State v. Reaves

The State appeals the trial court’s granting of a motion to suppress illicit drugs and a firearm that were found in a vehicle after a traffic stop. Because the evidence does not support the trial court’s factual findings, we reverse.

The facts testified to at the suppression hearing are generally agreed. A law enforcement officer, working in the early morning hours as part of a tactical anti-crime unit, checked the tag on a vehicle that he saw being operated in Orange County. He discovered electronically that the registered owner of the vehicle was a black male born in 1969, whose driver’s…