Opinion ID: 2597314
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Arizona v. Johnson

Text: We start our analysis with an advantage over the trial judge and the judges on the Court of Appeals panel. Specifically, we have access to a decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court after the majority and dissenting opinions in State v. Morlock were filed on August 29, 2008. On January 26, 2009, the Court filed Arizona v. Johnson, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 (2009), an opinion authored by Justice Ginsburg for a unanimous court. In Johnson, three police officers stopped a car after a license plate check revealed that the registration had been suspended for an insurance related violation, which can justify a citation under Arizona law. The car contained three occupants. At one officer's request, the driver got out and the officer began obtaining the driver's license and information about the vehicle's registration and insurance. Another officer, Trevizo, attended to Johnson who sat in the back seat. Trevizo observed Johnson was wearing clothing consistent with membership in the Crips gang. While Johnson was seated, and in response to Trevizo's questions, he provided his name and date of birth but said he had no identification with him. He volunteered he was from Eloy, Arizona, a place Trevizo knew was home to a Crips gang. Johnson further told her that he had served time in prison for burglary and been out for about a year. Trevizo wanted to question Johnson away from the other passenger to obtain information about the gang Johnson might be in, so she asked him to get out of the car. After he did so, she began to pat him down for officer safety. When she felt a gun butt near his waist, he struggled, and she placed him in handcuffs. A divided panel for the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's denial of Johnson's motion to suppress. As Justice Ginsburg summarized: that court concluded, once Officer Trevizo undertook to question Johnson on a matter unrelated to the traffic stop, i.e., Johnson's gang affiliation, pat-down authority ceased to exist, absent reasonable suspicion that Johnson had engaged, or was about to engage, in criminal activity. 129 S.Ct. at 787. The Supreme Court observed, among other things, that under Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007), a passenger is seized, just as the driver is, `from the moment [a car stopped by the police comes] to a halt on the side of the road.' 129 S.Ct. at 787. The court ultimately reversed the Arizona Court of Appeals and remanded, holding that Johnson's pat-down was constitutional. It made several key points in its holding: A lawful roadside stop begins when a vehicle is pulled over for investigation of a traffic violation. The temporary seizure of driver and passengers ordinarily continues, and remains reasonable, for the duration of the stop. Normally, the stop ends when the police have no further need to control the scene, and inform the driver and passengers they are free to leave. See Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 258, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132. An officer's inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop, this Court has made plain, do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop. See Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 100-01, 125 S.Ct. 1465, 161 L.Ed.2d 299 (2005). (Emphasis added.) Johnson, 129 S.Ct. at 788. The Johnson Court's reliance upon Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 125 S.Ct. 1465, 161 L.Ed.2d 299 (2005), is instructive. There, Mena was handcuffed and detained in her residence during the execution of a search warrant which listed, among other sought items, deadly weapons and evidence of street gang membership. An Immigration and Naturalization Service officer had accompanied the officers executing the search warrant, and during Mena's detention she was asked for her name, date of birth, place of birth, immigration status, and immigration documentation. The Ninth Circuit court of appeals had held that the officers violated Mena's Fourth Amendment rights by questioning her about her immigration status during the otherwise lawful detention without independent reasonable suspicion. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Ninth Circuit's assumption that the questioning constituted a discrete Fourth Amendment event was faulty because `mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure.' 544 U.S. at 101, 125 S.Ct. 1465. The Muehler Court heavily relied upon its decision released 57 days earlier, Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 125 S.Ct. 834, 160 L.Ed.2d 842 (2005), where the Court held that, without more, a drug dog sniff performed during a lawfully commenced traffic stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Muehler Court essentially held that law enforcement officers could ask questions unrelated to the purpose of a searchwithout reasonable suspicionas long as the questions did not prolong the search: Because we held [in Caballes] that a dog sniff was not a search subject to the Fourth Amendment, we rejected the notion that `the shift in purpose' ... was unlawful because it `was not supported by a reasonable suspicion.' Id. at 408, 125 S.Ct., at 836-838. Likewise here, the initial Summers detention [pursuant to the search warrant] was lawful; the Court of Appeals did not find that the questioning extended the time Mena was detained. Thus no additional Fourth Amendment justification for inquiring about Mena's immigration status was required. (Emphasis added.) 544 U.S. at 101, 125 S.Ct. 1465. In short, the Muehler Court's test of  no extension of the detention's duration was expanded 4 years later by the Johnson Court to become a test of no measurable extension. Johnson also eliminated any doubt that the Muehler rationale applied to traffic stops. See State v. Smith, 286 Kan. 402, 184 P.3d 890 (2008); United States v. Stewart, 473 F.3d 1265 (10th Cir.2007). Johnson therefore also confirmed that an officer's inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the stop did not necessarily require reasonable suspicion. With this background, we now turn to analyzing Morlock's claim that Deputy Cocking exceeded the constitutionally permissible boundaries of the stop by (1) asking certain travel questions of driver O'Kelly and passenger Morlock and (2) taking Morlock's driver's license to his patrol vehicle and running a warrant check.