Heads Up: Kansas officers may no longer stop cars solely for obstruction of a state name on a license plate!
Overturning decades of lower court decisions and law enforcement understanding, on July 3, 2025 the Kansas Supreme Court held that the inability to read the state name on a vehicle license plate is not a Kansas state traffic law violation.
In 2021, Illinois resident Brian Beck was stopped in Kansas when a deputy observed Beck’s vehicle displaying a license plate frame that partially obstructed the state name “Illinois” on Beck’s tag. During the stop a dog alerted to the odor of illegal drugs, the car was searched, and Beck was charged with multiple violations including transporting over two pounds of methamphetamine.
In the district court, Beck moved to suppress the evidence from the car arguing that the deputy had not had reasonable suspicion of a traffic crime to support the initial car stop. The trial judge, citing to past caselaw, denied the motion. Beck appealed and a panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed. Beck then asked the Kansas Supreme Court to review his conviction and it agreed.
Days ago, the Kansas justices reversed. Yes, they said, K.S.A. 8-133 has been around since 1929. And, yes, they said, lower state and federal courts have since 1983 all agreed that obstruction of the state name on a vehicle tag in Kansas was a violation of K.S.A. 8-133(c). However, they said, all of those courts were wrong.
K.S.A. 8-133(c) states in pertinent part, “ . . . The license plate shall be fastened in a place and position to be clearly visible, and shall be maintained free from foreign materials and in a condition to be clearly legible. . . “ But, after review of K.S.A. 8-132(a), 8-147, and 8-149, the justices could find no Kansas law that required that the state’s name be displayed on the license plate itself (Kansas law only requires that the annual registration sticker have “Kansas” or an abbreviation). So, the justice said, how in the world could the obstruction of tag information not required by law be a violation of K.S.A. 8-133(c)?
The justices further held: 1) that since Kansas does not require “Kansas” to be on its license plates, it follows that it is also not a Kansas traffic violation to obstruct other state names on out-of-state tags; and, 2) K.S.A. 8-133(c) is not unconstitutional, it has simply been misread by everyone in the world, and thus officer good faith in Beck’s case is inapplicable. So, the justices sent the case back to the trial court to reevaluate the suppression issue based upon their decision.
A couple of final thoughts:
- because the holding is at its heart a state law interpretation, the State will probably not be able to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Therefore, for everyone except Beck, the matter is settled unless and until the Kansas Legislature would amend K.S.A. 8-133 to require the state name on license plates (in addition to the current requirement on annual registration stickers).
- as for Beck and his pending criminal case, the Kansas justices apparently did not consider Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014). There the U.S. Supreme Court held that “an officer's error of law in stopping a vehicle for a violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-129(g) because one of its two brake lights was out was objectively reasonable, thereby justifying the stop, where the statute had not previously been construed by North Carolina's appellate courts, and under the language of the statute, it was reasonable to conclude that the use of the word ‘other’ meant that the rear lamps discussed in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-129(d) included brake lights.”
That sure sounds a lot like Beck’s case. Hopefully, when the trial court gets Beck’s case back for further review of the suppression, it will take into consideration that Big Court 2014 mistake-of-law decision.
Colin
