Air Freshener a Valid Reason for Cop Stop

Mark Colbert’s downfall was a tree-shaped air freshener.

If the smelly thing hadn’t been hanging from his car’s rearview mirror, Los Altos police officer Scott McCrossin wouldn’t have pulled him over, and Colbert wouldn’t have been sentenced to two years in prison.

When McCrossin stopped Colbert on Dec. 1, 2005, he also found 11 illegal methadone pills and a woman’s stolen credit card. And it didn’t help that Colbert was under the influence of a controlled substance.

McCrossin based his traffic stop on his belief that a tree-shaped air freshener — which was 4.75 inches tall and 2.75 inches at its widest point — violated a Vehicle Code preventing drivers from hanging anything from their rearview mirrors that obstruct their vision.

Colbert pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Rise Pichon.

On appeal, Colbert argued that the evidence found in his car should have been suppressed because McCrossin had no valid reason for pulling him over. He relied on People v. White, 107 Cal.App.4th 636, a 2003 ruling by San Francisco’s First District Court of Appeal that suppressed evidence of narcotics after finding that an officer hadn’t supported “by specific and articulable facts” his belief that a tree-shaped air freshener blocked the defendant’s view.

On Tuesday, San Jose’s Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed Colbert’s conviction by stating that McCrossin had done what the officer in White didn’t do — provide “specific and articulable facts” to support his reason for stopping Colbert.

“He described the precise dimensions of the air freshener,” Justice Nathan Mihara (.pdf) wrote in People v. Colbert, H031479, “and related how he had personally experienced the view obstruction that an object of that size could pose when he hung a similar-sized object from the rearview mirror of his personal vehicle.”

The lesson to be learned for individuals driving around with stolen credit cards and illegal drugs: Don’t do it! Even an air freshener can do you in.

—  Mike McKee