• Traffic Stops
• Reasonable Suspicion vs. “Hunch"

Making a traffic stop on a vehicle based upon an officer’s knowledge that the owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is legal, even if it is unknown for sure who is driving the vehicle, at least in the absence other information that negates the inference that the driver of that vehicle is its registered owner.

Douglas County Deputy Sheriff Mark Mehrer, in the State of Kansas, observed a 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck with Kansas plates, being driven on the public streets.  Running a random radio check on the plates, Deputy Mehrer discovered that the vehicle was registered to a Charles Glover Jr. and that Mr. Glover’s driver’s license had been revoked.  Assuming that it was Mr. Glover (i.e., defendant) who was driving the vehicle, but without making any attempts to verify this assumption, Deputy Mehrer made a traffic stop.  No moving violations had been observed.  The sole reason for the stop was the fact that the vehicle’s owner had a revoked driver’s license.  As it turned out, it was in fact defendant/Glover who was driving.  Charged in state court with driving as a “habitual violator,” defendant filed a motion to suppress all information obtained as a result of the traffic stop, arguing that the deputy lacked sufficient reasonable suspicion to justify the stop.  The above facts were entered into evidence by stipulation between the parties, with no one actually testifying (thus no additional evidence being presented).  The trial court agreed with defendant and suppressed the evidence, thus dismissing the case.  The State appealed to Kansas’ intermediate appellate court, which reversed the trial court.  Defendant’s appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court resulted in another reversal, Kansas’ High Court agreeing with the trial court that Deputy Mehrer’s traffic stop was illegal.  (State v. Glover (July 27, 2018) 308 Kan. 590, 422 P.3d 64.)  The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The United State Supreme Court, in a split (8-to-1) decision, with two Justices writing an important concurring opinion (see Note, below), reversed the Kansas Supreme Court, finding the traffic stop to be lawful. The issue is simple:  Is a traffic stop lawful when all an officer knows is that the owner of a vehicle observed being driven on a public roadway has had his driver’s license revoked   In answering this question, the Supreme Court noted that the standard for such a traffic stop is but a mere “reasonable suspicion.”  Per the Court: “Although a mere ‘hunch’ does not create reasonable suspicion, the level of suspicion the standard requires is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence, and obviously less than is necessary for probable cause.”  “The reasonable suspicion inquiry ‘falls considerably short’ of 51% accuracy.”  Such reasonable suspicion takes into account an officer’s training and experience, as well as his “common sense,” based upon the totality of all the officer’s life’s experiences.  Upon making the traffic stop in this case, Deputy Mehrer was fulfilling the State of Kansas’ “vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles [and] that licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are being observed.”  In protecting this “vital interest,” all Deputy Mehrer knew was that the owner of the Chevy pickup he observed on the road had had his driver’s license revoked.  Under Kansas law, one’s license is not revoked unless he has previously committed some prior offense serious enough to demonstrate that that person has little regard for the law.  Empirical studies have shown, and “common experience readily reveals,” that drivers with a revoked license frequently continue to drive, thus posing safety risks to other motorists and pedestrians.  To meet the necessary “reasonable suspicion” standard for making a lawful traffic stop, it is not necessary that the officer know for sure, or that he even have probable cause to believe, that it was defendant, with the revoked license, who was driving the vehicle.  The Court held that it was enough that the deputy “drew the commonsense inference that (defendant, as the registered owner) was likely the driver of the vehicle, which provided more than reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop.”  It is also to be noted, however, that the necessary reasonable suspicion includes an evaluation of the “totality of the circumstances.”  If Deputy Mehrer had had other information to the effect that it was not defendant himself who was driving the vehicle, then the necessary reasonable suspicion would not have existed, and the stop would have been illegal.  But that was not the case here.  Defendant, therefore, based solely on the fact that the vehicle was registered to him and the deputy’s knowledge that his license had been revoked, was lawfully stopped.

In the “concurring opinion” by two of the nine justices, the fact that additional information, if it existed, might have been enough to negate the deputy’s reasonable suspicion was discussed.  Examples cited include circumstances such as if it been observed, before the stop, that it was an obviously older man than defendant, or maybe a woman, driving.  This would have clearly been enough to negate the deputy’s reasonable suspicion.  It might even be enough if there is more than one registered owner for that particular vehicle.  More troublesome, however—taking a lot of the wind out of this case—is the fact defendant’s license had been “revoked.”  If it had been noted before the stop that defendant’s license was merely “suspended,” instead of “revoked,” would this fact have made a difference   With evidence that people with revoked licenses tend to disregard the fact that it is illegal for them to continue driving being a factor (the majority opinion citing studies to this effect), justifying the stop in this case, and with the concurring Justices noting that under Kansas law, a suspension (as opposed to a revocation) might mean no more than that defendant has failed to pay parking tickets, court fees, or even child support (all indicating that his problem might be simply that he doesn’t have a lot of money), none of which necessarily shows a disrespect for Kansas’ rules against unlicensed driving, then this factor alone might have been enough to convert the deputy’s reasonable suspicion into nothing more than a mere unsupported “hunch.”  I haven’t researched California’s laws concerning “suspensions” vs. “revocations.”  But assuming they are similar to Kansas’ laws, then you’ll be making case law if you attempt a traffic stop based upon no more information than the fact that the vehicle owner’s license is suspended, as opposed to revoked.  In such a case, however, it will help to justify your traffic stop if you make the effort before stopping the vehicle to (1) get a physical description of the vehicle’s owner, and (2) get a look at the driver to see if he or she is similar to that description.  A similarity in description should be more than enough to give you the necessary reasonable suspicion, irrespective of whether the owner’s license has been revoked or merely suspended.