CA6: 4A’s “reasonable officer” “is a hypothetical construct of the law, one that no district court can cross-examine”

“But the Fourth Amendment’s ‘reasonable officer’ is not a real officer with real subjective thoughts and feelings. It is a hypothetical construct of the law, one that no district court can cross-examine.” United States v. Urraca, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 32095 (6th Cir. Dec. 18, 2024):

In challenging this conclusion, Urraca embraces the district court’s factual finding that Fuller did not suspect that the box contained drugs at the time of the search. But that finding does not resolve this case. True, Fuller is an experienced law enforcement officer. True also, one might fairly expect that he acts reasonably. But the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonable officer” is not a real officer with real subjective thoughts and feelings. It is a hypothetical construct of the law, one that no district court can cross-examine. That Fuller did not suspect that the box contained drugs simply does not resolve the inquiry. Just as a police officer’s subjective belief that a box does contain drugs fails to establish the reasonableness of a search, an officer’s subjective belief that a box does not contain drugs fails to establish the unreasonableness of a search. The reality that an officer “does not have the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal justification for the officer’s action does not invalidate the action taken as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action.” Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 138, 98 S. Ct. 1717, 56 L. Ed. 2d 168 (1978). That explains why the Fourth Amendment does not require courts to inquire into the subjective reasons for a police officer’s stop of a vehicle; it asks only whether the objective facts known to a reasonable officer would permit the stop. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1996). The facts known to Fuller at the time of the dog sniff objectively warranted the investigation, whether he subjectively appreciated all of the reasons justifying it or not.