COURT UPHOLD SEIZURE OF MARIJUANA

A confidential informant told the Kansas City Drug Task Force that Ishmael Kedar Harris was selling drugs in the Kansas City area. They saw him with a duffel bag driving a truck. After following him for a short distance they requested the Grandview Police Department to find a reason to stop Harris. After following him for a couple of blocks a Grandview officer stopped him for having a tinted driver’s license cover. Tinted license cover are legal in Missouri as long as the tag is clearly visible.

They asked for permission to search the vehicle. Harris told the officer that it was his girl friend’s car. They called the girl friend who refused to consent.

A drug dog was brought to the scene and signaled the presence of contraband. This gave the officers probable cause to search the vehicle. They found a gun and three pounds of marijuana. Using this information they got a search warrant for Harris’ house where they found 29.7 pounds of marijuana.

The statute says that the license plate must be “clearly visible.” The officer testified at the hearing that he had to get right up on the tale of the vehicle before he could read the tag. The judge found the officer credible and denied the motion to suppress the evidence.

The appellate court found that it was a question of credibility. Since the trial judge’s decision is not “clearly erroneous” the appellate court denied the appeal.

One issue that is not discussed in the decision is the length of the stop. The length of a traffic stop is limited to the amount of time it takes to handle the situation for which there is probable cause. In this case it would be limited to the amount of time it would take to give Harris a ticket for the license plate cover and to check his ID and warrants. Nothing is said in the decision but I wonder if the time it took to call the girl friend and to bring the dog to the site where the car was stopped exceeded the time necessary to give the ticked, check for his ID and warrants.