State v. Ronald J. Wendling

COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION NOTICE
DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Official Reports.
June 18, 2020
A party may file with the Supreme Court a
Sheila T. Reiff petition to review an adverse decision by the
Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10
and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2017AP895-CR Cir. Ct. No. 2015CF177

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

RONALD J. WENDLING,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Grant County:
CRAIG R. DAY, Judge. Affirmed.

Before Blanchard, Graham, and Nashold, JJ.

Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent

or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3).
No. 2017AP895-CR

¶1 PER CURIAM. Ronald Wendling appeals a judgment of
conviction. The issue is whether a police officer had reasonable suspicion to stop
Wendling’s vehicle because, when the officer checked the vehicle’s license plate
number in a database, the officer received a response to the effect of “unable to
process.” We conclude that there was reasonable suspicion. We affirm.

¶2 Wendling was convicted, after a jury trial, of one felony count of
operating with a restricted controlled substance, one felony count of possession of
THC, and one misdemeanor count of possession of paraphernalia. All of these
charges arose from a traffic stop. Wendling moved to suppress evidence obtained
from the stop. After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied the motion.

¶3 The vehicle stop was made by an officer who testified that she was
randomly checking on passing license plates. She entered Wendling’s Illinois
plate number into the patrol car computer and testified that she received back a
response to the effect of “unable to process.” She then radioed for dispatch to run
the same check, and dispatch was also unable to obtain information. The officer
did not testify to any other reason for making the traffic stop.

I. ARGUMENTS AND LEGAL CONTEXT

¶4 Wendling argues that the meaning of “unable to process” must be
determined from the perspective of how a reasonable officer would understand
that response, and that the only potential source for evidence of what that
understanding would be was the testimony of the officer who made the stop. He
argues that the officer never testified that improper registration is one of the
possible meanings of the “unable to process” response, and therefore the State
failed to prove a reasonable suspicion that his registration was improper. He
further argues that, when the circuit court found that improper registration is one

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of the possible meanings, the court was supplying its own interpretation of “unable
to process” that was not supported by evidence in the record.

¶5 In response, the State argues first that the officer’s subjective beliefs
about the computer response “unable to process” are irrelevant. We agree that the
officer’s subjective beliefs are not part of the legal analysis. However, for reasons
we now explain, her testimony is nonetheless highly relevant in making the factual
finding of what training and experience a reasonable officer would have regarding
this computer response, which is necessary before we can determine what a
reasonable officer could infer from this response.

¶6 To begin, the cases cited by the State show that, even though the
officer’s subjective motivation for the stop is irrelevant, the determination of
reasonable suspicion is still based on the facts known to the officer at that time.
For example, the State relies on Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153 (2004),
for the proposition that the officer’s action is valid even if the officer lacks the
state of mind related to the legal justification for the action. Notably, however,
that part of the Court’s discussion begins with this statement: “Our cases make
clear that an arresting officer’s state of mind (except for the facts that he knows) is
irrelevant to the existence of probable cause.” Id. (emphasis added).

¶7 The State also relies on a Wisconsin case that it describes as holding,
in the State’s words, that “the lawfulness of a traffic stop depends on the objective
facts that the officer observes, not the officer’s subjective intent” (emphasis added
by this court). See State v. Baudhuin, 141 Wis. 2d 642, 650-51, 416 N.W.2d 60
(1987). We agree with the State’s characterization of the holding in Baudhuin.
Therefore, although the officer’s subjective motivation or legal analysis of the

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facts at the time is irrelevant, the officer’s perception of the facts is highly
relevant.

¶8 In addition, a determination of reasonable suspicion must be based
on not just the observed facts known to the officer, but also on the rational
inferences that can be drawn from those observed facts. State v. Post, 2007 WI
60, ¶10, 301 Wis. 2d 1, 733 N.W.2d 634. Here, the observed fact is that the
officer received the “unable to process” response. That fact is not in dispute.
Instead, the question is what inferences a reasonable officer could draw about the
vehicle’s registration from that observed fact.

¶9 That question is important here because “unable to process” appears
to have different potential meanings that lead to different legal outcomes. It is
plausible that “unable to process” indicates some kind of failure of the system
itself, meaning that the database of registration information was not accessed in
response to the electronic query. If that is the meaning, this response does not
suggest a legal problem with the registration, and therefore does not provide a
legal basis for a stop. However, it is also plausible that “unable to process” can at
least sometimes indicate a problem with the legality of the registration for the
entered plate number.

¶10 To address that ambiguity, the State contends that improper
registration is “objectively” a “reasonable and common-sense inference to draw”
from the “unable to process” response. However, in that formulation the State
neglects to specify who would draw that inference. In considering the inferences
to support a stop, the focus is on what a reasonable officer would infer, not a
layperson. “The crucial question is whether the facts of the case would warrant a
reasonable police officer, in light of his or her training and experience, to suspect

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No. 2017AP895-CR

that the individual has committed, was committing, or is about to commit a
crime.” Id., ¶13 (emphasis added).

¶11 Here, a reasonable officer would be one who is trained in the use of
this database system and has experience with how it operates. That training and
experience would then be the background knowledge on which the officer would
draw inferences about what, if anything, “unable to process” means about the
vehicle registration. Accordingly, to decide whether reasonable suspicion was
present, there must first be a finding of fact as to what training and experience a
reasonable officer would have to interpret that response. In summary, a court can
reach a determination as to what a reasonable officer may infer from this response
only based on evidence at a suppression hearing that establishes the training and
experience that a reasonable officer would have on this topic. In the context of the
suppression hearing, it may be true, as the State argues, that the officer’s own
subjective factual inferences when she stopped Wendling do not play a role in the
legal analysis. However, the officer’s testimony about her training and experience
is nonetheless relevant because it is a source of evidence about the training and
experience that a reasonable officer would have. Indeed, her testimony, based on
her own experience with the system, is the only source of such evidence in this
record.

II. APPLICATION TO THE FACTS OF THIS CASE

¶12 At the suppression hearing, the officer testified that she typed the
vehicle’s license plate information into “eTIME,” a database that can be accessed
from a computer in her squad car that contains information from the Department
of Transportation and that “gives the vehicle description, the number, and
registered owner” for vehicles in all 50 states. The officer “didn’t get any

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No. 2017AP895-CR

response back”; instead, the computer gave an “unable to process” response.1 The
State asked the officer what the “unable to process” response meant to her, based
on her experience with the system:

Q: And unable to process, have you seen that before?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: What does that mean to you given the fact that you’ve
worked with that system before?

A: To me it means either I ran the plate wrong or there
wasn’t enough information regarding the plate that
was on the vehicle to get back, or there could be a
number of things. But those are the most two [sic]
common issues that I have when I get that answer, or
response back.

Q: That you ran it wrong or what’s the other one?

A: That there wasn’t enough given information for the
plate for that vehicle. Such as the VIN number,
registered owner, the make, the color, so on.

The officer further testified that, after receiving the unable to process response, she
got closer to the vehicle and confirmed that she had typed the correct license plate
information into the computer in her squad. She also ran the license plate number
through Grant County dispatch, which was also “unable to get the vehicle back.”

¶13 In argument after the testimony, the State summarized the officer’s
testimony as meaning that “for all intents and purposes, the information that the
officer has is that that vehicle is not properly registered.” In response, counsel for

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The officer testified that she did not know the “exact terms,” but that “basically it just
says unable to get the information back.” She also described the response as “not able to
identify.”

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No. 2017AP895-CR

Wendling asserted: “And I don’t think she gave testimony that therefore I
conclude that this plate’s no good.”

¶14 After argument, the circuit court noted the ambiguity of the
computer response. The court also observed that the fact that this was an out-of-
state plate “adds another degree of ambiguity and unreliability.” The court gave
the parties an opportunity for further briefing on applicable case law.

¶15 After briefing, the circuit court denied Wendling’s motion to
suppress. The court held that reasonable suspicion was present because the
“officer is not required to rule out innocent explanations.” The court asserted that
there may have been innocent explanations here, but that there were also
“problematic” ones for Wendling:

[A]mong the problematic explanations are that, you know,
this is a plate that somebody just randomly threw on a
vehicle after they found it at the junkyard. That the plate
doesn’t match the vehicle; that the plate has long since
expired and therefore there is no computer record. There
are reasons for a law enforcement officer under those
circumstances to check out what’s going on with this
vehicle, what’s going on with this plate, what’s going on
with the registration.

¶16 In the above passage we regard the court as having made a factual
finding about what experience a reasonable officer would have relating to the
“unable to process” response. By saying that the license plate could have been a
found or expired one, the court was, in practical effect, finding as a fact that a
reasonable officer’s experience is that “unable to process” sometimes means that
the vehicle is not properly registered.

¶17 Wendling argues that this finding was not supported by evidence
because the officer never testified that “unable to process” sometimes means the

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No. 2017AP895-CR

vehicle is not properly registered. However, we conclude that in making that
finding the court made a reasonable interpretation of the officer’s testimony. The
officer testified that she had two understandings of “unable to process.” The first
was that she entered the incorrect license plate number, which the officer ruled out
by getting closer to the vehicle and confirming that she had typed in the correct
number. As to the officer’s second possible understanding, we conclude that the
court reasonably interpreted the officer’s testimony as meaning that, in her
experience, there was a potential problem with the vehicle’s registration. The
court’s finding of fact about what experience a reasonable officer would have
regarding the “unable to process” response was not clearly erroneous. And, based
on that finding, the court properly concluded that a reasonable officer could infer
that there was potentially a problem with the registration.

¶18 If we affirm the conclusion that a reasonable officer could infer that
the “unable to process” response sometimes indicates a problem with the legality
of the vehicle’s registration, Wendling appears to agree that this inference would
be a proper basis to stop his vehicle. Therefore, having affirmed that conclusion,
we conclude that his suppression motion was properly denied.

By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT. RULE
809.23(1)(b)5. (2017-18).

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