State v. Amator ( 2022 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
2022-NCCOA-293
No. COA21-433
Filed 3 May 2022
McDowell County, No. 18CRS052216
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
AMBER LYNN AMATOR, Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 16 February 2021 by Judge J.
Thomas Davis in McDowell County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 8
February 2022.
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Donna B.
Wojcik, for the State.
Sharon L. Smith for the Defendant.
DILLON, Judge.
¶1 Defendant Amber Lynn Amator appeals from a judgment finding her guilty of
trafficking in methamphetamine. She was convicted based on the discovery of drugs
found in her car during a traffic stop. On appeal, she challenges the validity of that
stop.
I. Background
¶2 On 30 December 2018, a police officer stopped Defendant’s vehicle for what he
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2022-NCCOA-293
Opinion of the Court
believed to be a license plate renewal sticker violation. The officer also recognized
Defendant’s car as a vehicle he had attempted to stop weeks earlier. After discovering
that another passenger had an outstanding warrant for arrest, a second police officer
arrived with a K9. The K9 alerted on the car, and the officers searched the vehicle’s
interior. The search revealed several bags of methamphetamine. Defendant claimed
one bag of methamphetamine amounting to 48.88 grams.
¶3 Defendant was charged with several drug offenses, as well as with improperly
placing the renewal sticker on her license plate. Defendant moved to suppress the
evidence obtained during the search of her vehicle. The trial court denied Defendant’s
motion, and Defendant subsequently pleaded guilty to trafficking in
methamphetamine. The State dismissed Defendant’s remaining charges. Defendant
received a fine and an active sentence of seventy (70) to ninety-three (93) months.
Defendant appealed to our Court.
II. Analysis
¶4 Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress,
contending that the officer did not have reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop based
on an alleged misplacement of her renewal sticker. We disagree.
¶5 The question before us is whether the trial court had reasonable suspicion that
Defendant committed a crime based on the placement of the renewal sticker on her
license plate. We review a motion to suppress to determine “whether the trial judge’s
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2022-NCCOA-293
Opinion of the Court
underlying findings of fact are supported by competent evidence, in which event they
are conclusively binding on appeal, and whether those factual findings in turn
support the judge’s ultimate conclusions of law.” State v. Cooke, 306 N.C. 132, 134,
291 S.E.2d 618, 619 (1982). Unchallenged findings of fact are binding on appeal.
State v. Sparks, 362 N.C. 181, 185, 657 S.E.2d 655, 658 (2008).
¶6 In the years prior to Defendant’s arrest, the DMV Commissioner sent out to
each vehicle owner two stickers with each vehicle registration, one with the month
and one with the year. At the time of Defendant’s arrest, our Administrative Code
instructed that the “month and year stickers shall be displayed on the plate in the
correct position[.]” 19A N.C.A.C. 3C.0237 (2018).
¶7 Sometime before the time of Defendant’s arrest, the DMV Commissioner had
stopped sending two separate stickers with each registration and began sending out
a single month/year registration renewal sticker. The registration card
accompanying the single sticker instructed drivers to place the sticker on the upper
right corner of the license plate. The Commissioner, however, did not immediately
amend the Code provision to recognize the change.1
¶8 When Defendant received her sticker and registration card, she placed the
1 This Code provision was updated in 2021 to reflect single month/year stickers:
“The single month and year sticker shall be displayed on the plate in the upper right-hand
corner.” 19A N.C.A.C. 3C.0237 (2021).
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2022-NCCOA-293
Opinion of the Court
sticker in the upper left corner of her plate. Defendant was later stopped by an officer
who believed that she was in violation of N.C Gen. Stat. § 20-66(c) (2018), which
simply requires that the single registration renewal sticker “must be displayed on the
registration plate it renews in the place prescribed by the Commissioner[.]”
¶9 Therefore, the issue before us does not concern whether there was sufficient
evidence that Defendant was in violation of that statute. Rather, the issue is whether
the officer reasonably believed Defendant was violating that statute to justify the stop
that led to the discovery of the methamphetamine. Defendant argues that there could
be no reasonable belief because neither the statute nor the Code provision in effect at
the time of the stop stated where a single month/year sticker needed to be placed on
one’s license plate. Here, even assuming that the officer was not correct in his
interpretation of the law, we conclude that any mistake made by the officer was
reasonable.
¶ 10 Regarding the officer’s belief, the trial court found that:
1. [The officer] understood that the sticker should be on
the upper right side of the plate. He based his
understanding on the language in his “Law
Enforcement Officers Quick Reference Statute Guide”
referring to [N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-66(c)] (State’s
Exhibit 1) and the information provided on the back
of North Carolina vehicle registration cards (State’s
Exhibit 2), both indicating that the month/year tag
should be placed on the upper right side of the license
plate.
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¶ 11 Section 20-66(c) requires drivers to place their stickers on their license plates
in a manner prescribed by the Commissioner of the DMV. It is true, as Defendant
argues, that the Code was silent on the issue of placement of the single sticker at the
time of her arrest. But the registration card received by Defendant did contain the
instruction that a single sticker be placed in the upper right-hand corner. And there
is a statute, which neither party cited, which states that it is the Commissioner’s
responsibility to create and provide the registration card received with the sticker.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-41 (“The Commissioner shall provide suitable forms for . . .
registration cards . . . requisite for the purpose of this Article[.]”).
¶ 12 Of course, our conclusion might be different if there was a controlling decision
stating that the information on the registration card cannot support a prosecution
under Section 20-66(c). But there is no such decision in our jurisprudence. See State
v. Eldridge, 249 N.C. App. 493, 499, 790 S.E.2d 740, 744 (2016) (noting jurisdictions
requiring the “absence of settled caselaw interpreting the statute at issue in order for
the officer’s mistake of law to be deemed objectively reasonable”).
¶ 13 The United States Supreme Court held in Heien v. North Carolina that
reasonable suspicion can arise from an officer’s mistake of law, so long as the mistake
is reasonable. 574 U.S. 54, 61 (2014). In Heien, an officer stopped a vehicle with only
one working brake light, believing that the defendant had violated a North Carolina
law requiring a “stop lamp.” Id. at 58-59. The Supreme Court concluded that the
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Opinion of the Court
officer’s error of law was reasonable because the relevant law also provided that a
stop lamp “may be incorporated into a unit with one or more other rear lamps” and
that “all originally equipped rear lamps [must be] in good working order.” Id. at 67-
68 (emphasis in original). Therefore, it was reasonable for the officer to conclude,
pursuant to an ambiguous statute, that all brake lights on a vehicle must be
functioning in order to satisfy the law. Id. at 68.
¶ 14 Defendant also cites Eldridge, which involves an officer who stopped a motorist
driving a vehicle with out-of-state plates for failing to have an exterior mirror on the
driver’s side of the vehicle. 249 N.C. App. at 494, 790 S.E.2d at 741. Our Court
concluded that the officer’s mistake of law was unreasonable because the relevant
law clearly stated that it only applied to vehicles “registered in this State.” Id. at
499-500, 790 S.E.2d at 744 (citing N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-126(b)). That is, we so
concluded because the relevant law was unambiguous. Id. at 499, 790 S.E.2d at 744.
We conclude that Eldridge is distinguishable from the case at bar for this reason.
¶ 15 Here, the relevant law was ambiguous at the time of Defendant’s traffic stop.
It is not clear from the statute exactly where the single month/year sticker should be
placed, only that it be displayed as “prescribed by the Commissioner.” Therefore, the
officer relied on his quick reference guide and the information from the Commissioner
on the back of the registration card to conclude that Defendant had violated Section
20-66(c), and there was reasonable suspicion to conduct the traffic stop on this
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ground. If the officer was mistaken, his mistake was reasonable.
III. Conclusion
¶ 16 We conclude that the officer had reasonable suspicion that Defendant was in
violation of Section 20-66(c). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err
in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress.
AFFIRMED.
Chief Judge STROUD and Judge JACKSON concur.