Defendant was stopped because there was a plastic film over his license plate that made one of the letters illegible in headlights. The purpose of the stop was complete within 3-4 minutes. The officer, however, suddenly became interested in a backpack between two adults in the car, and started asking questions about it, and that made the defendant nervous. While it was a high crime area, possession of a backpack by an adult is not inherently suspicious [he’s never ridden on an airplane where many adults travel with only backpacks]. The stop ran too long because the officer got off the traffic stop into something not his business. State v. McFadden, 2017 Iowa App. LEXIS 991 (Sept. 27, 2017).

The district court did not err during a civil forfeiture action when it granted a claimant’s motion to suppress $167,070 a sheriff’s deputy found in a mobile home the claimant was driving, ordered the Government to return the money, and awarded the claimant $146,938 in attorneys’ fees. Although the deputy who made the stop obtained a warrant to search the vehicle after a drug dog indicated the presence of drugs or drug-tainted money, that stop was tainted because a local patrol officer had earlier the same day stopped the claimant, kept him longer than necessary while he unsuccessfully attempted to secure the assistance of another officer with a drug dog, and had called ahead to the sheriff’s office and suggested that they have a deputy stop him to see if a drug-detection dog alerted when it was walked around the home. It was two coordinated stops. United States v. Gorman, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18610 (9th Cir. Sept. 14, 2017).