CA4: 15 minute stop that was only concerned with drugs was unreasonable

Granted, the defendant’s travel plans were a little unusual, but the district court was correct in holding that there simply was no reasonable suspicion for this fifteen minute detention and questioning which was overlong and never wavered from being a drug investigation, as shown by the video. The government’s rationale sweeps in too many innocent motorists for the same routine. United States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498 (4th Cir. 2011):

On appeal, the government makes four arguments seeking to excuse Trooper Conner’s lack of diligence. First, the government argues that any delay caused by the unrelated questioning was de minimis, and, therefore, Digiovanni’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated. According to the government, our case is much like the Mason case, where the delay caused by the unrelated questioning was one to one and one-half minutes.

We reject the government’s reliance on Mason. The delay in this case was not de minimis. The unrelated questioning was extensive and time-consuming. It started with some unrelated questioning concerning Digiovanni’s travel plans and morphed into unrelated questioning concerning the presence of drugs. The record, in particular the video, makes clear that at just about every turn Trooper Conner was conducting a drug investigation instead of a traffic infraction investigation. Indeed, the bulk of the encounter between Trooper Conner and Digiovanni involved a drug investigation, as the driver’s license check did not even begin until approximately ten minutes into the stop, and, in fact, it never was completed.

Second, the government argues that, because the overall length of the traffic stop (approximately fifteen minutes) was reasonable, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. We reject this argument.

We have emphasized that “[t]he maximum acceptable length of a routine traffic stop cannot be stated with mathematical precision.” Branch, 537 F.3d at 336; see also United States v. Brigham, 382 F.3d 500, 511 (5th Cir. 2004) (noting that there is “no constitutional stopwatch on traffic stops”); ….

The Fourth Circuit, no less. Now my circuit, the Eighth, is the most conservative.