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Page Number: 5.0

2 

RODRIGUEZ v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

Nebraska law prohibits driving on highway shoulders, see
Neb. Rev. Stat. §60–6,142 (2010), and on that basis, Stru­
ble pulled the Mountaineer over at 12:06 a.m.  Struble is a
K–9  officer  with  the  Valley  Police  Department  in  Ne­
braska, and his dog Floyd was in his patrol car that night. 
Two  men  were  in  the  Mountaineer:  the  driver,  Dennys
Rodriguez, and a front-seat passenger, Scott Pollman.

Struble approached the Mountaineer on the passenger’s 
side.  After  Rodriguez  identified  himself,  Struble  asked 
him  why  he  had  driven  onto  the  shoulder.  Rodriguez
replied  that  he  had  swerved  to  avoid  a  pothole.    Struble 
then  gathered  Rodriguez’s  license,  registration,  and  proof
of  insurance,  and  asked  Rodriguez  to  accompany  him  to 
the  patrol  car.    Rodriguez  asked  if  he  was  required  to  do
so,  and  Struble  answered  that  he  was  not.    Rodriguez 
decided to wait in his own vehicle. 

After  running  a  records  check  on  Rodriguez,  Struble
returned  to  the  Mountaineer.  Struble  asked  passenger
Pollman for his driver’s license and began to question him
about  where  the  two  men  were  coming  from  and  where
they  were  going.  Pollman  replied  that  they  had  traveled
to Omaha, Nebraska, to look at a Ford Mustang that was 
for  sale  and  that  they  were  returning  to  Norfolk,  Ne­
braska.  Struble returned again to his patrol car, where he
completed  a  records  check  on  Pollman,  and  called  for  a
second  officer.  Struble  then  began  writing  a  warning
ticket  for  Rodriguez  for  driving  on  the  shoulder  of  the
road. 

Struble  returned  to  Rodriguez’s  vehicle  a  third  time  to
issue the written warning.  By 12:27 or 12:28 a.m., Struble 
had  finished  explaining  the  warning  to  Rodriguez,  and
had  given  back  to  Rodriguez  and  Pollman  the  documents 
obtained  from  them.    As  Struble  later  testified,  at  that 
point,  Rodriguez  and  Pollman  “had  all  their  documents
back  and  a  copy  of  the  written  warning.    I  got  all  the
reason[s] for the stop out of the way[,] . . . took care of all