## Facts

- Officer Mark Keeley observed a white van idling near a shopping center in an area marked “Fire Lane” and “No Parking.”
- Keeley entered the van’s plainly visible license plate number into the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) database.
- The LEIN query showed the vehicle was registered to Curtis Ellison and that Ellison had an outstanding felony warrant.
- Keeley requested backup, continued observing, and then stopped the van shortly after it drove away.
- Keeley approached the driver, requested documentation, and stated the stop was for parking in a fire lane; the driver said he had briefly waited for the passenger.
- The passenger identified himself as Curtis Ellison; Keeley verified his identity and arrested him on the outstanding warrant.
- During a safety pat-down after Ellison exited the van, officers found two firearms.
- Ellison was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).
- The district court granted Ellison’s motion to suppress, reasoning the van was not illegally parked and the officer lacked probable cause to run the plate in LEIN.

## Issues

1. Whether running a publicly visible automobile license plate number through a law-enforcement database constitutes a Fourth Amendment search requiring probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
2. Whether firearms discovered during a pat-down following arrest on an outstanding warrant must be suppressed as fruits of an unlawful license-plate database check.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit vacated the suppression order and remanded.
- The court held that no Fourth Amendment search occurs when an officer runs a license plate visible in public through a law-enforcement database.
- Because the LEIN check was not a search, it required neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion, and the district court’s focus on whether the van was illegally parked was legally mistaken.
- After the LEIN check revealed an outstanding warrant, the arrest and resulting safety pat-down were treated as lawful, so the exclusionary rule did not apply to the firearms.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourth Amendment protects only against unreasonable governmental intrusions into areas where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.
- A driver has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate number that is required by law to be displayed in plain view on a vehicle’s exterior.
- Using lawfully observed, publicly exposed information (a plate number) to query a law-enforcement database does not itself constitute a Fourth Amendment search.
- Suppression is unavailable absent a Fourth Amendment violation; evidence obtained after a lawful arrest on an outstanding warrant is not excluded based solely on a non-search database query.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that a police officer’s license-plate database check of a plate visible to the public is not a Fourth Amendment search and does not require probable cause or reasonable suspicion; therefore, the firearms found during a safety pat-down after arrest on a valid outstanding warrant were not subject to suppression.


United States v. Ellison, 462 F.3d 557 (6th Cir. 2006)