Title: Dayton v. Erickson

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

City of Dayton, Appellant, v. Erickson, Appellee. 
[Cite as Dayton v. Erickson (1996), __ Ohio St.3d __.] 
Criminal law -- Where police officer stops vehicle based on probable 
cause that traffic violation has occurred, the stop is not 
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution even if the officer had some ulterior motive for 
making the stop. 
--- 
Where a police officer stops a vehicle based on probable cause that a traffic 
violation has occurred or was occurring, the stop is not unreasonable 
under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution even if 
the officer had some ulterior motive for making the stop, such as a 
suspicion that the violator was engaging in more nefarious criminal 
activity.  (United States v. Ferguson [C.A.6, 1993], 8 F.3d 385, applied 
and followed.) 
--- 
 
(No. 95-859 -- Submitted April 16, 1996 -- Decided July 3, 1996.) 
 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County, No. 14712. 
 
2 
 
On May 13, 1994, Dayton Police Officer David Klosterman was on 
routine patrol in a marked police cruiser when a noisy black Oldsmobile drove 
past him on Pierce Avenue.  Klosterman ran a check on the license plate 
number of the vehicle using a computer terminal in his police cruiser.  The 
computer check revealed that the registered owner of the vehicle did not have a 
valid driver’s license.  Klosterman decided to stop the Oldsmobile but, by the 
time he caught up with it, the vehicle was parked and unoccupied.  Therefore, 
Klosterman continued on his routine patrol. 
 
Between fifteen and thirty minutes later, the same black Oldsmobile 
drove past Klosterman on another city street.  Klosterman pulled in behind the 
Oldsmobile and followed it for a short distance (one or two blocks) until the 
driver of the vehicle failed to signal a turn.  Klosterman stopped the 
Oldsmobile in connection with this minor traffic offense.  Cindy Erickson, 
appellee, was the driver of the vehicle.  During the stop, Klosterman learned 
that appellee’s driving privileges had been suspended.  Accordingly, 
 
3 
Klosterman cited appellee for failure to signal a turn, driving without a valid 
operator’s license, and driving under suspension. 
 
Thereafter, appellee filed, in the Dayton Municipal Court, a motion to 
suppress the evidence obtained during the traffic stop.  Appellee claimed that 
Klosterman had stopped her for the turn signal violation as a pretext to 
investigate whether she had been driving without a valid operator’s license.  In 
this regard, appellee urged that the traffic stop had violated the Fourth 
Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that 
any evidence obtained as a result of the stop was subject to exclusion.  At a 
hearing on the motion, Klosterman testified that the primary reason he had 
stopped appellee was because of the turn signal violation.  Klosterman 
estimated that he normally stops between one and three drivers per week for 
failure to signal a turn.  Additionally, Klosterman maintained that he would 
have stopped appellee for the turn signal violation irrespective of his earlier 
encounter with appellee’s vehicle on Pierce Avenue.  Following the hearing, 
 
4 
the Dayton Municipal Court granted appellee’s motion to suppress, holding 
that: 
 
“The proper inquiry in this case is ‘not whether the officer COULD 
validly have made the stop, but whether under the same circumstances a 
reasonable officer WOULD have made the stop in the absence of the invalid 
purpose’.  United States v. Smith, 799 F.2d 704 (11th Cir. 1986).  Whether a 
Fourth Amendment violation occurs depends upon an objective assessment of 
the officer’s actions and not upon his actual state of mind. 
 
“Based upon the testimony of the officer, the traffic stop could have been 
validly made.  However, because an officer theoretically could have validly 
stopped the car for a right turn signal violation is not determinative.  Similarly 
immaterial is the actual subjective intent of the officer.  His actions and 
description of the circumstances surrounding the stop are however relevant to 
[the] inquiry. 
 
5 
 
“By looking at the facts and using an objective standard, it is 
unbelievable that a reasonable officer would stop a vehicle for a right turn 
violation absent any invalid purpose. 
 
“The Court finds that the officer merely stopped the vehicle for a right 
turn signal violation as a subterfuge to question the driver concerning a greater 
offense of the law.  The traffic stop was pre-textual and thus, unreasonable and 
any evidence obtained from it must be excluded.” 
 
The city of Dayton, appellant, appealed from the trial court’s decision 
granting the motion to suppress.1  On appeal, the court of appeals, by a two-to-
one vote, affirmed the judgment of the trial court, holding that: 
 
“To find that a stop was a pretext, the trial court must make two findings.  
First, it must find that the police officer did not have a reasonable, articulable 
suspicion to stop the defendant for the more serious offense.  Second, the trial 
court must find that a reasonable police officer would not have stopped the 
defendant for the minor offense absent the invalid purpose. * * * 
 
6 
 
“In the first step of the trial court’s two-part analysis, it found that 
Officer Klosterman did not have probable cause to stop Erickson for the more 
serious offense of driving without a valid operator’s license.  [Prior to the stop,] 
Officer Klosterman had information from the police computer that the 
registered owner of the Oldsmobile did not have a valid driver’s license, but he 
did not know if the driver of the vehicle was the owner. * * * 
 
“[I]n this case, the police officer had no particular reason to believe that 
the driver, Erickson, was the owner of the vehicle.  No evidence was presented 
in the trial court that the police officer had a description of the vehicle’s owner 
from the BMV, knew the owner’s gender prior to the stop, or had actually 
observed the driver prior to the stop.  Under these circumstances, the trial court 
could have reasonably concluded * * * that the officer did not have a 
reasonable and articulable suspicion that the operator was engaged in criminal 
activity so as to justify an investigative stop. 
 
“Since the trial court concluded that the police officer did not have a 
reasonable and articulable basis to stop Erickson for driving without a license, 
 
7 
it proceeded to the second step in the analysis: whether a reasonable officer 
would have stopped Erickson for the minor traffic violation [for failing to 
signal a turn] absent an invalid purpose.  The proper test is not whether the 
police officer could have legally stopped the driver, but whether a reasonable 
officer would have done so under the circumstances.  United States v. Smith 
(C.A. 11, 1986), 799 F.2d 704, 708 * * *. 
 
“* * * 
 
“* * * We conclude, based upon our review of the record, that the trial 
court could have reasonably decided that a reasonable police officer would not 
have stopped Erickson for the turn signal violation absent an improper purpose, 
and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.”  (Emphasis sic.) 
 
Conversely, Judge Grady of the court of appeals, in a separate dissenting 
opinion, concluded that Klosterman had been justified in stopping the 
Oldsmobile for purposes of investigating whether the driver had a valid 
operator’s license.  Accordingly, in his dissent, Judge Grady found that the stop 
was not unlawfully pretextual. 
 
8 
 
The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a 
discretionary appeal. 
__________ 
 
J. Anthony Sawyer, Dayton Director of Law, and John J. Scaccia, Chief 
Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant. 
 
Lynn G. Koeller, Montgomery County Public Defender, Charles L. 
Grove and Anthony R. Cicero, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellee. 
__________ 
 
DOUGLAS, J.     The court of appeals determined that a “pretextual” 
traffic stop is constitutionally invalid.  The court of appeals defined a 
“pretextual stop” as one in which a police officer “uses a minor violation of the 
law to make a stop which the officer would not otherwise make in order to 
conduct a search or an interrogation for an unrelated, more serious offense for 
which he does not have the reasonable suspicion necessary to support a stop.”  
The court of appeals’ majority upheld the trial court’s findings that the traffic 
stop in this case was a pretext because (1) the police officer did not have an 
 
9 
articulable reasonable suspicion to stop appellee to investigate the more serious 
offenses of driving without a valid license and driving under a suspended 
license, and (2) a reasonable police officer would not have stopped appellee for 
the turn signal violation absent an invalid purpose.  For the reasons that follow, 
we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, vacate the judgment of the trial 
court, and remand this cause to the Dayton Municipal Court for further 
proceedings. 
 
The question whether a traffic stop violates the Fourth Amendment to 
the United States Constitution requires an objective assessment of a police 
officer’s actions in light of the facts and circumstances then known to the 
officer.  United States v. Ferguson (C.A.6, 1993), 8 F.3d 385, 388.  Thus, the 
question whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred in this case depends 
upon an objective assessment of the officer’s actions at the time of the traffic 
stop, and not upon the officer’s actual (subjective) state of mind. 
 
The federal courts have generally taken two distinct approaches to the 
required objective assessment of an officer’s actions in determining whether a 
 
10 
traffic stop is invalid as pretextual.  One of these approaches, commonly 
referred to as the “would” test or the “reasonable officer” standard, requires a 
determination whether a reasonable police officer under the same 
circumstances would have made the traffic stop in the absence of some invalid 
purpose.  See United States v. Smith (C.A.11, 1986), 799 F.2d 704, 708.  See, 
also, Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d at 388 (discussing the standard for analyzing 
claims of allegedly pretextual traffic stops under the “would” test).  The trial 
court and the court of appeals adopted this test in determining that 
Klosterman’s actions in stopping appellee for a turn signal violation was a mere 
pretext to investigate whether appellee had a valid driver’s license.  The trial 
court held, and the court of appeals’ majority agreed, that a reasonable police 
officer would not have made the stop for the turn signal violation absent some 
ulterior, improper motivation.  Accordingly, both courts determined that the 
stop was pretextual and that it violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition 
against unreasonable searches and seizures. 
 
11 
 
Conversely, the second and more prevalent approach to analyzing claims 
of allegedly pretextual traffic stops, commonly referred to as either the “could” 
test or the “authorization” standard, seeks to determine not whether a 
reasonable police officer would have stopped the defendant absent some 
invalid purpose, but whether an officer could have stopped the particular 
vehicle in question for a suspected traffic violation.  See Ferguson, supra, 8 
F.3d at 388-389 (discussing the standard for analyzing claims of allegedly 
pretextual traffic stops under the “could” test).  Federal courts adopting this 
approach have concluded that where an officer has either a reasonable 
suspicion or probable cause to stop a motorist for a traffic violation, the stop is 
constitutionally valid regardless of the officer’s underlying intent or motivation 
for stopping the vehicle in question.  See, e.g., United States v. Scopo (C.A.2, 
1994), 19 F.3d 777 (Traffic stop was not pretextual where officers had 
probable cause to stop defendant for minor traffic offenses, even though 
defendant was under surveillance for suspected underworld activities and the 
officers were members of a strike force created to monitor the defendant and 
 
12 
others.); United States v. Botero-Ospina (C.A.10, 1995), 71 F.3d 783, 787, 
overruling United States v. Guzman (C.A.10, 1988), 864 F.2d 1512 (“[A] 
traffic stop is valid under the Fourth Amendment if the stop is based on an 
observed traffic violation or if the police officer has reasonable articulable 
suspicion that a traffic or equipment violation has occurred or is occurring.  It 
is irrelevant, for purposes of Fourth Amendment review, ‘whether the stop in 
question is sufficiently ordinary or routine * * *.’  It is also irrelevant that the 
officer may have had other subjective motives for stopping the vehicle.”); 
United States v. Trigg (C.A.7, 1989), 878 F.2d 1037, 1041 (“[S]o long as the 
police are doing no more than they are legally permitted and objectively 
authorized to do, [the resulting stop or] an arrest is constitutional.”); United 
States v. Fiala (C.A.7, 1991), 929 F.2d 285, 287-288 (same principle); United 
States v. Cummins (C.A.8, 1990), 920 F.2d 498, 500-501 (An officer who 
observes a traffic offense has probable cause to stop the driver of the vehicle, 
and an otherwise valid stop does not become unreasonable merely because the 
officer has “intuitive suspicions” that the occupants of the vehicle are engaged 
 
13 
in some sort of criminal activity.); United States v. Maejia (C.A.8, 1991), 928 
F.2d 810, 814-815 (“[A]n otherwise valid traffic stop does not become 
unreasonable merely because the officer knows that the car is allegedly 
involved in the transportation of drugs. * * * When an officer reasonably 
believes that a driver is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and supports 
that belief with articulable facts, it is of no consequence that the vehicle was 
already under surveillance for suspected drug-related crimes.”); and United 
States v. Bloomfield (C.A.8, 1994), 40 F.3d 910, 915 (“Any traffic violation, 
however minor, provides probable cause for a traffic stop. * * * If the officer is 
legally authorized to stop the driver, any additional ‘underlying intent or 
motivation’ does not invalidate the stop.”).  See, also, United States v. Johnson 
(C.A.3, 1995), 63 F.3d 242; United States v. Jeffus (C.A.4, 1994), 22 F.3d 554, 
557; and United States v. Roberson (C.A.5, 1993), 6 F.3d 1088, 1092. 
 
In Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d 385, the United States Court of Appeals for 
the Sixth Circuit adopted what it considered to be a variation of the traditional 
“could” test for analyzing claims of allegedly pretextual traffic stops.  
 
14 
However, the Ferguson test differs only minimally (if at all) from the “could” 
test or “authorization” standard adopted and applied by other federal circuit 
courts of appeals.  Appellant urges us to adopt the Ferguson test in analyzing 
appellee’s claim that the traffic stop in this case was unlawful as pretextual. 
 
In Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d 385, a police officer in a marked cruiser was 
speaking with a security guard in a motel parking lot when the officer observed 
Cecil Ferguson drive into the parking lot in a Lincoln automobile.  Ferguson’s 
car was followed by a Ford automobile driven by Leonard Lester.  Ferguson 
got out of the Lincoln and walked toward the back of the parking lot.  When 
the police officer went to leave the parking lot, he observed Lester, who was 
still seated in the Ford, lie down across the front seat of the vehicle in an 
apparent attempt to hide.  Having become suspicious of the situation, the 
officer parked his cruiser across the street and continued to observe the two 
men.  Eventually, Ferguson got into the Ford with Lester, drove to a different 
spot in the parking lot, and went into a motel room.  Ferguson left the room 
several minutes later and got back into the Ford with Lester.  The two men then 
 
15 
drove to Ferguson’s Lincoln, removed a briefcase from the Lincoln, and drove 
the Ford back to the motel room.  Ferguson entered the motel room carrying the 
briefcase and then emerged from the room with the briefcase still in hand.  The 
two men then drove out of the parking lot in the Ford automobile, leaving the 
Lincoln behind. 
 
In Ferguson, the police officer followed the Ford until he noticed that 
there was no visible license plate on the vehicle -- a violation of a city traffic 
ordinance.  Thus, the officer stopped the Ford automobile and, among other 
things, questioned Lester (the driver) concerning the events at the motel.  
Lester was never cited for or questioned about the minor traffic offense.  
However, Ferguson was arrested when the officer noticed a firearm on the front 
seat of the vehicle.  In searching the vehicle and the briefcase incident to 
Ferguson’s arrest, police found cocaine and other evidence of drug trafficking.  
Accordingly, Ferguson was indicted for the federal offenses of drug trafficking 
and possession of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.  
 
Ferguson moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the traffic 
 
16 
stop, claiming that the stop was pretextual and thus illegal.  At a hearing on the 
motion, the police officer testified that the primary reason he had stopped the 
vehicle was because of Ferguson and Lester’s suspicious activity at the motel.  
However, the officer also testified that he had stopped the vehicle for a license 
plate violation.  Following the hearing, the federal district court denied the 
motion to suppress.  Thereafter, Ferguson pled guilty to the drug charge while 
reserving his right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.  On appeal, a 
panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed 
Ferguson’s conviction and vacated his sentence, finding that the traffic stop 
had been pretextual and, thus, unlawful.  However, the Sixth Circuit vacated 
the panel’s decision in order to address, en banc, the following question: 
“‘Where an officer has probable cause to make a traffic stop, and also has 
motivations that are unrelated to the traffic stop such as an intent to investigate 
suspicious activity, may the stop be deemed unconstitutional because it is 
pretextual?’”  Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d at 387. 
 
17 
 
In Ferguson, the Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed the district 
court’s decision denying the motion to suppress.  The Sixth Circuit found that 
the traffic stop was not violative of the Fourth Amendment because the police 
officer had probable cause to stop Ferguson and Lester based on the minor 
traffic violation of driving without a visible license plate.  Id., 8 F.3d at 391-
393.  In so holding, the Sixth Circuit stated, in part: 
 
“We address today only the issue of whether a traffic stop, which is 
supported by probable case but motivated -- at least in part -- by suspicions 
inadequate to support a stop, may be held to be unconstitutional because it is 
pretextual.  We find that neither the Smith test [United States v. Smith, supra, 
799 F.2d 704] of whether a reasonable officer would have stopped the car for a 
traffic violation but for the invalid motive (or its variations as found in the 
pretextual stop cases decided in this Circuit), nor the language of the standard 
set out by other circuits of whether the police officer could have stopped the 
car for a traffic violation is satisfactory in determining this issue.  At least 
insofar as the ‘would’ test might be applied to the circumstances of a stop 
 
18 
based upon probable cause, we find it difficult to distinguish, for example, 
between the officer’s subjective intent and the ‘objective evidence’ of the 
officer’s actual interest in investigating the kind of offense for which he made 
the stop. * * * As for the ‘could’ test, as we have indicated, no circuit adopting 
that test has expressly said that a stop can be justified merely by an after-the-
stop determination that the officer theoretically could have stopped the car for a 
traffic violation, although he did not notice at the time of the stop that a 
violation had occurred.  However, in our view, some of the language utilized 
by the courts that subscribe to the ‘could’ test is sufficiently imprecise to leave 
it susceptible of such a reading. 
 
“We hold that so long as the officer has probable cause to believe that a 
traffic violation has occurred or was occurring, the resulting stop is not 
unlawful and does not violate the Fourth Amendment.  * * *  We focus not on 
whether a reasonable officer ‘would’ have stopped the suspect (even though he 
had probable cause to believe that a traffic violation had occurred), or whether 
any officer ‘could’ have stopped the suspect (because a traffic violation had in 
 
19 
fact occurred), but on whether this particular officer in fact had probable cause 
to believe that a traffic offense had occurred, regardless of whether this was the 
only basis or merely one basis for the stop.  The stop is reasonable if there was 
probable cause, and it is irrelevant what else the officer knew or suspected 
about the traffic violator at the time of the stop.  It is also irrelevant whether the 
stop in question is sufficiently ordinary or routine according to the general 
practice of the police department or the particular officer making the stop. 
 
“We note that this probable cause determination, like all probable cause 
determinations, is fact-dependent and will turn on what the officer knew at the 
time he made the stop.  Under this test, it is clear that the courts may not 
determine whether there was probable cause by looking at events that occurred 
after the stop.  * * *  [I]f the facts known to the officer at the time of the stop 
were sufficient to constitute probable cause to believe that a traffic violation 
had occurred, a reviewing court may not look at the officer’s ordinary routine, 
or his conduct or conversations that occurred before or after the stop to 
invalidate the stop as pretextual. 
 
20 
 
“We believe that by using this standard, we will better achieve the 
objective assessment of the officer’s actions required by the [United States] 
Supreme Court.  * * *  We also will avoid some of the problems inherent in the 
‘would’ and ‘could’ tests.  By adopting this standard, we make explicit that 
which was simply an inference under our prior cases: traffic stops based on 
probable cause, even if other motivations existed, are not illegal. 
 
“We accomplish several things by holding that a traffic stop, supported 
by probable cause, of a vehicle as to which the officer also has suspicions of 
more nefarious activity, is not unreasonable because it is based at least in part 
upon other motivations.  We ensure that the validity of such stops is not subject 
to the vagaries of police departments’ policies and procedures concerning the 
kinds of traffic offenses of which they ordinarily do or do not take note.  We 
ensure as well that those who are engaged in more nefarious activity are not 
insulated from criminal liability for those activities simply because a judge 
determines that the police officer who executed the traffic stop, had he been the 
mythical reasonable officer, would not have stopped them for the traffic 
 
21 
offense that they in fact committed.  We ensure that law enforcement officers 
who see actual violations of the law, even minor ones, are not left to ponder 
whether their actions in enforcing the law are appropriate.  Finally, we ensure 
that the courts leave to the legislatures the job of determining what traffic laws 
police officers are authorized to enforce and when they are authorized to 
enforce them.”  (Emphasis sic.)  Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d at 391-392. 
 
We agree with the Sixth Circuit’s cogent analysis of the issue.  
Specifically, we are in complete agreement with the Sixth Circuit that a traffic 
stop based upon probable cause is not unreasonable, and that an officer who 
makes a traffic stop based on probable cause acts in an objectively reasonable 
manner.  Accordingly, we adopt the test outlined in Ferguson, supra, 8 F.3d at 
391-393, and hold that where a police officer stops a vehicle based on probable 
cause that a traffic violation has occurred or was occurring, the stop is not 
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 
even if the officer had some ulterior motive for making the stop, such as a 
suspicion that the violator was engaging in more nefarious criminal activity. 
 
22 
 
In the case at bar, Officer Klosterman clearly had probable cause to stop 
appellee based on the traffic violation (failure to signal a turn) which occurred 
in the officer’s presence.  Thus, the stop was constitutionally valid.2  
Klosterman obtained appellee’s driver’s license and ran a computer check in 
connection with appellee’s detention for the minor traffic violation.  As a 
result, the check revealed that appellee had no driving privileges and no valid 
license.  Thus, Klosterman cited appellee for the additional criminal offenses, 
which he had every right to do given the information obtained during the traffic 
stop.  The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Section 
14, Article I of the Ohio Constitution, prohibit unreasonable searches and 
seizures.  We find no constitutional violation here. 
 
As a final matter, we note that there are a number of reported Ohio 
appellate decisions adopting the “would” test or some similar standard for 
analyzing claims of pretextual traffic stops.  See, e.g., State v. Bishop (1994), 
95 Ohio App.3d 619, 622, 643 N.E.2d 170, 171-172; State v. Richardson 
(1994), 94 Ohio App.3d 501, 505-508, 641 N.E.2d 216, 219-220; State v. 
 
23 
Spencer (1991), 75 Ohio App.3d 581, 585, 600 N.E.2d 335, 337; and State v. 
Whitsell (1990), 69 Ohio App.3d 512, 523-524, 591 N.E.2d 265, 272-273.  But, 
see, State v. Carlson (1995), 102 Ohio App.3d 585, 589-593, 657 N.E.2d 591, 
594-597 (adopting the Ferguson approach to determining the validity of an 
allegedly pretextual traffic stop).  Today, we specifically reject the views of 
those courts that have analyzed claims of allegedly pretextual traffic stops 
under the “would” standard.  Rather, consistent with the views of those courts 
that have adopted the “could” test or a slight variation of that test (as in 
Ferguson), we conclude that where an officer has an articulable reasonable 
suspicion or probable cause to stop a motorist for any criminal violation, 
including a minor traffic violation, the stop is constitutionally valid regardless 
of the officer’s underlying subjective intent or motivation for stopping the 
vehicle in question. 
 
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, vacate the 
trial court’s decision granting appellee’s motion to suppress, and remand this 
cause to the trial court for further proceedings on the pending criminal charges. 
 
24 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment reversed 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
and cause remanded. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, COOK and STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissents. 
 
25 
FOOTNOTES: 
1 
In conformance with Crim.R. 12(J), the prosecutor filed a timely notice 
of appeal from the trial court’s decision granting the motion to suppress and 
certified that (1) the appeal was not taken for the purpose of delay, and (2) that 
the trial court’s decision granting the motion had rendered the city of Dayton’s 
proof with respect to the pending charge so weak in its entirety that any 
reasonable possibility of effective prosecution had been destroyed. 
2 
Given our determination that Officer Klosterman had probable cause to 
believe that a traffic offense had been committed based upon his observation 
that appellee failed to signal a turn, we need not reach the merits of appellant’s 
contentions that Klosterman had a reasonable suspicion to support the stop 
based on the information he had previously obtained that the registered owner 
of the vehicle had no valid driver’s license. 
 
Pfeifer, J., dissenting. 
You drive by a policeman, and for some reason, 
he doesn’t much like the looks of you.  Maybe your car is shabby; maybe you 
are.  Maybe you are out late in a high-crime neighborhood.  Maybe you are in a 
 
26 
low-crime area, but you are part of a high-crime demographic group.  The 
reason does not much matter -- to him you are a suspicious character, that’s all.  
The policeman pulls up behind you.  You will make a mistake.  You say you 
did use your turn signal to change lanes?  He didn’t see it.  Or, prove to him 
that you did not exceed the speed limit by one mile per hour when you were 
busy looking at him in your rear-view mirror.  You’ll never be charged with the 
violations -- you’re just being stopped and detained to see if his hunch about 
you was right.  Perhaps he’ll ask if you mind if he searches your car.  You 
wouldn’t refuse unless you had something to hide, right?  You have just been 
detained and possibly searched because someone did not like the looks of you. 
 
The majority holds today that police officers, based upon a hunch of 
nefarious activity, may stop a car they would not stop under any other 
circumstances.  I agree with the trial and appellate courts in this case which 
held, citing United States v. Smith (C.A. 11, 1986), 799 F.2d 704, 708, that the 
relevant inquiry is not whether the officer could have made the stop, but 
whether a reasonable officer would have done so in the absence of the invalid 
 
27 
purpose.  The majority opinion allows the existence of a technical offense to 
obfuscate the true motivation for what otherwise would be an invalid stop.  If 
the stop would not have been made but for the invalid purpose, the invalid 
purpose is the motivation behind the stop.  The fruits of such stops should be 
suppressed, as the lower courts correctly held. 
 
Fourth Amendment cases are some of the most difficult cases for judges 
to decide for the simple reason that it is most often unsympathetic people who 
seek protection from unlawful searches.  These cases are brought by persons 
confronted with damning evidence, which evidence, they claim, while relevant 
and probably persuasive, was unlawfully gained and ought to be ignored.  
While it is always a criminal defendant seeking the Fourth Amendment’s 
protection, ultimately Fourth Amendment jurisprudence protects us all from 
unreasonable intrusions on our liberty.  It was not a criminal who lost in this 
case today -- all of us who value our freedom did.