Terence D. Walker, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] Following a jury trial, Terence Walker was convicted of dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 2 felony; carrying a handgun without a license, a Class A misdemeanor; dealing in marijuana, a Class A misdemeanor; and possession of paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor. Walker appeals and claims that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a traffic stop. We affirm.

Issue

[2] Walker presents one issue, which we restate as whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence obtained as a result of a traffic stop.

Facts

[3] In the early morning hours of September 30, 2020, Muncie Police Department Officer Jacob Massoth was on duty in his patrol car when he observed a Chrysler 200 car. Officer Massoth ran a routine license plate check on the Chrysler. The check indicated that the plate was registered to a Chevrolet Cobalt, not a Chrysler 200. Officer Massoth, therefore, decided to conduct a traffic stop of the vehicle.

[4] As Officer Massoth approached Walker's car, he recognized the driver as Walker and “almost immediately” smelled the odor of raw marijuana emanating from the Chrysler. Tr. Vol. II p. 146. Officer Massoth radioed dispatch to conduct a check of the VIN on the Chrysler. This investigation revealed that the Chrysler was registered to Walker, who claimed to have recently purchased the vehicle. The vehicle, however, had also been flagged in the system as having been stolen on September 28, 2020—two days prior to the traffic stop. Based on the smell of marijuana coming from the car, Officer Massoth ordered Walker out of the vehicle and conducted a search of the Chrysler.

[5] As Officer Massoth conducted the search of the car, another officer looked at the original report from the stolen vehicle case.¹ During the search, Officer Massoth found a bag that contained a black box locked with a combination lock. Officer Massoth detected an “extremely potent” odor of raw marijuana coming from the box. Id. Officer Massoth asked Walker for the combination, but Walker claimed he did not know it. Accordingly, Officer Massoth seized the black box and had the Chrysler towed. Officer Massoth estimated that the traffic stop lasted “no more than thirty [ ] minutes.” Id. at 165.

[6] Officer Massoth then sought and received a search warrant to open the black box. When the box was opened, Officer Massoth found inside the box: a loaded 9mm handgun; three small bags of marijuana; one bag containing brown rocks that contained fentanyl; a glass smoking pipe; a scale with a brown, powdery residue; a butane lighter; naloxone;² and a pocket knife.

[7] On October 6, 2020, the State charged Walker with dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 2 felony; carrying a handgun without a license, a Class A misdemeanor; dealing in marijuana, a Class A misdemeanor; possession of paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor; and operating a motor vehicle with a fictitious plate, a Class C infraction.³ The State later dismissed the fictitious license plate charge.

[8] On April 25, 2025, Walker filed a motion to suppress the evidence resulting from the traffic stop, claiming that the stop violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.⁴ A hearing on the motion was held on May 13, 2025, and the trial court issued an order denying the motion on May 29, 2025.

[9] A two-day jury trial commenced on October 21, 2025. At trial, Walker objected to the evidence obtained as a result of the traffic stop, which the trial court overruled. The jury found Walker guilty as charged. At sentencing on February 24, 2026, the trial court sentenced Walker to an aggregate term of ten years,⁵ to be served consecutively to Walker's thirty-five-year sentence for attempted murder in another cause.⁶ Walker now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

A. Standard of Review

[10] Walker claims that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress. Since this is an appeal from Walker's convictions following trial, and not an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, the issue is more appropriately framed as whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the evidence resulting from the traffic stop. Zuniga v. State, 237 N.E.3d 1168, 1172 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024), trans. denied.

[11] We will reverse a trial court's evidentiary ruling only where the decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances and the error affects a party's substantial rights. Id. (citing Clark v. State, 994 N.E.2d 252, 259-60 (Ind. 2013)). “ ‘We review de novo a ruling on the constitutionality of a search or seizure, but we give deference to a trial court's determination of the facts, which will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous.’ ” Id. (quoting Brummett v. State, 230 N.E.3d 968, 973 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024)).

B. The Fourth Amendment

[12] The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no [w]arrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by [o]ath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. CONST. amend. IV.

[13] “To trigger Fourth Amendment protections, a search arises out of an intrusion by a government actor upon an area in which a person maintains a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy.’ ” Holder v. State, 847 N.E.2d 930, 935 (Ind. 2006) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)). An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their own home; however, “objects, activities, or statements that he exposes to the ‘plain view’ of outsiders are not ‘protected’ because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited.” Id. at 936 (quoting Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring)).

C. The license plate check was not a search.

[14] Walker first claims that the trial court erred by admitting the evidence resulting from the traffic stop because, he contends, Officer Massoth had “no reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was taking place. Mr. Walker was simply driving his car.” Appellant's Br. p. 18. This is incorrect.

[15] Indiana law generally requires that a license plate be displayed on the exterior of a vehicle and, therefore, be visible to the public. See Ind. Code § 9-18.1-4-4(a)(2) (requiring that non-temporary license plates on vehicles other than tractors, dump trucks, or fork-lifts be displayed “upon the rear of the vehicle”). A driver, therefore, has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the plate number or the information associated with that number. See Maloney v. State, 872 N.E.2d 647, 652-53 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (concluding that a defendant “could have no reasonable expectation of privacy from law enforcement officers in the BMV records” accessed through a license plate check and that license plate check was, therefore, not a search); Wilkinson v. State, 743 N.E.2d 1267, 1270-71 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001) (holding that a random license plate check was not a Fourth Amendment “search” and noting that courts in other jurisdictions “consistently” have found such checks not to be an improper search), trans. denied, disapproved in part on other grounds by Armfield v. State, 918 N.E.2d 316, 322 (Ind. 2009); cf. New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 114 (1986) (“[I]t is unreasonable to have an expectation of privacy in an object [a VIN] required by law to be located in a place ordinarily in plain view from the exterior of the automobile.”).

[16] Walker does not cite or attempt to distinguish these cases. We consider them to be dispositive on the question of whether Officer Massoth's check of Walker's license plate number was a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Such was not a search.

[17] Still, Officer Massoth needed at least reasonable suspicion to conduct the traffic stop. “A traffic stop is a ‘seizure’ subject to the constraints imposed by both the Indiana and Federal Constitutions. One exception to the warrant requirement for a seizure is an investigatory stop based on reasonable suspicion.” Lanier v. State, 271 N.E.3d 1185, 1189 (Ind. Ct. App. 2025) (quoting Campos v. State, 885 N.E.2d 590, 597 (Ind. 2008)). In the context of traffic stops, “the stopping officer must be able to articulate some facts that provide a particularized and objective basis for believing a traffic violation occurred. That is reasonable suspicion—the constitutional floor—for a traffic stop.” Marshall v. State, 117 N.E.3d 1254, 1259 (Ind. 2019).

[18] Here, the check of the license plate on Walker's Chrysler revealed that the plate was registered to a different vehicle. Pursuant to Indiana Code Section 9-18.1-4-5(a), “A vehicle required to be registered under this article may not be used or operated on a highway if the vehicle displays any of the following: (1) A license plate belonging to any other vehicle.” A violation of that statute is a Class C infraction. I.C. § 9-18.1-4-5(b). Thus, Officer Massoth clearly had a reasonable suspicion that Walker was committing a traffic violation and was permitted to conduct a traffic stop. See Marshall, 117 N.E.3d at 1261 (holding that officer had reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop based upon his observation of a traffic violation).

D. Officer Massoth did not improperly prolong the duration of the traffic stop.

[19] Walker also claims that Officer Massoth improperly prolonged the duration of the traffic stop “beyond the time necessary to conduct a traffic stop and issue a ticket for an infraction.” Appellant's Br. p. 18. Again, we disagree.

[20] In Dunem v. State, we explained:

[T]he Fourth Amendment does not countenance an indefinite seizure. Instead, the tolerable duration of a seizure for a traffic violation is shaped by the stop's mission—addressing the traffic violation that warranted the stop and attending to related safety concerns. Beyond determining whether to issue a traffic ticket, an officer's mission includes ordinary inquiries incident to the traffic stop, like checking the driver's license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and inspecting the automobile's registration and proof of insurance. Once the tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed[,] however, police authority for the seizure ends. That is, police may conduct certain unrelated checks during an otherwise lawful traffic stop, but they may not do so in a way that prolongs the stop[.]

254 N.E.3d 559, 566-67 (Ind. Ct. App. 2025) (brackets in original, citations and internal quotations omitted), trans. denied.

[21] Law enforcement may, however, prolong the stop if “ ‘something occurred during the stop to cause the officer to have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity was occurring.’ ” Moore v. State, 211 N.E.3d 574, 578 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (quoting Thayer v. State, 904 N.E.2d 706, 709 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009); Browder v. State, 77 N.E.3d 1209, 1215 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017) (“ ‘[a]n officer, ․ may conduct certain unrelated checks during an otherwise lawful traffic stop. But ․ he may not do so in a way that prolongs the stop, absent the reasonable suspicion ordinarily demanded to justify detaining an individual.’ ”) (quoting Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 355 (2015)), trans. denied.

[22] Here, when Officer Massoth approached Walker's vehicle, he immediately smelled the odor of marijuana emanating from the car. This provided Officer Massoth with probable cause to believe that there was marijuana in the vehicle, thereby justifying the prolongation of the traffic stop and the search of the vehicle. See Clark, 994 N.E.2d at 260 (“[T]he smell of burnt marijuana emanating from [defendant]’s car windows, to a trained officer, would provide such an officer with probable cause sufficient to justify searching at least the open interior of the car.”);⁷ Moore, 211 N.E.3d at 581 (holding that an officer's detection of odor of marijuana immediately upon his arrival at an open car window provided probable cause for him to conduct a warrantless search of a car following a traffic stop). We, therefore, conclude that Officer Massoth did not improperly prolong the traffic stop; instead, he investigated the origin of the odor of marijuana that he immediately detected coming from Walker's vehicle.

Conclusion

[23] Officer Massoth's check of Walker's license plate did not constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and Officer Massoth had a reasonable suspicion to stop Walker's car based on its license plate not matching the car. Officer Massoth did not improperly prolong the duration of the traffic stop; instead, he searched the car based upon the probable cause established by the smell of marijuana coming from the car. We, therefore, reject Walker's claims that the trial court erred in admitting the evidence obtained as a result of the traffic stop, and we affirm the trial court.

[24] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Walker told Officer Massoth that the person from whom he purchased the car had reported the car as stolen as a result of a disagreement.

2.   Naloxone is sold under the brand name Narcan and is used to treat opiate overdose. Bailey v. State, 131 N.E.3d 665, 674 n.8 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019) (citing Narcan, The American Heritage Medical Dictionary (2007), https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Narcan [https://perma.cc/KA3N-WZTE]), trans. denied.

3.   The State also filed a notice of intent to seek enhanced penalties on the handgun and dealing charges, which it later withdrew.

4.   The motion also claimed that the stop was improper under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution, but Walker has abandoned any state constitutional claims on appeal.

5.   Specifically, the trial court sentenced Walker to ten years on the dealing in narcotics conviction, one year on the handgun conviction, one year on the dealing in marijuana conviction, and sixty days on the paraphernalia conviction. The trial court ordered these sentences to run concurrently.

6.   See State v. Walker, No. 18C05-1909-F1-13.

7.   Officer Massoth testified that he was trained to detect the odor of marijuana, and Walker makes no claim on appeal that Officer Massoth was not so trained.

Tavitas, Chief Judge.

May, J., and Vaidik, J., concur.