Opinion ID: 2980775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reasonableness of the Traffic Stop

Text: “[A] vehicle stop by a police officer is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Bazzi v. City of Dearborn, 658 F.3d 598, 603 (6th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, to ensure that a traffic stop is constitutional, “an officer must have probable cause to make a stop for a civil infraction, [or] reasonable suspicion of an ongoing crime.” Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Generally speaking, however, “the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996). The parties do not dispute that, as of 8:30 a.m., officers had probable cause to stop Anderson for the licence-plate violation. Instead, the only issue is whether the four-hour delay in initiating the 4 No. 10-2638 United States v. Anderson traffic stop renders it unreasonable and in violation of Anderson’s Fourth Amendment rights.1 In support of his argument, Anderson points to a handful of cases from other circuits that place limits on an officer’s ability to initiate a traffic stop when some amount of time has passed since the officer observed the underlying violation. See Appellant Br. at 13–15 (citing United States v. Hughes, 517 F.3d 1013 (8th Cir. 2008); United States v. Grigg, 498 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v. Moran, 503 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 553 U.S. 1035 (2008); United States v. Mendonca, 682 F. Supp. 2d 98 (D. Mass. 2010)). Each of those cases, however, involved a delayed stop that followed a prior completed misdemeanor. See Hughes, 517 F.3d at 1017 (determining that the circumstances did not permit a stop based only on reasonable suspicion of an already-completed trespassing offense); Grigg, 498 F.3d at 1072, 1083 (addressing a stop for a past misdemeanor—violating a local noise ordinance—and concluding the stop was unreasonable when it did not involve any appreciable risk to public safety and was based only on a citizen’s complaint about the defendant’s prior excessive stereo volume); Moran, 503 F.3d at 1143 (discussing the reasonableness of “investigatory stops based on completed misdemeanors” in the context of criminal trespass, and determining that, under the particular circumstances of the case, the stop was reasonable); Mendonca, 682 F. Supp. 2d at 101, 104 (evaluating a stop based on speeding and unlawful lane changes that took place about an hour after those offenses were completed, and 1 Although Anderson’s suppression motion focused largely on the stop’s duration, his argument before this court relates solely to the reasonableness of the initial seizure and no longer challenges the length of the stop. Because Anderson has not raised the issue on appeal, we express no opinion on the events that followed the officers’ initiation of the traffic stop. 5 No. 10-2638 United States v. Anderson concluding that “a completed traffic misdemeanor cannot hang over a suspect indefinitely until a time at which he has engaged in some other suspicious activity that officers believe warrants a pretextual stop”). Because these cases fail to address the constitutionality of a traffic stop conducted to investigate an ongoing violation, however, they are inapposite. More to the point, cases in this circuit support the view that stops for ongoing violations are not unreasonable solely because of a relatively short delay between the point at which law enforcement takes note of the violation and the point at which officers initiate the stop. Indeed, in United States v. Sandridge, 385 F.3d 1032, 1036 (6th Cir. 2004), we upheld a traffic stop for driving without a valid license even though three weeks had passed since the officer ran the license check that identified the missing license. In spite of that delay, the prior license check was sufficient to support a reasonable suspicion of an ongoing violation, and the intervening three-week period was not sufficient to render the stop unreasonable. Id. Pivotal to this court’s analysis was the fact that “[d]riving without a valid license is a continuing offense—in contrast, say, to a speeding or parking violation.” Id. Because in the context of ongoing criminal activity, “it will take longer for the information to become stale,” we concluded that the officer was justified in briefly stopping the defendant to determine whether the crime was still in progress. Id. In Anderson’s case, the officers had no question that, at the time of the stop, Anderson was still engaged in an ongoing traffic violation. Cf. United States v. Simpson, 520 F.3d 531, 541 (6th Cir. 2008) (classifying a similar offense—“failure to keep a license plate ‘clearly legible’”—as an ongoing legal violation). There is simply no reason why the officers’ decision to conduct a discreet 6 No. 10-2638 United States v. Anderson surveillance operation prior to engaging in a perfectly legitimate traffic stop should alone render that stop unreasonable. Cf. United States v. Davis, 430 F.3d 345, 352 (6th Cir. 2005) (“We have long held that so long as the officer has probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred or was occurring, the resultant stop is not unlawful and does not violate the Fourth Amendment.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). That the officers’ true motivation for stopping Anderson was to uncover evidence of drug trafficking is also of no consequence. See United States v. Hughes, 606 F.3d 311, 315 n.7 (6th Cir. 2010) (“[I]t is possible for there to be probable cause for a stop even where the facts that give rise to that probable cause (such as a violation of traffic laws) play no role in an officer’s decision to make the stop.”); Bazzi, 658 F.3d at 604 (“A traffic violation provides probable cause to justify a stop even if the officer’s real purpose was a hope that narcotics or other contraband would be found as a result of the stop. Accordingly, [w]hen a traffic stop is supported by probable cause, an officer’s subjective intent behind stopping the vehicle is irrelevant.” (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Whren, 517 U.S. at 813 (“Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.”). Although Whren suggests that “rare exceptions” may tilt the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry in favor of the defendant even when a search or seizure is supported by probable cause, 517 U.S. at 817, the facts of this case do not lead us to conclude that such an exception applies here.2 2 Because we determine that the four-hour delay before stopping Anderson for an ongoing traffic violation was not unreasonable, we decline to address the government’s alternative argument that the stop was independently justifiable based on the officers’ reasonable suspicion that Anderson 7 No. 10-2638 United States v. Anderson