Can You Stop a Vehicle Based on an Outstanding Warrant attached to the License Plate

This post is only offered as a discussion topic only and does not represent legal advice. Officers must refer to the laws in their own State as well as their agency's policies, which can be more restrictive on officers that the law requires.

Scenario: While conducting random license plate checks, an officer receives information from dispatch that there is a misdemeanor arrest warrant attached to one of the vehicles that just passed them. The officer conducts an investigative stop and discovers the wanted person is not in the vehicle.

Can the officer be held liable for unlawful detention?

Answer: This case is similar to the 1987 California Court of Appeals case People v Dominguez. The Court explained, “If the person detained is not the one on the warrant, he or she will normally be briefly questioned regarding the person wanted and the detention ended. Such a procedure is almost identical to being questioned in one's yard or at the doorstep to one's home if contacted there by officers attempting to serve a warrant on a person whose last given address is at that location.” They supported the ability of officers to detain the driver of the vehicle to determine if the wanted subject was in the vehicle. They said, "It would be manifestly unreasonable to limit automobile detentions relating to service of misdemeanor arrest warrants to only those occasions when the police are reasonably certain the named arrestee is present in the vehicle." Please remember, each stop is fact specific. If an officer immediately identifies that the subject of their investigative stop is not in the vehicle, the officer must conclude their investigative stop and send them on their way. Likewise, if its obvious that the lone driver in the vehicle is an elderly woman and the wanted subject is a young male, the officer likely doesn't have enough reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle in the first place. As always, the entire case is available in the additional resources on TheBriefingRoom.com and make sure to refer to your own agency policy as it can be more restrictive on officers than the law requires.

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