{"id":31847,"date":"2018-02-16T10:08:36","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T15:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=31847"},"modified":"2018-02-16T10:08:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T15:08:36","slug":"ma-two-detectives-joining-into-a-traffic-stop-didnt-make-it-unreasonable-or-extend-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=31847","title":{"rendered":"MA: Two detectives joining into a traffic stop didn’t make it unreasonable or extend it"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stop was for a traffic offense, and two detectives stopped to participate. Their questions about smelling marijuana didn\u2019t unreasonably extend the stop. Commonwealth v. Buckley<\/a>, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 87 (Feb. 14, 2018):
\n<\/p>\n

2. Scope of the stop.<\/em> In addition to challenging the legality of the stop itself, the defendant argues that the Whitman police exceeded the permissible scope of the stop when the plainclothes detectives joined Nelson at the scene and asked the driver about the odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. \u201cIn evaluating whether the police exceeded the permissible scope of a stop, the issue is one of proportion.\u201d Commonwealth v. Sinforoso, 434 Mass. 320, 323, 749 N.E.2d 128 (2001). \u201cThe nature of the stop, i.e., for a traffic offense, defines the scope of the initial inquiry by a police officer.\u201d Commonwealth v. Bartlett, 41 Mass. App. Ct. 468, 470, 671 N.E.2d 515 (1996). See Commonwealth v. Cordero, 477 Mass. 237, 241, 74 N.E.3d 1282 (2017) (\u201cA routine traffic stop may not last longer than reasonably necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop\u201d [quotations and citation omitted]). \u201cWhere an officer conducts an uneventful threshold inquiry giving rise to no further suspicion of criminal activity, he may not prolong the detention or expand the inquiry.\u201d Feyenord, 445 Mass. at 78 n.5.<\/p>\n

As discussed, the stop at issue was justified based on Nelson’s observation of the vehicle speeding. This defines the permissible scope of the officers’ inquiry. The defendant fails to cite any authority suggesting that it was impermissible for the plainclothes detectives to join Nelson at the location of the stop. The stop remained constitutional so long as the officers did not exceed its permissible scope. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the \u201ctasks tied to the traffic infraction \u2026 [were already] complete[ ],\u201d Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 1614, 191 L. Ed. 2d 492 (2015), by the time Bombardier and Campbell arrived, or that Nelson unnecessarily prolonged the stop to await the detectives’ arrival. See Cordero, 477 Mass. at 242 (\u201cThe police do not earn \u2018bonus time\u2019 to conduct additional investigations by an expeditious performance of the traffic-related investigation\u201d). The motion judge found that the detectives arrived while \u201cNelson [was] standing at the driver’s side of the vehicle.\u201d Nelson testified that, after stopping the vehicle, he explained to the driver that he had stopped her for speeding and requested her license and registration; she produced a registration certificate but was unable to produce a license. Nelson recalled that he had been speaking with the driver for \u201c[a]pproximately a minute,\u201d and had yet to confirm her name and date of birth, see id. at 242 (tasks during routine traffic stop reasonably include \u201cconfirmation of the identity of the driver\u201d), when Bombardier and Campbell arrived and spoke to the driver about the smell of marijuana. At that point Nelson returned to his cruiser to confirm McGovern’s information. Contrast id. at 247 (continued detention of defendant unreasonable where \u201cthe investigation of the civil traffic violations\u201d justifying stop \u201cwas complete\u201d).<\/p>\n

We also reject the defendant’s argument that Bombardier’s question to the driver about the smell of marijuana fell beyond the permissible scope of the stop. That argument is foreclosed by this court’s opinion in Commonwealth v. Cruz, 459 Mass. 459, 945 N.E.2d 899 (2011). …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stop was for a traffic offense, and two detectives stopped to participate. Their questions about smelling marijuana didn\u2019t unreasonably extend the stop. Commonwealth v. Buckley, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 87 (Feb. 14, 2018):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion","category-reasonableness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847","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=31847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31848,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847\/revisions\/31848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}