Court Opinion

ID: 9457518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:24:17.191469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:23.149749
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
PER CURIAM:
In his petition for rehearing, Atkinson calls our attention to the case of Myers v. State, 158 Miss. 554, 130 So. 741 (Miss.1930). In that case, the Mississippi Supreme Court found that a police officer who saw an automobile having no license tag attached, standing unoccupied in a parking lot, did not, without more, have probable cause to arrest a person who voluntarily admitted having recently driven the automobile. The rationale of the decision was that all the elements of the misdemeanor for which the officer was making the arrest had not occurred in the officer’s presence. The missing element was the actual operation of the automobile upon the highway.
Atkinson contends that since the officer who arrested him did not actually see Atkinson driving his improperly tagged automobile, that the Myers case must be read as saying that all the *842elements of his misdemeanor charge were not present, and that his arrest was therefore illegal. Had Atkinson’s automobile been seen without any license tag at all, we would be compelled by his argument. But that is not the case. Atkinson’s misdemeanor charge was not that of operating upon the highway an automobile with no license tag, but rather that of being the owner or operator of an automobile which has affixed to it a tag issued to another vehicle. In the latter situation, the legislature of Mississippi has not required that the automobile be operated upon the highway. Once Atkinson was determined to be the one using the car, the mere fact that an improper tag was affixed completed the offense. A careful reading of the pertinent statute1 is sufficient to convince us that the legislature has deliberately and specifically created as separate misdemeanors the offense of operating an automobile on the highway without a license and the offense of having a tag affixed to one’s car which was issued for another vehicle.
Therefore, we adhere to our decision, and find that Officer Armistead possessed conclusive evidence that Atkinson had committed the misdemeanor of “hav(ing) affixed to * * * (his) vehicle a license tag issued to another vehicle,” and consequently had probable cause to arrest him for this misdemean- or.
The Petition for Rehearing is denied and no member of this panel nor Judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12) the Peti-tition for Rehearing En Bane is denied.

. Miss.Code Ann. § 9352-51 (1942).
§ 9352-51. Violation of provisions of this act. — Any owner, operator, dealer, agent, or any other person who shall operate or pause to be operated upon the highways of this state, without having paid the privilege license tax or fee required by the provisions of this act, or without having the license tag affixed upon such vehicle as required by law, or who shall have affixed to such vehicle a license tag issued for another vehicle, or who shall alter or change any license tag issued in any way, or who shall violate any other provision of this act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars ($10.00) and not more than one hundred dollars ($100.00), or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than thirty (30) days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.