This Crime Is Impossible To Prove





One group of folks who say what needs to be said (even though doesn’t make them seem smarter) are stand up comics.  Stand up comics deliver genius level insights without the burden of their ego begging them to say something more “intelligent”.

So, here’s something that needs to be said about a tiny little crime known as Attaching a Tag Not Assigned.  It is a second degree misdemeanor, punishable by a couple of months in jail, or six months of probation, or any combination of the two.

This charge has been bugging me for years, because it can’t be proven.  A real life example case will shed some light on my point here.

In Weaver v. State, Ms. Weaver’s car was pulled over because her license plate did not match the vehicle.  2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 19338 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017)  She explained to the cop that “her friend attached the tag to the vehicle so that she was able to drive it.”  No, that’s not the smartest response ever, but honest I suppose.  Because of the tag issue, the cops eventually searched the car and found felony drugs.

The crime of unlawfully attaching a license plate not assigned can be found in Section 320.261, and it reads as follows:

Any person who knowingly attaches to [any vehicle] any registration license plate [or sticker] . . . which plate or sticker was not issued and assigned or lawfully transferred to such vehicle, is guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree.

Weaver’s defense attorney moved to suppress all of the evidence (thereby dismissing the felony drug charges) because the officer had no business arresting her on the Attaching Tag Not Assigned charge.   The trial court denied the motion, and we’re here today talking about the case because she appealed that decision.

First, you need to know something about misdemeanors.  If an officer is going to arrest you on a misdemeanor, he has to see you do it. See Baymon v. State, 933 So. 2d 1269 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) (the exception to this is battery domestic violence, FYI).  This is the law in Florida, codified in Section 901.15(1) of the Florida Statutes.  Anyway, now that we got the technical stuff out of the way, what’s the problem with what happened to Ms. Weaver?

Well, did the officer see Ms. Weaver “attach” the tag to her car?  No, he didn’t.

The appeals court in this case cites Phillips v. Statewhich held that “a warrantless arrest for an improper tag violation was invalid where the defendant had not committed the offense in the presence of the officer, noting that “there is nothing in the record to indicate that the police officer personally observed appellant attaching a registration license plate or a validation sticker which was not lawfully transferred to the subject vehicle.  In the absence of such personal observation by the police officer herein, probable cause to make the warrantless arrest did not exist.” id. 

Citing Phillips, the court deciding Ms. Weaver’s appeal held that “because the officer did not observe the act constituting the misdemeanor offense in this case, we conclude that the warrantless arrest was invalid, and the evidence obtained pursuant to the search incident to arrest should have been suppressed.”

Bottom line is, every single attaching tag not assigned case I’ve ever seen happens just like it happened to Ms. Weaver.  Since 1993, I’ve never seen the State prove this charge.  Every case, the police run the tag, pull the car over, and make an arrest.  At no time do they see a “crime”.   It simply can’t be proven. End of story.