Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-9972_p8k0.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

4 

RODRIGUEZ v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting
 

A 

The majority’s rule requires a traffic stop to “en[d] when
tasks  tied  to  the  traffic  infraction  are—or  reasonably
should  have  been—completed.”    Ante,  at  5.    “If  an  officer 
can  complete  traffic-based  inquiries  expeditiously,  then 
that is the amount of time reasonably required to complete
the  stop’s  mission”  and  he  may  hold  the  individual  no
longer.  Ante,  at  8  (internal  quotation  marks  and  altera-
tions  omitted).  The  majority’s  rule  thus  imposes  a  one-
way  ratchet  for  constitutional  protection  linked  to  the
characteristics  of  the  individual  officer  conducting  the
stop:  If  a  driver  is  stopped  by  a  particularly  efficient  of-
ficer, then he will be entitled to be released from the traf-
fic stop after a shorter period of time than a driver stopped 
by a less efficient officer.  Similarly, if a driver is stopped 
by an officer with access to technology that can shorten a 
records check, then he will be entitled to be released from 
the stop after a shorter period of  time than an individual 
stopped by an officer without access to such technology. 

I “cannot accept that the search and seizure protections
of the Fourth Amendment are so variable and can be made 
to  turn  upon  such  trivialities.”  Whren,  517  U. S.,  at  815 
(citations omitted).  We have repeatedly explained that the
reasonableness inquiry must not hinge on the characteris-
tics  of  the  individual  officer  conducting  the  seizure.    We 
have  held,  for  example,  that  an  officer’s  state  of  mind
“does  not  invalidate  [an]  action  taken  as  long  as  the  cir-
cumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action.”  Id., at 
813 (internal quotation marks omitted).  We have spurned
theories that would make the Fourth Amendment “change
with  local  law  enforcement  practices.”    Moore,  supra,  at 
172.  And  we  have  rejected  a  rule  that  would  require  the
offense  establishing  probable  cause  to  be  “closely  related 
to” the offense identified by the arresting officer, as such a 
rule  would  make  “the  constitutionality  of  an  arrest  . . . 
vary from place to place and from time to time, depending