DICKSON, J.
. . . The question before us is thus whether the defendant’s placement of his temporary plate in the vehicle’s back window amounted to a traffic infraction. If it did, Officer Lackey had reasonable suspicion to execute the traffic stop.
This Court has previously considered whether placing a license plate in a vehicle’s rear window contravenes Indiana’s statutes governing proper display and illumination, thus justifying a traffic stop. See Merritt v. State, 829 N.E.2d 472 (Ind. 2005). In Merritt, this Court looked at Indiana Code § 9-18-2-26, which governs the display of license plates . . . .
We found these provisions interacted to “require that the license plate be displayed upon the rear of the vehicle, securely fastened, in a horizontal position, and also be illuminated at night by a separate white light so as to be clearly legible from fifty feet.” Merritt, 829 N.E.2d at 476. And because “the defendant’s license plate inserted inside the back window of his automobile was not displayed appropriately, . . . the officer’s stop was proper, and . . . the trial court did not err in admitting evidence resulting from the stop.” Id. at 475. This case, unlike Merritt, involves the display and illumination of plates before a vehicle is permanently registered, which circumstance invokes other statutory provisions. As we noted in Merritt, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is authorized to issue various temporary registration permits and license plates-a temporary license plate that is valid for thirty days (§ 9-18-2-49), a thirty-one-day interim license plate (§ 9-18-26-10), a thirty-day temporary registration permit (§ 9-18-7-1), and a ninety-day temporary registration permit (§ 9-18-7-1.5)-and is also authorized to promulgate rules specifying the requirements for the proper display of these temporary tags. Id. at 475 n.14.
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. . . We agree with the State . . . that the statute for interim license plates fails to alter or amend the required placement and display of license plates set forth in §§ 9-18-2-26 and 9-19-6-4(e). Section 9-18-2-26 governs the display of “license plates” without discriminating between interim and regular plates. Section 9-19-6-4 requires that all “registration plate[s]” be illuminated so as to be visible from a distance of fifty feet. As explained in Merritt, these provisions “require that the license plate be displayed upon the rear of the vehicle, securely fastened, in a horizontal position, and also be illuminated at night by a separate white light so as to be clearly legible from fifty feet.” 829 N.E.2d at 476. Placing “a license plate on the inside of the back window clearly does not satisfy the requirement that license plates be displayed ‘upon the rear of the vehicle.'” Id. at 475. Likewise, the defendant’s license plate was not illuminated by a separate white light so that it was clearly legible from fifty feet. Officer Lackey was therefore justified in stopping the defendant.
The rule of lenity requires that penal statutes be construed strictly against the State and any ambiguities resolved in favor of the accused, State v. Turner, 567 N.E.2d 783, 783-34 (Ind. 1991), but statutes “are not to be overly narrowed so as to exclude cases they fairly cover,” Cape v. State, 400 N.E.2d 161, 164 (Ind. 1980). As neither the statutes nor regulations differentiate the display and illumination requirements of permanent and interim plates, we hold that under existing unambiguous law a license plate-be it temporary or permanent-must be mounted and illuminated as provided by Indiana Code §§ 9-18-2-26 and 9-19-6-4. This Court is mindful that the current common practice is for dealerships to issue paper or cardboard plates to customers, and that exposing such a document to the elements appears impractical and inconvenient, but as neither the statutes nor regulations differentiate between the display requirements for a permanent and interim plate, the interim plate must be mounted in the same fashion as the permanent plate. Any other method of display may give rise to reasonable suspicion for law enforcement officers to initiate a traffic stop to ascertain whether the display complies with all statutory requirements. As to this defendant, Officer Lackey had, by virtue of the interim plate being both unilluminated and placed incorrectly, reasonable suspicion to pull over the defendant’s vehicle for a traffic stop. Thus, the initial stop due to the suspected license plate display violation was proper and the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress the resulting evidence on this basis.
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan and Boehm, JJ., concur.
Rucker, J., dissents with separate opinion:
At the very least the Motor Vehicle Statutes are ambiguous on the question of whether temporary paper tags should be displayed in the same manner as permanent metal plates. And “[p]enal statutes should be construed strictly against the State and ambiguities should be resolved in favor of the accused.” Merritt v. State, 829 N.E.2d 472, 475 (Ind. 2005).
A drive down nearly any Indiana street on any given day will reveal Hoosier motorists applying old-fashioned common sense: attaching temporary paper tags to the inside of the back window in order protect them from deterioration by the elements. By today’s decision the majority has transformed law-abiding citizens into traffic offenders. This is patently wrong in my view; therefore I dissent.