Court Opinion

ID: 9604046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:13:31.411434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:18.394409
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Justice
(specially concurring).
Although I agree with the result reached in the majority opinion, I cannot support a position which holds that the Arizona licensing and registration statutes, ARS § 28-423 and § 28-302, do not authorize “the stopping of travelers upon public highways for the purpose of ascertaining whether the driver is violating the law.”
According to the foregoing bald position, the only way that these statutes can be enforced is when a “founded suspicion” of some other violation of the laws results in a valid stop. The majority, in citing examples of cases supporting our position, referred to Mississippi and New Jersey opinions, states far removed from Arizona. In our own back yard, we have, among others, People v. Washburn, 265 Cal.App.2d 665, 71 Cal.Rptr. 577 (1968), and Lipton v. United States, 9 Cir., 348 F.2d 591 (1965). The California statute on drivers’ licenses is remarkably close to that of Arizona, and *587the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in applying that statute in Lipton v. United States, supra, said “ . . . The necessary implication of those code provisions is that a peace officer in the proper discharge of his duty has the right to stop a driver and make such demand.” 348 F.2d at 593. The same court went on to say:
“If stopping appellant for the sole purpose of inquiring whether he held a license for the activity in which he was engaged was in any sense a ‘seizure’ it was not an ‘unreasonable’ one, and did not violate any right given appellant by the Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the State by the Fourteenth. Cf. Rios v. United States, 364 U.S. 253, 262, 80 S.Ct. 1431, 4 L.Ed.2d 1688 (1960). A contrary holding would render unenforceable the State statute requiring that automobile drivers be licensed.” 348 F. 2d at 593.
In a recent case cited in the majority opinion, United States v. Carrizoza-Gaxiola, 523 F.2d 239 (9th Cir. 1975), the court said:
“The government advances two arguments for the constitutionality of the stop. First, the government argues that our decision in Lipton v. United States, 348 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1965), permits stops without founded suspicion to check drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations. Assuming the vitality of that decision subsequent to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the rationale of Lipton is that laws requiring possession of drivers’ licenses while driving could not otherwise be effectively enforced. Id. at 593. We have limited Lipton to that rationale; it permits stops without founded suspicion only to enforce laws susceptible of no other means of effective enforcement. United States v. Bowen, 500 F.2d 960, 964-65 (9th Cir.) (en banc); see id. at 972 n. 9, 973-74 (Wallace, J., dissenting), aff’d on separate issue, 422 U.S. 916, 95 S.Ct. 2569, 45 L.Ed.2d 641 (1975.)” 523 F.2d at 241.
In view of the fact that the stop here was to check for stolen vehicles rather than to check driver licensing or vehicle registration, there was no need to address this issue. To gratuitously meet the issue under this factual framework may well necessitate judicial gymnastics under another fact situation.
I concur in the result.