The Car Stop
Short version:
An officer only needs reasonable articulable suspicion to seize a vehicle
Pretext stops are fine and also require reasonable articulable suspicion
Everyone who remains in the vehicle has standing to challenge a car stop
An officer can order anyone inside of a stopped car out of the car for officer safety
An office can search a car with probable cause… yes, even the trunk.
Belton allows police to search the passenger compartment of
a vehicle incident to a lawful custodial arrest of both "occupants"
and "recent occupants." 453
Thornton v.
A traffic stop is justified under the Fourth Amendment where
the police have a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that
criminal activity is afoot. Lewis v. State, 398
In Michigan v.
Long, the Supreme Court held that the doctrine announced in Chimel
v. California, 395 U.S. 752
(1969) applies to cases in which officers have reasonable, articulable
suspicion that an individual is armed, noting that “If a suspect is
‘dangerous,’ he is no less dangerous simply because he is not arrested.”
“The search of the passenger compartment of an automobile, limited to those areas in which a weapon may be placed or hidden, is permissible if the police officer possesses a reasonable belief based on specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the officer in believing that the suspect is dangerous and the suspect may gain immediate control of weapons.” Id at 1049.
The area which may be searched for weapons includes “closed
or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere
within the passenger compartment.”
In Cross, the police had
information from an unnamed citizen that the Defendant was armed. The Court of
Special Appeals held that police examination of the glove compartment, even
though locked, was a valid Terry frisk of the vehicle where police
peeked through a 1-inch opening in the glove compartment and observed a
handgun. Cross, 165
If, while conducting a legitimate Terry search of the
interior of the automobile, the officer should discover contraband, he clearly
cannot be required to ignore the contraband, and the Fourth Amendment does not
require its suppression in such circumstances.
If probable cause
justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of
every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the
search, including the trunk.
Stopping a car
When is a car stopped?
- Lights and siren
- Lalalala
- lalala
History of the car stop
Began with Carroll v.
The constitutionality of a traffic stop does not depend on
the actual motivations of the individual officers involved. Whren
v.
Standard to stop a
vehicle:
Whether police are allowed to conduct a traffic stop, “the
appropriate minimum standard is reasonable articulable suspicion.” State v. Williams, 401
The appropriate minimum standard for a car stop is
reasonable articulable suspicion, even with a “pretext” stop where the officer
is actually looking to investigate an infraction other than the violation
observed. State v. Williams, 401
Standing to challenge
a search/seizure:
A passenger who remains passively
in a vehicle that is stopped by police is seized when the driver of the vehicle
is seized for purposes of 4th Amendment analysis. Brendlin v.
A passenger has no way of signaling submission to the police
(and therefore cannot be seized for 4th amendment purposes) while
the car is still moving on the roadway, but once it comes to a stop the
passenger may submit by staying inside. Brendlin,
Brendlin v.
What may be searched:
If probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped
vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents
that may conceal the object of the search. This applies broadly to all
containers within a car, without qualification as to ownership.
Arresting a passenger:
A car passenger will often be engaged in a common enterprise
with the driver, and have the same interest in concealing the fruits or the evidence
of their wrongdoing.
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 814, 116 S.Ct. 1769 (1996) The constitutional reasonableness of a traffic stop does not depend on the actual motivations of the individual officers for the stopping of the vehicle. “Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis”, “The Fourth Amendment’s concern with ‘reasonableness’ allows certain actions to be taken in certain circumstances, whatever the subjective intent.”
Charity v. State, 132 Md.App. 598 (2000) defendant, driving a car with North Carolina tags, was stopped for following too closely by a State Police sergeant assigned to drug interdiction. There were 70 air fresheners suspended from the rear view mirror. Sergeant ordered def from the car and “consensually frisked” him. Officer impermissibly prolonged the Whren traffic stop. In determining whether a police officer has exceeded the temporal scope of a lawful traffic stop, the focus will not be on the length of time an average traffic stop should ordinarily take nor will it be exclusively on a determination of whether a traffic stop was literally "completed" by the return of documents or the issuance of a citation. The reasonableness of each detention is assessed on a case-by-case basis and not by the running of the clock. Once the Sergeant advised defendant that he had been stopped for following too closely, the defendant acknowledged his infraction and apologized for it and the Sergeant examined defendant’s driver's license and registration card, any further detention of the defendant to engage in a narcotics-related investigation was beyond the scope of what is permitted as part of a "Whren stop."
Ferris v. State, 355 Md. 356 (1999) – The purpose
of a traffic stop is to issue a citation or warning and once that purpose has
been satisfied, the continued detention of a vehicle and its occupants
constitutes a second stop and must be independently justified by reasonable
suspicion. Once the purpose of that stop has been fulfilled, the continued
detention of the car and the occupants amounts to a second detention. Thus,
once the underlying basis for the initial traffic stop has concluded, a
police-driver encounter which implicates the 4th amendment is constitutionally
permissible only if either (1) the driver consents to the continuing intrusion
or (2) the officer has, at a minimum, a reasonable, articulable suspicion that
criminal activity is afoot. Defendant was stopped for speeding.
Defendant gave officer license and registration and after completing
warrant and license check, officer handed defendant a traffic citation. After
citation was signed, officer returned license and registration to defendant.
Defendant was not advised that he was free to leave. Officer then asked def to step to the back of
his car and answer some questions. Defendant admitted that he and his passenger
had been smoking weed and that the passenger was in possession of weed. When
the passenger gave the officer a baggie of weed the officer searched the
interior of the car and recovered from inside a book bag lying
on the rear seat a gallon-size plastic bag of weed. Held that a reasonable person in defendant's
position would not have believed that he was free to terminate the encounter
with the trooper when the trooper asked him "if he would mind stepping to
the back of his vehicle. At the moment the trooper
prolonged the encounter beyond the scope of the initial traffic stop, to be
more coercive than consensual. Second stop was not consensual or supported by reasonable suspicion.
State v. Green, 375 Md. 595 (2003) Defendant consented to a search of his
vehicle at the conclusion of a traffic stop for speeding where, upon the return
of his license and registration, the seizing
officer informed the defendant that he was free to go prior to requesting
consent to search and consent was not vitiated by waiting period of 15 - 20
minutes for back-up to arrive.
Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391 (1979)
we hold that except in those situations
in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist
is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the
vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law,
stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's
license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment.
Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330 (1977) held that once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures.
Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 117 S.Ct. 882 (1997) held that an officer making a traffic stop may order passengers to get out of the car pending completion of the stop.
Dennis v. State, 342
Illinois
v. Caballes, 125 S.Ct. 834 (2005) A suspicionless
canine scan of a vehicle of a lawfully detained driver does not violate the
Fourth Amendment. Reasonable, articulable suspicion
of the presence of illegal drugs is not required to justify using a
drug-detection dog to sniff a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop.”
Wilkes v. State, 364
Wyoming v.
Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 119
State v. Wallace, 142 Md. App. 673 (2002), aff’d 372 Md. 137 (2002) - a general canine alert to the presence of illegal drugs in a vehicle, without more, does not establish probable cause to search non-owning, non-driving passengers of that vehicle. Some additional substantive nexus between the passenger and the criminal conduct must appear to exist in order for an officer to have probable cause to either search or arrest a passenger.
State v. Funkhouser, 140 Md.App.
696 (2001) – positive alert by trained CDS dog to vehicle did not establish
PC for search of fanny pack worn by driver of vehicle. Distinguished
Wyoming v. Houghton, 526
OVERVIEW: In addition to the driver and a back set
passenger, defendant was a front seat passenger in a vehicle which was stopped
for speeding. Upon a consensual search, a significant amount of cash was found
in the glove compartment of the vehicle and drugs were discovered between the
back-seat armrest and the back seat. Although defendant subsequently admitted
that the drugs and cash were his, none of the vehicle occupants admitted to
ownership of the drugs at the time of the search, and all three occupants were
arrested. The United States Supreme Court held that the officer had probable
cause to believe that defendant was in possession of the drugs. It was an
entirely reasonable inference that any or all three of the occupants had
knowledge of, and exercised dominion and control over, the drugs, and thus a
reasonable officer could conclude that there was probable cause to believe
defendant committed the crime of possession of drugs, either solely or jointly.
It was also reasonable for the officer to infer a common enterprise among the
three occupants, in view of the likelihood of drug dealing in which an innocent
party was unlikely to be involved.
Cracked windshield ok RAS:
the officer was not required to
establish to his satisfaction, prior to the stop, that the windshield called
into question the safety of the vehicle.
Muse v. State, 146