License Plate Holders

On August 14, 2002, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found in US vs. Granado that evidence seized in a traffic stop was inadmissible because the traffic stop was illegal. A Texas DPS trooper had pulled Gilbert Granado over because the minivan that he was driving did not have a front license plate and because the rear license plate was enclosed in a license plate frame such as those that are commonly installed on new cars by virtually every car dealership in the United States, which the trooper contended violated Texas state law. The court of appeals disagreed, saying that the stop was illegal because Granado's minivan was not registered in Texas, which meant that the Texas law requiring a front license plate was inapplicable, and because the relevant statute, which banned displaying a license plate that

(5) has letters, numbers, or other identification marks that because of blurring matter are not plainly visible at all times during daylight;
(6) is a sticker, decal, or other insignia that is not authorized by law and that interferes with the readability of the letters or numbers on the plate; or
(7) has a coating, covering, or protective material that distorts angular visibility or detectability.

was inapplicable to license plate frames alone.

In May, 2003, the Texas legislature passed a law (SB 439) amending the Texas Transportation Code to ban displaying a license plate

(1) has identification marks that, because of reflective matter, are not plainly visible at all times during daylight;
(2) has an attached illumination device or emblem not authorized by law and that interferes with the readability of the letters or numbers on the plate or the name of the state in which the vehicle is registered; or
(3) alters or obscures the letters, numbers, color, or original design features of the plate.

Many jurisdictions in Texas viewed this revised law as rendering US vs. Granado moot and began to issue traffic tickets to cars pulled over with license plate frames, despite protestations from the bill's sponsor that that had not been the intent of the law. On February 14, 2007, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in Texas vs. Johnson that these tickets were not, in fact, contrary to the law because license plate frames clearly "obscure[d] the letters, numbers, color, or original design features of the plate" and because this change in the law after the US vs. Granado decision could be could be construed to have been made in response to that decision.

In response to the enforcement actions of various Texas jurisdictions and to the Texas vs. Johnson decision, the legislature passed and the governor signed SB 369, making clear that license plate holders were not illegal so long as they left more than half of the state name unobscured and did not interfere with reading the actual numbers on the plate. This law goes into effect on September 1, 2007. The fact that the legislature has clarified the license plate holder law has not stopped the Houston Police Department from continuing to issue tickets for license plate holders. The Houston Chronicle found, in a story published this past Sunday, that HPD has written more than 9500 tickets for this since January and that Chief Hurtt intended to continue to do so until the new law went in effect in September. The story had other interesting tidbits, including the fact that a single HPD officer was responsible for more than 1200 of the 9500 tickets written since January and the fact that Mayor Bill White's car, driven by HPD officers, had a license plate holder.

Apparently, the publicity generated by this story (and the pressure exerted by SB 369's sponsors) was enough to shame the mayor into crying uncle. The Chronicle reported yesterday that

Mayor Bill White on Monday said Houston police shouldn't ticket motorists for having common brackets around their license plates that will no longer be illegal when a revised state law takes effect in September.

Whatever White's motivations for doing this, it is good that he did so. The tickets that HPD wrote for "illegal" license plate holders were not about public safety. They were a revenue generation tool. They were an attempt to shake down the residents of Houston and Harris County and represented a de facto arbitrary tax. When real, dangerous traffic offenses are commonplace on Houston streets and violent crime is rising in the city, it is utterly despicable that HPD chose to dedicate resources to extort money from Houston drivers rather than dealing with real problems. This kind of behavior makes people contemptuous of law enforcement, and justifiably so.