State v. Yeargin-Charles ( 2024 )

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
No. 125,754
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
STATE OF KANSAS,
Appellee,
v.
TASHARA D. YEARGIN-CHARLES,
Appellant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from Jackson District Court; NORBERT C. MAREK and MICHAEL E. WARD, judges.
Submitted without oral argument. Opinion filed July 26, 2024. Affirmed.
Ryan J. Eddinger, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.
Kurtis K. Wiard, assistant solicitor general, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee.
Before HILL, P.J., ATCHESON and CLINE, JJ.
PER CURIAM: Passengers in automobiles have standing to judicially contest the
admissibility of evidence seized by police from their personal belongings. Tashara D.
Yeargin-Charles, a passenger in an automobile, asks us to overturn her criminal
convictions because the district court denied her motion to suppress the contraband seized
from her purse. She argues the contraband evidence found in her purse should have been
suppressed because the law enforcement officers made an illegal traffic stop.
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A flapping car tag leads to an early morning car stop.
In August 2021, Tashara D. Yeargin-Charles was a passenger in a car that was
driving on a highway in Jackson County, Kansas, around 3:30 a.m. Deputy Justin Dobler
and Sergeant Travis DeBarge observed the car's license plate "flapping in the wind."
Deputy Dobler testified that the license plate was secured by one bolt and that he "clearly
observed that the registration plate was not securely fastened and was actually hanging to
the—slanting to the right, and it was visibly shaking while traveling down the road."
Based on observing the car's violation of the statute requiring the proper "display of
registration," the officers pulled the car over.
Deputy Dobler approached the passenger side of the car and Sergeant DeBarge
approached the driver's side. There were three people in the car: the driver—Karen
Nichols; the front seat passenger—Yeargin-Charles; and the rear seat passenger—Rico
Taylor. Deputy Dobler had trouble talking to the passengers because the window was
barely cracked and Yeargin-Charles was uncooperative—arguing with Deputy Dobler
before finally rolling down the window. Throughout the interaction, Sergeant DeBarge
primarily talked to Nichols and Taylor, while Deputy Dobler talked to Yeargin-Charles.
Shortly after approaching the car, Sergeant DeBarge saw an open container of
alcohol in the back floorboard of the car and, as a result, instructed the three occupants to
exit the car so the officers could search the car. Sergeant DeBarge focused his search in
the driver's and rear seat passenger's areas of the car. He found a second open container
of alcohol under the driver's seat and drug paraphernalia inside Nichols' purse. Deputy
Dobler focused his search in and around Yeargin-Charles' seat and found a purse that he
observed on Yeargin-Charles' lap when he initially approached the car. Inside the purse,
Deputy Dobler found an open bottle of peach vodka, a marijuana cigarette, and a pipe
with burnt residue inside—which later tested positive for methamphetamine.
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Based on what Deputy Dobler found, he asked Yeargin-Charles for her name and
date of birth. She replied that her name was Catrice Lanae Montgomery and that her date
of birth was 02/04/1980. Deputy Dobler asked the dispatcher to verify her identity, which
the dispatcher could not do. Deputy Dobler continued to search the purse; he found a
wallet that contained credit cards and a driving license, both of which belonged to
Tashara Yeargin-Charles, whose date of birth was 03/25/1978.
More dramatic events begin when her purse was searched.
While Deputy Dobler searched the purse, Yeargin-Charles suddenly dropped to
the ground, claiming she was pregnant and that her water broke. Deputy Dobler requested
emergency medical personnel to respond based on Yeargin-Charles' claim. As the
medical staff arrived, Yeargin-Charles laid on the ground, "screaming, farting, and trying
to force herself to throw up." She exclaimed that "her water was breaking. She was
having pains towards the stomach and her butt. She was appearing to have dry heaving or
almost throwing up-type with no liquid coming out. She was farting, and just doing the
moaning and obvious sounds of pain." Though, Deputy Dobler testified that he did not
see any indication that her water broke—noting there was no liquid on the ground.
She then told Sergeant DeBarge that she was a paranoid schizophrenic and later
that she was sick with Covid. Sergeant DeBarge communicated with the dispatcher and
informed dispatch of the name found on Yeargin-Charles driving license and credit cards,
which was also confirmed by the other passengers. Additionally, Sergeant DeBarge had
the dispatcher check for tattoos listed from Yeargin-Charles' previous jail sentence.
Sergeant DeBarge learned that Yeargin-Charles had a tattoo of a rose and her daughter's
name on her right arm, and he confirmed that these tattoos were on Yeargin-Charles.
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Emergency medical personnel transported Yeargin-Charles to Stormont-Vail in
Topeka, at her request. While at the hospital, medical staff reported to law enforcement
that Yeargin-Charles was not pregnant and instead was under the influence of drugs.
Yeargin-Charles moves to suppress evidence.
The State charged Yeargin-Charles with (1) possession of methamphetamine, a
severity level 5 drug nonperson felony; (2) interference with law enforcement—falsely
reporting information, a severity level 9 nonperson felony; (3) possession of marijuana, a
class B nonperson misdemeanor; (4) possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B
nonperson misdemeanor; and (5) transportation of liquor in an open container, an
unclassified misdemeanor.
Based on her claim that Deputy Dobler lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the car,
Yeargin-Charles moved to suppress the evidence found in the search of her purse. At the
hearing on the motion to suppress, Deputy Dobler testified that he observed the car's
registration plate flapping in the wind, and he believed that violated the statute requiring
the proper display of registration. On cross-examination, Deputy Dobler admitted that he
had no trouble reading the license plate; the license plate was not cluttered by debris,
foreign objects, or anything of the sort; and the license plate was affixed in the area
where license plates are required to be on a car. The district court also received the dash-
cam video of the traffic stop as evidence.
The State argued that the dash-cam video shows "the bottom of the tag oscillating
in the wind" and that "only one bolt" was fastened to the car. In response to the district
court's questions about the standard number of bolts on a car, the State argued that the
"size of the bolts that go into a license plate and the rigidity of the plate, if you screw
those bolts in and securely fasten them, it won't go anywhere."
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The district court also asked the State if there was a violation, given that the statute
mainly seeks to make sure that license plates are readable, and Deputy Dobler's testified
that he could read the plate. The State responded that the statute's purpose is (1) "to be
clear of obstruction and debris, dirt and stuff like that, to be legible" and (2) "to securely
fasten the part [would] honestly be a traffic safety matter."
Yeargin-Charles' argument began by stating, "I know we all grew up in a rural
community. I have seen trailers where the license plates have been fixed vertically rather
than horizontally to the side because that's the way they fit the trailer. They are still
clearly legible, and I don't think that's a violation." She countered the State's conclusion
about the statute's purpose, arguing instead that the statute only requires legibility and
visibility. She concluded that the license plate complied with the statute: it was affixed in
a place more than 12 inches off the ground and it was not dirty. Yeargin-Charles also
argued that the license plate was not falling off the car, the officer could read it, and if the
plate "had been swinging, the officer wouldn't have been able to read it from the distance
he was before he initiated this traffic stop."
In its order denying the suppression motion, the district court found two federal
district court cases persuasive—United States v. Velazquez, 494 F. Supp. 2d 1250, 1252-
53 (D. Kan. 2007), aff'd 349 Fed. Appx. 339 (10th Cir. 2009) (unpublished opinion);
United States v. Lopez-Estrada, No. 10-40013-02-SAC, 2010 WL 2079813, at *4 (D.
Kan. 2010) (unpublished opinion), aff'd 446 Fed. Appx. 81 (10th Cir. 2011) (unpublished
opinion). The two cases addressed similar facts where the license plate was not securely
fastened as required by K.S.A. 8-133(c), holding the officers had reasonable suspicion to
initiate a traffic stop based on the violation. Velazquez, 494 F. Supp. 2d at 1252-53;
Lopez-Estrada, 2010 WL 2079813, at *4. The district court adopted the reasoning and the
findings of the federal district courts and denied Yeargin-Charles' motion to suppress.
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A jury finds Yeargin-Charles guilty on all charges.
The jury found Yeargin-Charles guilty on all five charges. The district court
imposed a suspended 20-month prison sentence with 18 months of probation.
The appellant can raise this issue even though she was not driving the car.
Fourth Amendment law is well settled. A traffic stop entails a seizure of the driver
even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention brief. Brendlin
v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255, 127 S. Ct. 2400, 168 L. Ed. 2d 132 (2007) (quoting
Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660 [1979]). It
logically follows, then, that any passengers of a stopped vehicle also experience a
restraint on their ability to freely move. This means that the police activity that normally
amounts to intrusion on privacy and personal security does not normally distinguish
between passenger and driver. Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 257. Basically, this means that
Yeargin-Charles, as a passenger in a car stopped by police, can challenge the reasons for
stopping the car in a motion to suppress evidence in her prosecution.
Is a flapping license tag a good reason for a law enforcement officer to stop a car?
Yeargin-Charles asserts that Deputy Dobler lacked adequate justification to
initiate a traffic stop of the vehicle in which she was a passenger. She claims that Deputy
Dobler's basis for the traffic stop—violation of K.S.A. 8-133(c)—was an impermissible
mistake of law because the vehicle complied with that statute.
Deputy Dobler testified at the motion to suppress hearing that the reason he
stopped the vehicle was its license plate was not properly secured under K.S.A. 8-133(c).
He testified that the license plate was hanging by only one of four possible bolts and was
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"flapping in the wind." Therefore, Deputy Dobler believed the vehicle to be out of
compliance with the "securely fastened" provision of the statute.
A closer look at the statute, K.S.A. 8-133(c).
To resolve the issue raised by Yeargin-Charles, we must look to the plain language
of the statute and decide the Legislature's intent for enacting K.S.A. 8-133(c). Under that
section, it appears that the Legislature achieves two purposes, as reflected in two
components.
The first component
"Every license plate shall at all times be securely fastened to the vehicle to which
it is assigned, to prevent the plate from swinging, and at a height not less than 12 inches
from the ground, measuring from the bottom of such plate." K.S.A. 8-133(c).
There is nothing hidden or subtle in this language. All license plates must be
secured properly. Given this aim, the legislative intent in enacting this component seems
to be directed at traffic safety. See, e.g., Lopez-Estrada, 2010 WL 2079813, at *4
(finding that the requirements of the first component in K.S.A. 8-133[c] "not only aids in
identifying the vehicle, but also maintains the safety of the highways").
The second component
"The license plate shall be fastened in a place and position to be clearly visible,
and shall be maintained free from foreign materials and in a condition to be clearly
legible." K.S.A. 8-133(c).
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What good is a license plate if you cannot read it? The second component's aim is
to ensure both citizens and law enforcement may be able to easily identify vehicles. State
v. Beck, No. 126,350, 2024 WL 1827298, at *9 (Kan. App. 2024) (unpublished opinion).
A recent panel of this court interpreted the provision in subsection (c) to impose
three requirements for the display of license plates. These requirements are (1) the license
plate must be "securely fastened to the vehicle," (2) the license plate must be "in a place
and position to be clearly visible," and (3) the license plate must be "clearly legible."
Beck, 2024 WL 1827298, at *9; K.S.A. 8-133(c).
While there appears to be no Kansas cases that address the unique facts at issue—
the failure to securely fasten a license plate where visibility and legibility are not at
issue—federal cases aid our analysis. See, e.g., Velazquez, 494 F. Supp. 2d at 1252-53;
Lopez-Estrada, 2010 WL 2079813, at *4 .
In Lopez-Estrada, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals considered a traffic stop
where an officer justified reasonable suspicion on K.S.A. 8-133(c), observing the
vehicle's license plate hanging down on one side. The court held that the officer had
reasonable suspicion that the vehicle was violating the provision requiring the plate to be
securely fastened, "'so as to prevent the plate from swinging.'" 446 Fed. Appx. at 82-83.
The court found the defendant's argument unpersuasive that the trooper "lacked
reasonable suspicion because the trooper did not see the license plate actually 'swinging'"
and concluded that the Fourth Amendment "does not require so much." Lopez-Estrada,
446 Fed. Appx. at 83. Instead, the court noted that an "officer need not witness an
ongoing violation of law to effect a traffic stop; he need only have a reasonable basis for
thinking an infraction is taking or has taken place." 446 Fed. Appx. at 83. And under the
facts of the case, the court found that "it was certainly reasonable for the trooper to think
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a jury-rigged job of affixing a license plate might leave it poorly fastened and cause it to
swing in violation of Kansas law." 446 Fed. Appx. at 83.
We find this reasoning persuasive here. This license tag was flapping in the wind
and it was reasonable for the officer to stop the car.
Yeargin-Charles' argument ignores the plain language of the first component:
"[e]very license plate shall at all times be securely fastened to the vehicle to which it is
assigned, to prevent the plate from swinging." K.S.A. 8-133(c). While both components
relate to the visibility and legibility of a license plate, the first component also appears to
reflect the legislative intent to ensure the safety of motor vehicles. Because Deputy
Dobler saw the car's license plate moving and "flapping in the wind," he had reasonable
suspicion to believe the car was in violation of K.S.A. 8-133(c).
We conclude that the officer had good reason to stop the car. Because it was a
reasonable car stop, the grounds raised by the appellant to challenge the denial of her
motion to suppress the contraband found in her purse are gone. The district court
correctly denied the motion to suppress. We affirm the convictions.
Affirmed.
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