This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

When Joshua Barmore was driving on a West Valley City street on Oct. 7, he wasn't visibly breaking any law — he wasn't speeding, he wasn't driving erratically and his car had no equipment violations.

But he was pulled over by a West Valley City police officer who, during a lull in observing traffic violations, looked at the Utah driver's license database and saw that Barmore's license had been suspended for an alcohol-related offense. The 26-year-old was given a citation for a class B misdemeanor.

However, a West Valley City justice court judge has decided that the police officer violated Barmore's civil rights when he accessed protected motor vehicle records.

"The officer accessed the motor vehicle records of the defendant without any reasonable suspicion that the defendant had violated any local, state or federal law," Judge Brendan McCullagh wrote in his March 12 ruling. "Given that the officer was not investigating a crime, he accessed the protected motor vehicle records without authorization."

McCullagh ruled that the records search was a violation of Barmore's Fourth Amendment right, which protects against unreasonable government search and seizure. The judge deemed the interaction "an illegal stop" and ruled that all evidence obtained from the driver license search will be suppressed in the justice court case.

But prosecutors said they will appeal the decision in district court. Ryan Robinson, the city's chief prosecuting attorney, said in an email to The Tribune that the city disagrees with the ruling and will likely file an appeal this week.

City prosecutors argued in court papers that the officer was within the bounds of Utah's law.

"Officers are allowed to access these protected records for the purposes of investigating possible violations of the law," Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Bob Neve wrote. "Furthermore, such a motor vehicle and license check are not 'searches' or 'seizures' for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment."

Barmore's attorney, Jon Williams, argued in a motion to suppress that the search was a violation of Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act, and said citizens don't surrender the protections of the Fourth Amendment simply because they are driving a vehicle on a public roadway.

"In this case, the officer testified that he observed absolutely nothing that amounted to a violation of law before he accessed the information that is categorically protected," Williams wrote.

The judge ultimately sided with Williams, saying in his ruling that he didn't agree with the city's broad reading of the term "investigation" that is used in GRAMA.

Police use of regulatory databases has become a contentious issue in Utah. Two Unified Fire Authority firefighters have contended their privacy, and perhaps their rights, were violated when Cottonwood Heights police accessed their records in a state prescription drug database during an investigation. An assistant fire chief was accused of doctor shopping, but the criminal charges were later dismissed.

Also, Utah's police council has disciplined a handful of officers over the years for accessing driver's licenses and police databases to track estranged spouses, family members, acquaintances and others for no law enforcement purposes.

Twitter: @jm_miller