Court: Turning A Minor Parking Violation Into A String Of Rights Violations Is A Great Way To Lose Your Evidence
No matter how minor the infraction, it still deserves the court's full attention. That's the ultimate lesson of this New York court decision, brought to us by FourthAmendment.com. It starts with an alleged window tint violation (always a favorite of cops on fishing expedition), morphs into a fire hydrant parking violation, and finally ends with a full inventory search of a car that didn't need to be towed, solely for the purpose of some general rummaging.
The court makes it clear in its decision that it's not going to gloss over a bunch of rights violations just because the end result was a citation.
The court's responsibility to meaningfully review the factual basis for police conduct in situations like this is critical to preserving the interest of individuals in living their lives free from governmental interference." (People v. Howard, 50 NY2d 583, 589 [1980]). Automobile stops alleging excessively tinted windows are common and can have major consequences. (See, e.g., Alysia Santo, The Marshall Project,When Broken Windows' Meets Tinted Windows, Aug. 17, 2015, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/17/when-broken-windows-meets-tinted-windows [noting that in 2014, the NYPD issued an average of 204 tickets for tinted windows each day, every day]...
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In fact, here the police intrusion based upon purportedly excessive tints escalated into violence against a New Yorker who was sitting peacefully in his own lawfully parked car. At the very least, a suppression court must fulfill its responsibility to determine whether an officer's conclusion that the tints were unlawful was reasonably warranted. The alternative-simply adopting the officer's conclusion-reduces the court to a rubber stamp.
A rubber stamp here would only reward bad cops for bad behavior based on pretexts that can't be meaningfully measured in courts. You know, like claims the odor of marijuana was present. Without more evidence, a claim a window was too dark is nothing more than an officer's opinion.
The court digs into everything about this stop and finds very little to like about it. It began with NYPD officer Scott Edwards approaching the car Mr. Davis was sitting in. According to Officer Edwards' testimony, he and two other officers were in uniform but in an unmarked vehicle as part of a Neighborhood Safety Team" that apparently felt the neighborhood would be safer if people didn't immediately recognize the presence of officers.
Edwards claimed Davis's windows were excessively tinted" and that his car was parked too close to a fire hydrant. The officers ordered Davis to roll down his window and open his door. He refused to open his door. The officers then entered Davis's car (the court notes it's unclear how they achieved this, although it does note one officer discovered his rear passenger door was unlocked). The officers forced Davis out of his car and placed him under arrest - not for the window tint or the fire hydrant, but for obstruction."
The officers then had Davis's car towed and performed what they referred to as an inventory search" of the vehicle. These are, of course, permissible. They help officers and towing companies avoid being falsely accused of theft. But there are rules. And they weren't followed here, as Officer Edwards (inadvertently) admitted in court:
After arresting Mr. Davis, the officers moved his vehicle back to the 101st Precinct, where they conducted an inventory search. Officer Edwards explained that he believes an inventory search is one conducted to attempt to locate any valuables or contraband in the vehicle." Such contraband, he explained, includes weapons, drugs, and things like that." The NYPD has written procedures for inventory searches, and they are published in the NYPD Patrol Guide. Officer Edwards has seen those procedures before, and the People introduced a copy of them as an exhibit. During the inventory search, the officers looked in the car, including the trunk, glove box, sides of the vehicle, and under the seats, just trying to get - you know, find any contraband or valuable material," according to Officer Edwards.
In the glove box, Officer Edwards found a photocopy of an NYPD parking placard. Mr. Davis's name was written at the bottom. Officer Edwards said that other items were recovered," but he did not specify who found other items or what they were. A different officer invoiced the placard as arrest evidence. To Officer Edwards, the photocopy was not a genuine placard. It was on printer paper, whereas a normal NYPD parking placard-which Officer Edwards personally owns-is on thicker, cardboard-like paper. Officer Edwards testified that the items recovered were invoiced," which means that an itemized list of the property was created. However, Officer Edwards did not create this list. No such list was introduced into evidence. Nonetheless, Officer Edwards concluded that the process for the inventory search matched the procedure in the Patrol Guide.
No officer ever witnessed Mr. Davis attempting to use the photocopied placard.
This is problematic, says the court. There are permissible reasons to perform an inventory search on a towed vehicle. First and foremost, the towing of the vehicle needs to be justified. Here, it wasn't. It could have been moved, rather than towed.
Second, even if the inventory search is a pretext itself, testifying officers shouldn't tell the courts the real reason for the search was to (hopefully) discover evidence of criminal activity.
Here, Officer Edwards indicated that multiple officers conducted the inventory search. However, he did not specify who those officers were, nor did he articulate how each of them reasonably followed the requirements of an inventory search. The point of an inventory search is tocreate an inventoryof the items in a vehicle. That Officer Edwards instead explained the officers' general goal as just trying to get - you know, find any contraband or valuable material," like drugs" or things like that," does not inspire much confidence that this search was conducted for the specific purpose of creating an inventory. This record is insufficient to assure the court that each of the officers was not merely rummaging for incriminating evidence." (See Mortel, 197 AD3d at 221).
And it's not enough to claim in court that windows are excessively tinted without providing any factual basis for that determination.
The officer here testified that he observed excessively dark window tints," but he did not provide any facts on which he based his conclusion that the tints were excessive." An officer who only testifies that he concluded the tints were excessively dark" might as well only testify that the tints were unlawful." Such a hearing record leaves the court with no objective facts on which to adjudicate whether the officer's conclusion was reasonabl[e]." The People elicited nothing regarding the officer's training or experience in gauging tints, or any factual observations that he made about the tints here...
Without evidence, the rousting of Mr. Davis and the eventual arrest (not to mention the towing/rummaging of his car) isn't justified. That being said, the NYC court is somewhat constrained by precedent, which (somehow) says some of this is acceptable justification for these officers' actions.
Constrained to find that the officers' detention was lawful, the court is likewise constrained to find that there was probable cause for the arrest. If the detention was lawful, Mr. Davis was not entitled to resist the officers' commands to lower his window or open his door. As a result, the People established probable cause for obstructing governmental administration.
But that won't save the sole piece of evidence (the fake PD placard) officers recovered during their illegal search of Davis's car. The court says the government failed to prove the vehicle was legally impounded. So, the inventory search (which the officer admitted was performed almost solely for the purpose of discovering contraband) was unconstitutional.
That means Davis is still on the hook for obstruction, due to his resistance of the officers' (seemingly unlawful) orders. But the offending placard is no longer in play.
[T]he fruits of the inventory search, including any resulting police observations and the photocopied parking placard, are suppressed.
This was a minor stop with minimal repercussions (comparatively) for the defendant. But the court still did its job. It's not the size of the constitutional violation that matters. It's the violation itself. Even if this case didn't put Davis in jeopardy of losing his freedom for years or decades, it still matters. And the court here took care to ensure even the most minimal of violations would receive the proper scrutiny.