GA: If the dog sniff comes before dispatch reports back on the DL check, the dog sniff is valid (4-3)

A dog sniff of a car while waiting for the driver’s and passenger’s DL info to come back did not in any way extend the stop, so it’s valid. (4-3) State v. Allen, 2015 Ga. LEXIS 789 (Nov. 2, 2015), rev’g State v. Allen, 328 Ga. App. 411, 762 S.E.2d 111 (2014). The dissent disagrees: “I write because I respectfully disagree with the majority opinion. In this case, it is clear that the officer had effectively completed his traffic investigation prior to deploying his drug dog and, as such, his search of the vehicle was unlawful.” [And I hate cases like this because it sanctions dog sniffs in every traffic stop as long as the dog gets there within a couple of minutes or is already there. And, again, some people are terrified of dogs, and police dogs are not passive and can be really aggressive.]

In sum, because the dog sniff was conducted while Officer Jackson was waiting for the return of the computer records check on Allen’s identification, which was an ordinary officer safety measure related to the mission of the traffic stop, the dog sniff did not prolong the stop at all.

(e) That conclusion does not end the analysis, however, because the overall duration of the traffic stop must always be reasonable in light of all of the circumstances. “Authority for the seizure thus ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are — or reasonably should have been — completed.” Rodriguez, 135 SCt at 1614 (emphasis added). See also Rodriguez, 295 Ga. at 369 (“The duration of an investigative detention, of course, must be reasonable.”). In determining the reasonable duration of a stop, “it [is] appropriate to examine whether the police diligently pursued [the] investigation.” United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686 (105 SCt 1568, 84 LE2d 605) (1985). Whether the officer acted with reasonable diligence is gauged “by noting what the officer actually did and how he did it.” Rodriguez, 135 SCt at 1616.

Thus, while it is generally appropriate for an officer to conduct a records check on passengers as a component of the traffic stop’s mission, conducting that task, like conducting all other mission-related tasks, must not “lengthen [the] traffic stop beyond what is reasonable.” Purcell, 236 F3d at 1279. For example, a records check that added an hour to a traffic stop because the computer system had crashed would likely be deemed unreasonable. See Fernandez, 600 F3d at 61 (explaining that extending a detention by about 20 minutes solely to run a check of the passenger’s license would violate his Fourth Amendment rights). In this case, the records check on Allen’s South Carolina identification card had been underway for only about three and a half minutes before the drug dog alerted on the car, providing reasonable suspicion for the ongoing seizure of Scott and Allen (and the result of the check was reported within six or seven minutes). That is not an unreasonable time to obtain a records check on a passenger’s out-of-state identification document. See Purcell, 236 F3d at 1279 (holding that a three-minute criminal records check did not unreasonably lengthen the traffic stop).

Furthermore, the record shows that Officer Jackson completed all of the mission-related steps of the traffic stop in a reasonably diligent manner. The entire initial seizure — from the vehicle stopping to the dog alerting — took about 11 1/2 minutes. Whether the duration of a traffic stop was reasonable is often a highly fact-specific inquiry, but ultimately it is a question of law, and similar stops of this length (and much longer) have routinely been deemed lawful. See, e.g., Rodriguez, 135 SCt at 1613, 1615-1616 (expressing no concern about the 21-or 22-minute stop that preceded the dog sniff at issue); id. at 1618 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (stating that a stop of 29 minutes “is hardly out of the ordinary for a traffic stop by a single officer of a vehicle containing multiple occupants” and citing cases upholding traffic stops of about 22 and 30 minutes); Rodriguez, 295 Ga. at 373 (citing with approval Purcell, 236 F3d at 1279, which held that a 14-minute traffic stop was not unreasonably long); Williams, 264 Ga. App. at 202-204 (2003) (holding that a 26-minute stop, including a 17-minute delay to run warrant checks on the driver and passenger, was reasonable); Williams v. State, 233 Ga. App. 70, 71-72 (503 SE2d 234) (1998) (holding that a 35-minute stop was reasonable when the license check on the driver took longer than usual because of his common name).

(f) For these reasons, the trial court and the Court of Appeals majority erred in concluding that the traffic stop at issue violated Allen’s and Scott’s Fourth Amendment rights and in ruling that the resulting drug evidence must be suppressed.