{"id":16869,"date":"2015-04-21T09:57:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T14:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=16869"},"modified":"2015-04-22T14:58:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T19:58:22","slug":"big-win-for-individual-liberty-scotus-bringing-out-the-drug-dog-as-a-matter-of-course-during-a-traffic-stop-is-unreasonable-ca8s-de-minimus-extension-of-stop-rule-violates-fourth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=16869","title":{"rendered":"Big win for individual liberty: SCOTUS: Bringing out the drug dog as a matter of course during a traffic stop is unreasonable; CA8’s “de minimus” extension of stop rule violates Fourth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rodriguez v. United States<\/a>, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 2807 (April 21, 2015). The syllabus:<\/p>\n

Officer Struble, a K\u20139 officer, stopped petitioner Rodriguez for driving on a highway shoulder, a violation of Nebraska law. After Struble attended to everything relating to the stop, including, inter alia, checking the driver\u2019s licenses of Rodriguez and his passenger and issuing a warning for the traffic offense, he asked Rodriguez for permission to walk his dog around the vehicle. When Rodriguez refused, Struble detained him until a second officer arrived. Struble then retrieved his dog, who alerted to the presence of drugs in the vehicle. The ensuing search revealed methamphetamine. Seven or eight minutes elapsed from the time Struble issued the written warning until the dog alerted.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was indicted on federal drug charges. He moved to suppress the evidence seized from the vehicle on the ground, among others, that Struble had prolonged the traffic stop without reasonable suspicion in order to conduct the dog sniff. The Magistrate Judge recommended denial of the motion. He found no reasonable suspicion supporting detention once Struble issued the written warning. Under Eighth Circuit precedent, however, he concluded that prolonging the stop by \u201cseven to eight minutes\u201d for the dog sniff was only a de minimis intrusion on Rodriguez\u2019s Fourth Amendment rights and was for that reason permissible. The District Court then denied the motion to suppress. Rodriguez entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to five years in prison. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Noting that the seven or eight minute delay was an acceptable \u201cde minimis intrusion on Rodriguez\u2019s personal liberty,\u201d the court declined to reach the question whether Struble had reasonable suspicion to continue Rodriguez\u2019s detention after issuing the written warning. <\/p>\n

Held: <\/p>\n

1. Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution\u2019s shield against unreasonable seizures. A routine traffic stop is more like a brief stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, than an arrest, see, e.g., Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 330. Its tolerable duration is determined by the seizure\u2019s \u201cmission,\u201d which is to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop, Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407 and attend to related safety concerns. Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are\u2014or reasonably should have been\u2014completed. The Fourth Amendment may tolerate certain unrelated investigations that do not lengthen the roadside detention, Johnson, 555 U.S., at 327\u2013328 (questioning); Caballes, 543 U.S., at 406, 408 (dog sniff), but a traffic stop \u201cbecome[s] unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete th[e] mission\u201d of issuing a warning ticket, id., at 407. Beyond determining whether to issue a traffic ticket, an officer\u2019s mission during a traffic stop typically includes checking the driver\u2019s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and inspecting the automobile\u2019s registration and proof of insurance. These checks serve the same objective as enforcement of the traffic code: ensuring that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 658\u2013659. Lacking the same close connection to roadway safety as the ordinary inquiries, a dog sniff is not fairly characterized as part of the officer\u2019s traffic mission.<\/p>\n

In concluding that the de minimis intrusion here could be offset by the Government\u2019s interest in stopping the flow of illegal drugs, the Eighth Circuit relied on Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106. The Court reasoned in Mimms that the government\u2019s \u201clegitimate and weighty\u201d interest in officer safety outweighed the \u201cde minimis\u201d additional intrusion of requiring a driver, lawfully stopped, to exit a vehicle, id., at 110\u2013111. The officer-safety interest recognized in Mimms, however, stemmed from the danger to the officer associated with the traffic stop itself. On-scene investigation into other crimes, in contrast, detours from the officer\u2019s traffic-control mission and therefore gains no support from Mimms.<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s argument that an officer who completes all traffic-related tasks expeditiously should earn extra time to pursue an unrelated criminal investigation is unpersuasive, for a traffic stop \u201cprolonged beyond\u201d the time in fact needed for the officer to complete his traffic-based inquiries is \u201cunlawful,\u201d Caballes, 543 U.S., at 407. The critical question is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, but whether conducting the sniff adds time to the stop. Pp. 5\u20138.<\/p>\n

2. The determination adopted by the District Court that detention for the dog sniff was not independently supported by individualized suspicion was not reviewed by the Eighth Circuit. That question therefore remains open for consideration on remand. P. 9.<\/p>\n

741 F. 3d 905, vacated and remanded.<\/p>\n

GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined, and in which KENNEDY, J., joined as to all but Part III. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was the law in my circuit too long. The standard order to \u201crun the dog\u201d is void. <\/p>\n

And, at least in the Eighth Circuit, the law was so well settled, that all these dog sniffs prior to today are going to be potentially valid under Davis good faith. Not that I like it, but that’s going to be the AUSA’s argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rodriguez v. United States, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 2807 (April 21, 2015). The syllabus: Officer Struble, a K\u20139 officer, stopped petitioner Rodriguez for driving on a highway shoulder, a violation of Nebraska law. After Struble attended to everything relating to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,35,63,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-sniff","category-reasonable-suspicion","category-reasonableness","category-scotus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16869"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16896,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16869\/revisions\/16896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}