{"id":61586,"date":"2025-08-02T11:02:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T16:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=61586"},"modified":"2025-08-02T11:02:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T16:02:39","slug":"ca8-post-rodriguez-criminal-history-is-still-a-relevant-inquiry-during-a-traffic-stop-as-rs-develops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=61586","title":{"rendered":"CA8: Post-Rodriguez,<\/em> criminal history is still a relevant inquiry during a traffic stop as RS develops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Post-Rodriguez, criminal history is still a relevant inquiry during a traffic stop as reasonable suspicion develops. United States v. Moua<\/a>, 24-2774 (8th Cir. Aug. 1, 2025) (2-1):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

While Moua spent a total of 45 minutes by the side of the road, \u201cthere is no per se time limit on all traffic stops.\u201d United States v. Riley, 684 F.3d 758, 765 (8th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). An officer need only act diligently to pursue the mission of the stop. United States v. Rederick, 65 F.4th 961, 967 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 241 (2023). An officer\u2019s mission may evolve during the stop, as when the officer develops \u201creasonable suspicion of drug-related activity during the routine traffic-stop tasks.\u201d Id. Likewise, \u201c[a]n officer\u2019s inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop \u2026 do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.\u201d Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333 (2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, Deputy Hansen\u2019s suspicions evolved during the stop. As he spoke to Moua, Deputy Hansen observed additional signs of impairment: persistently dilated pupils, evidence of teeth grinding consistent with drug abuse, and slurred speech. At the same time, he noticed hallmarks of drug trafficking, such as the cellophane in Moua\u2019s make-up case. Relying on his training and experience, Deputy Hansen made a decision to investigate further. Our precedent allows law enforcement to pursue those leads by asking Moua to submit to field sobriety tests and by exploring her prior convictions. See United States v. Rivera, 570 F.3d 1009, 1013 (8th Cir. 2009) (concluding questions about a person\u2019s criminal history \u201care permissible incidents of a routine traffic stop\u201d). In addition, Moua consented to prolonging the stop because \u201c[w]hen a motorist gives consent to search his vehicle, he necessarily consents to an extension of the traffic stop.\u201d Id.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Deputy Hansen had reasonable suspicion to stop Moua\u2019s vehicle and the stop was not unreasonably prolonged, the district court did not err when it denied Moua\u2019s motion to suppress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post-Rodriguez, criminal history is still a relevant inquiry during a traffic stop as reasonable suspicion develops. United States v. Moua, 24-2774 (8th Cir. Aug. 1, 2025) (2-1):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61586","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=61586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61587,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61586\/revisions\/61587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}