whether the traffic stop was justified because defendant, 
as a passenger in the vehicle, was not seized within the meaning of the Fourth 
Amendment when the driver submitted to the show of police authority.   
 
 
6
The Attorney General correctly describes defendant’s status at the inception 
of the traffic stop.  As explained in Brendlin, supra, __ Cal.4th at page ___ [at p. 
1], a mere passenger in a vehicle is not seized when a police officer initiates a 
traffic stop absent additional circumstances that would indicate to a reasonable 
person that he or she was the subject of the peace officer’s investigation or show 
of authority.  Here, as in Brendlin, the officer effecting the traffic stop took no 
actions that would have indicated to defendant that he was the subject of the 
officer’s show of authority or investigation at the time the driver, Roosevelt 
Ingram, pulled over.   
Our analysis, however, cannot stop there, for defendant argues that even if 
he was not seized at the outset, a seizure occurred when Officer Womack 
approached the passenger side of the vehicle, asked defendant for his 
identification, handed the license to Officer Acosta (who retained it to perform a 
radio check), and then ordered defendant to exit the vehicle.  (See People v. 
Arteaga (Ill.App.Ct. 1995) 655 N.E.2d 290, 291-292.)  The Attorney General 
responds that because defendant was free to leave when the truck came to a stop, 
his interaction with Officer Womack must be viewed as a consensual encounter.  
(See People v. Cartwright (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 1362, 1370; State v. Gulick (Me. 
2000) 759 A.2d 1085, 1088.)  Yet, even assuming the officer’s conversation with 
defendant were deemed a consensual encounter, defendant was unquestionably 
seized when the officer ordered him to step out of the truck.  Under Maryland v. 
Wilson (1997) 519 U.S. 408, an officer’s authority to order a passenger to exit a 
vehicle during a traffic stop as a matter of course is limited to those vehicles that 
are “lawfully stopped.”  (Id. at p. 410.)  To uphold this seizure, then, the People 
must demonstrate that the underlying traffic stop was lawful.   
“[P]ersons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone 
have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police 
 
 
7
officers.”  (Delaware v. Prouse (1979) 440 U.S. 648, 663.)  However, when there 
is articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed, that an 
automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise 
subject to seizure for violation of law, the vehicle may be stopped and the driver 
detained in order to check his or her driver’s license and the vehicle’s registration.  
(Ibid.; see Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977) 434 U.S. 106, 109 [expired registration 
tags justified traffic stop].)   
In this case, Officer Womack observed that the registration tab on the 
pickup’s rear license plate had expired.  This appeared to be a violation of Vehicle 
Code section 4000, subdivision (a)(1), which requires the vehicle be currently 
registered; Vehicle Code section 4601, subdivision (a), which requires the 
vehicle’s registration be renewed annually prior to the expiration of the 
registration year; and Vehicle Code section 5204, subdivision (a), which requires 
current registration tabs to be displayed on the rear license plate.  (See People v. 
James (1969) 1 Cal.App.3d 645, 648.)  Defendant argues that the officer’s belief 
the pickup was in violation of these provisions was rebutted prior to the stop by 
the officer’s observation of a temporary operating permit sticker, which was 
affixed to the upper right corner of the rear window.  The sticker bore a large 
number “3,” which corresponded to the month of March.  In defendant’s view, the 
stop was therefore unjustified because Officer Womack had no articulable facts 
supporting a suspicion the sticker was invalid.  (See Veh. Code, §§ 4156, 5202.)   
The Attorney General responds that the expired registration tab on the 
license plate itself established articulable facts supporting the officer’s suspicion 
the vehicle was unregistered.  The temporary sticker, he continues, was 
insufficient to rebut that suspicion because, as the DMV clerk testified, it would 
not be possible to determine whether the sticker was for the current year or was 
 
 
8
even associated with this vehicle without stopping the vehicle and examining the 
sticker against the VIN.   
We have not yet decided whether an officer may stop a vehicle that has an 
expired registration tab but also displays a temporary operating permit.  Some 
courts hold that the Fourth Amendment bars an officer from effecting a traffic stop 
in these circumstances.  (E.g., State v. Childs (Neb. 1993) 495 N.W.2d 475, 481-
482; State v. Butler (S.C.Ct.App. 2000) 539 S.E.2d 414, 416-418.)  In other cases, 
the court or the defendant has assumed that a traffic stop limited to the purpose of 
verifying the validity of the temporary permit is consistent with the Fourth 
Amendment.  (E.g., U.S. v. McSwain (10th Cir. 1994) 29 F.3d 558, 561; State v. 
Diaz (Fla. 2003) 850 So.2d 435, 437.)  We need not decide the issue, however, 
because Officer Womack also noticed that the pickup’s front license plate was 
missing.  As defendant acknowledges, the lack of a front license plate has long 
been recognized as a legitimate basis for a traffic stop.  (People v. Superior Court 
(Simon) (1972) 7 Cal.3d 186, 196; People v. Lee (1968) 260 Cal.App.2d 836, 839; 
People v. Odegard (1962) 203 Cal.App.2d 427, 431; see Veh. Code, § 5200.)   
Defendant offers two reasons for disallowing a traffic stop based on 
Vehicle Code section 5200 in this case.  Neither is persuasive.   
Defendant points out first that a front license plate is required only “[w]hen 
two license plates are issued by the department” (Veh. Code, § 5200), implying 
that only one plate had been issued to Ingram’s vehicle.  But defendant offers no 
reason why that vehicle, a seemingly ordinary pickup truck, would have been 
issued only one license plate (cf. U.S. v. Ramstad (10th Cir. 2002) 308 F.3d 1139, 
1146), and Ingram’s testimony, which indicated that he was going to receive his 
“plates” when he had finished the registration process, suggests that the vehicle 
must have been issued two plates.  More importantly, defendant fails to explain 
 
 
9
why an officer observing the pickup truck with a missing front license plate would 
have had no basis for believing two plates had been issued.  
Defendant then cites Vehicle Code section 5202, which provides that 
“[s]pecial permits issued in lieu of plates shall be attached and displayed on the 
vehicle for which issued during the period of their validity.”  In defendant’s view,  
the temporary operating permit displayed on the rear window applied not only to 
his expired registration but also to the missing license plate and thus, he argues, 
“the vehicle in which he was riding was in full compliance with the law at the time 
the police stopped it.”  The question for us, though, is not whether Ingram’s 
vehicle was in fact in full compliance with the law at the time of the stop, but 
whether Officer Womack had “ ‘articulable suspicion’ ” it was not.  (People v. 
Celis (2004) 33 Cal.4th 667, 674; see generally Illinois v. Rodriguez (1990) 497 
U.S. 177, 184 [“ ‘reasonableness,’ with respect to this necessary element, does not 
demand that the government be factually correct in its assessment”].)  The 
possibility of an innocent explanation for a missing front license plate does not 
preclude an officer from effecting a stop to investigate the ambiguity.  (See Illinois 
v. Wardlow (2000) 528 U.S. 119, 125-126; accord, People v. Leyba (1981) 29 
Cal.3d 591, 599.)  Here, Officer Womack had no ready means, short of a traffic 
stop, of investigating whether the temporary operating permit applied only to the 
expired registration or extended as well to the missing license plate.1  The license 
                                              
1  
Officer Womack apparently did not perform a radio check of the pickup’s 
registration, but such an effort would have been futile in this case.  Connie 
Gonzalez, the DMV representative, testified that Ingram’s permit was not entered 
into any computer database and that an officer would have to stop the vehicle to 
verify its validity and scope.  This case is thus distinguishable from Brendlin, 
supra, __ Cal.4th at page ___ [at pp. 5-6], in which the deputy was able to verify 
the vehicle’s registration status by means of a radio inquiry, and from People v. 
Nabong (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th Supp. 1, 4, in which no evidence was offered as 
 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
10
plate, after all, could have gone missing after Ingram had obtained the temporary 
permit.  Moreover, the officer’s suspicion that the vehicle was in violation of 
section 5200 was supported by the DMV procedures for replacing lost, stolen, or 
mutilated plates.  Under those procedures, a registered owner must surrender or 
mail in “the remaining plate(s).”  (DMV, Obtain Duplicate or Substitute License 
Plates and Stickers, at 
 [as of June 29, 
2006].)  Yet, as both parties testified, the pickup still displayed its rear license 
plate, which supported the inference that the registered owner had not initiated the 
process of replacing the missing plate.  We therefore conclude that Officer 
Womack had ample justification for ordering a traffic stop to investigate the 
missing license plate.     
Once the pickup had lawfully been stopped, the police were entitled to 
demand the driver’s license and registration.  (Veh. Code, §§ 4462, subd. (a), 
12951, subd. (b); In re Arturo D. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 60, 67; id. at pp. 88-89 (conc. 
& dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).)  It was at that point that the officers discovered that 
Ingram’s license had been suspended, decided to impound the truck pursuant to 
department policy, ordered the occupants out of the vehicle, and conducted the 
patsearch of defendant’s person.  Those actions were found proper by the superior 
court and the Court of Appeal, and are beyond the scope of our grant of review.  
Accordingly, our conclusion that the traffic stop was supported by reasonable 
                                                                                                                                                              
 
(footnote continued from previous page) 
 
to whether the officer called his department for a registration check “and if he did 
not, why he did not.”       
 
 
11
suspicion of one or more Vehicle Code violations is sufficient to affirm the denial 
of defendant’s motion to suppress.   
DISPOSITION 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BAXTER, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
GEORGE, C.J. 
KENNARD, J. 
CHIN, J. 
 
 
1
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING OPINION BY CORRIGAN, J. 
 
 
I concur in the judgment; I agree with the majority that, regardless of the 
expired registration tab and the temporary operating permit, the missing license 
plate justified the traffic stop in this case. 
 
I write separately to note my disagreement with the proposition that 
Saunders, as a passenger, was not detained at the inception of the stop.  (Maj. opn., 
ante, p. 6.)  I would hold that Saunders was detained at that point; he had been 
deprived of his freedom of movement and was subject to the officers’ control.  
(See People v. Brendlin (June __, 2006, S123133), dis. opn. of Corrigan, J.)  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CORRIGAN, J. 
I CONCUR: 
WERDEGAR, J. 
MORENO, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion People v. Saunders 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion XXX NP opn. filed 1/9/04 – 6th Dist. 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S122744 
Date Filed: June 29, 2006 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Santa Clara 
Judge: William R. Danser 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
George O. Benton, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, 
Assistant Attorney General, Martin S. Kaye and Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff 
and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
George O. Benton 
1535 Farmers Lane 
No. 231 
Santa Rosa, CA  95405 
(707) 538-7716 
 
Ronald E. Niver 
Deputy Attorney General 
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 11000 
San Francisco, CA  94102-7004 
(415) 703-5859