This week the United States Supreme Court decided Rodriguez v.United States, 575 U.S. ___ (2015). The decision affirms a significant portion of Pennsylvania law in the area of extension of traffic stops beyond the initial motor vehicle code investigation. I have handled these cases in Cumberland, Lancaster, Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia Counties.
These cases routinely involve state troopers illegally extending basic traffic stop investigations into motor vehicle searches. These extended traffic stops discover illegal contraband leading to broader criminal charges. However, it is that extended search, based only upon a guess, hunch, or a simple illegal request to search, that is illegal.
Rodriguez v. United States rules illegal the extension of a traffic stop by calling in a dog sniff team without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The US Supreme Court previously stated that a dog sniff conducted during a lawful traffic stop does not violate the fourth amendment proscription unreasonable seizures. Rodriguez presents the question of whether the Fourth Amendment tolerates EXTERIOR dog sniffs after completion of a traffic stop, not during, when the time needed to handle the matter for such violation exceeds a reasonable time.
The Pennsylvania trial courts have addressed this scenario many times, leading a Chester County Judge to state, “there is a distasteful convergence of facts and circumstances … that test the bounds of credulity and requires the court’s candor in distinguishing between lawful police investigatory conduct and conduct proscribed by our Constitutions.” Commonwealth v. Parker, 2009 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 132 (2009)(Honorable Ronald C. Nagle, Chester County Court of Common Pleas). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has consistently stated, “Where the purpose of an initial traffic stop has ended and a reasonable person would not have believed that he was free to leave, the law characterizes a subsequent round of questioning by the police as an investigative detention or arrest. In the absence of either reasonable suspicion to support the investigative detention or probable cause to support the arrest, the citizen is considered unlawfully detained.”
After police finish processing a traffic infraction, the determination of whether a continuing interdiction constitutes a mere encounter or a constitutional seizure centers upon whether an individual would objectively believe that he was free to end the encounter and refuse a request to answer questions. Commonwealth v. Kemp, 2008 PA Super 274, 961 A.2d 1247, 1253 (Pa. Super. 2008) citing Commonwealth v. Strickler, 757 A.2d 884 (Pa. 2000).
To determine whether interaction following a legal detention is a “mere encounter” or a detention, Pennsylvania courts analyze the totality of the circumstances including:
1) the presence or absence of police excesses; 2) whether there was physical contact; 3) whether police directed the citizen’s movements; 4) police demeanor and manner of expression; 5) the location of the interdiction; 6) the content of the questions and statements; 7) the existence and character of the initial investigative detention, including its degree of coerciveness; 8) the degree to which the transition between the traffic stop/investigative detention and the subsequent encounter can be viewed as seamless, . . . thus suggesting to a citizen that his movements may remain subject to police restraint; 9) the presence of an express admonition to the effect that the citizen-subject is free to depart is a potent, objective factor; and 10) whether the citizen has been informed that he is not required to consent to the search.
Commonwealth v. Moyer. Conferral of the ‘free-to-go’ advice is itself not a reason to forego a totality assessment’ and therefore does not constitute a controlling factor in assessing whether a person would actually credit a police indication that he was free to leave.”
In many of these cases, the police fabricate the basis for the late night car stop, picking some specious motor vehicle code violation. Allegations of traveling too closely, lane change without a blinker, a license plate lights out, obstructions from a rear view mirror, or illegal under car lights are typical deminimus traffic violations. Sometimes tickets are issued. More often than not, no warnings or violation is recorded.
After the individual is removed from the vehicle, basic cursory flashlight investigation and driver’s information computer checks are made. In many cases all is legal. There is no evidence of criminal activity presented to justify either a consensual search or a request for a non-consensual search. Maybe two cell phones, a rental car, and a careful driver from out-of-state is present. Troopers routinely claim under oath that the person, wherever they are coming from, was traveling from a high drug area.
At this juncture, state troopers threaten dogs ripping apart vehicles. If this does not work, suggestions of long delays and “we will just get a warrant” followed by “we will then rip your car apart” are employed. These tactics are deployed to secure consent to search. It is when the search requests are denied, as in Rodriguez, that state troopers call in backup canine officers. Here the motorist must wait and is thus detained.
When the dogs arrive and conduct the exterior sniff, alerting to “contraband”,Troopers now claim reasonable suspicion to then enter the car for further searching. Rodriguez addresses the legality of this police tactic; extending an otherwise legal traffic stop that did not present reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, by requiring a motorist to wait for the canine sniff team for the exterior search which creates the only reasonable suspicion to then enter the car without consent.
It is now the law of the land that this illegal. Rodriquez rules that the traffic stops become unlawful when prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete the mission of issuing a warning ticket. The seizure remains lawful only so long is unrelated inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the traffic stop. The court ruled that a dog sniff, a measure aimed at detecting evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, with out reasonable suspicion to do so extends illegally the duration of the traffic stop.
The Court squarely rejected the argument that an officer may incrementally prolonged a stop to conduct dog sniffs so long as the officer is reasonably diligent in pursuing the traffic related purpose of the stop. (The Court equated this to the officer earning bonus time to pursue an unrelated criminal investigation.) The magistrate’s finding that the detention for the dog sniff, which itself prolongs the traffic stop, was not independently supported by individualize suspicion, rendered illegal the extension of the traffic stop.
Call me to discuss your car investigation.
