Judge upholds license plate law

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, May 20, 2006 by Robert Boczkiewicz

By Robert Boczkiewicz

SPECIAL TO THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

DENVER - Motorists traveling in Kansas can be charged with violating the state's law requiring license plates to be clearly visible even if a motorist's home state law has no such requirement, a court ruled Friday.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Michigan motorist in Kansas violated the Kansas law by displaying a temporary license tag behind a heavily tinted rear window, even though that display comported with Michigan law.

The Denver-based appeals court used its ruling on Kansas' license plate law to uphold a drug crime conviction resulting from state Trooper Jerett Ranieri's traffic stop in 2003 on Interstate 70 near Junction City.

The driver, Maria Concepcion-Ledesma, was charged in federal court in Topeka with three crimes involving methamphetamine and pleaded guilty to one of them, traveling between states to carry on the manufacture of methamphetamine. Authorities alleged they found 320 pounds of pseudoephedrine in her van, an ingredient of methamphetamine.

She appealed, contesting the legality of the traffic stop and the ensuing search.

The appellate judges said no Michigan law specifies the proper location of a temporary registration sticker but that Concepcion- Ledesma had followed Michigan instructions on the temporary sticker about placing it in a rear window.

Despite that, the trooper acted properly under the Kansas law, the judges said in refusing the defendant's request to suppress the evidence Ranieri found.

"We hold that displaying a temporary tag behind a heavily tinted rear window violates a Kansas statute requiring that license plates appear 'in a place and position to be clearly visible,'\u2009" the appellate judges wrote Friday in a 25-page decision.

"State troopers therefore did not exceed the permissible scope of their traffic stop by issuing a citation and requesting consent for a subsequent search," the judges wrote.

The driver's attorney, Michael S. Holland, speaking from his office in Russell, said Friday that Concepcion-Ledesma has been serving a two-year prison sentence.

She told Ranieri she was driving from Detroit to Los Angeles for a vacation, according to Friday's decision.

Robert Boczkiewicz covers the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. He can be reached at REB1den@aol.com.