Court Opinion

ID: 9587640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:24:38.221204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:57.076786
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, Judge,
dissenting.
To me, the majority amply demonstrates how far afield we have gotten through the application of the erroneous analysis contained in Smith v. State,16 wherein this Court held that during a valid traffic stop, an officer cannot ask traffic law enforcement questions which are unrelated to the specific traffic violation that produced the stop. Now, under Smith — as it is being applied herein and elsewhere — perfectly reasonable general investigative questions that this Court has accepted and which have been routinely asked for years are cause for suppression as somehow violative of Terry v. Ohio17 As was testified to in this case by the 17-year veteran of the Georgia State Patrol, “[t]he questions that I asked him [Gibbons] were questions I ask of many, many people. . . . I’ve addressed them to a lot of people.” In my view, such routine, general investigative questions are still permissible during the lawful course of a valid traffic stop, and Smith v. State should be overruled.
1. In Terry v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court held that:
We must decide whether at that point it was reasonable for Officer McFadden to have interfered with petitioner’s personal security as he did [the pat-down]. And in determining whether the [pat-down] seizure and search were “unreasonable” our inquiry is a dual one — whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably *870related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.18
This Court in Smith v. State extracted the above Terry pat-down analysis and applied it to a valid traffic detention:
we must determine “whether the officer’s action (in pulling Smith over) was justified at its inception, and whether (the detention) was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Terry v. Ohio, [supra at 20].19
Based thereon, this Court reversed in Smith because the defendant was stopped for failure to maintain a lane/DUI investigation, and in the midst of such, the investigating officer asked Smith whether he possessed drugs: “the officer proceeded to ask Smith questions that did not relate to his suspicion that Smith was driving under the influence and that did not relate to any traffic violations, but instead probed into Smith’s possession of contraband.”20 We held that “[a]t the point the officer initiated this later probe, he went beyond the permissible scope of the investigation and his further detention of Smith went beyond that permitted by Terry and its progeny.”21
Since then, Smith has been cited for the idea that, without articulable suspicion arising during the course of a lawful stop, an officer cannot ask traffic law enforcement questions unrelated to the specific traffic violation that caused the stop and to do so somehow creates a Terry violation.22
However, as the Eleventh Circuit clarified and held just this year,
a police officer’s questioning, even on a subject unrelated to the purpose of the stop, is not itself a Fourth Amendment violation. Mere questioning is neither a search nor a seizure. . . . [T]he issue regarding unrelated questions concerns not the content of the questions, but their impact on the duration of the stop. . . . Therefore, only unrelated *871questions which unreasonably prolong the detention are unlawful; detention, not questioning, is the evil at which Terry’s prohibition is aimed.23
Contrary to our holding in Smith, questions asked during a valid traffic stop are not confined solely to the specific violation that produced the stop, but may be “reasonably related” to the purpose for the stop, which purpose includes legitimate traffic law enforcement concerns.24 The issue with regard to Terry is whether such questions “unreasonably prolong” an otherwise valid detention.
In that regard and since the underlying purpose of all Terry stops, traffic or otherwise, is to protect the public and prevent crime,25 reasonable general investigative questions have always been permitted during valid traffic stops, regardless of the specific traffic offense that caused the stop, i.e., questions about travel plans, itinerary, ownership of the vehicle, information on passengers, and followup questions based on conflicting answers and any suspicious circumstances which may arise.26 When, as in this case, a driver has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, these general investigative questions are minimally intrusive and do not unduly prolong the lawful detention.
Also, the authority of an officer to ask a drug-related question during a valid traffic stop for speeding has been recognized: “Are you carrying any illegal contraband in your car? Any weapons of any kind, drugs anything like that?”27 Such simple inquiry is “reasonably related” to the legitimate traffic enforcement safety concern of ridding our highways and interstates of the use of illegal narcotics and weapons; is minimally intrusive; and does not prolong an already valid detention.28 During the course of a valid stop, such question is “not unconstitutionally intrusive in light of the problem of interstate *872drug traffic.”29 So too, during an authorized traffic stop, the Fourth Amendment is not violated merely by requesting consent to search a vehicle for drugs.30
Similarly, regardless of the specific violation which causes a valid traffic stop, an officer may inquire into the status of a driver’s license, insurance, and tag. Such investigative inquiries, while not directly related to the violation which produced the stop, are “reasonably related” to the State’s “vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles [and] that these vehicles are fit for safe operation.”31 As such, these investigative inquiries do not “unreasonably prolong” a valid detention.
The majority cites as dispositive State v. Sims32 and the Eleventh Circuit case of United States v. Pruitt.33 But I suggest the application of these cases to the instant case demonstrates how very far we have come from legitimate Terry analysis.
In both Pruitt and Sims, the evidence showed that the officer had completed his investigation, had written out the tickets, and had given them to the respective drivers. The officers in each case then specifically required the driver to remain for 15 or 20 minutes after the ticketing in order for the officer to conduct a “fishing expedition” and investigate matters other than the reasons for the traffic stops. From such concrete evidence, it was not difficult to conclude that the officers’ subsequent inquiries unreasonably prolonged the initial detention.
However, in this case, the officer had just stopped Gibbons; he had not yet ticketed Gibbons for the seat belt violation (which he did); there is absolutely no evidence that the brief, less than five-minute-long traffic stop was over when the officer asked for consent to search. The distinction is not fine. Here, without the concrete evidentiary support found in Pruitt and Sims, this Court finds — from the content of the officer’s investigative questions, alone — a Terry violation in the middle of a valid traffic stop. I submit, this is an irrational outcome of Smith v. State.
Further, an appellate court’s subjective interpretation of the contents of questioning is open to wildly variant results, as illustrated in this case where the majority states, “Rather than ticket Stinemetz or release him, the officer decided to conduct a drug investigation.” *873However, as noted by the trial court, the officer in this case undisputedly asked no questions about drugs, but asked questions about “itinerary, destination, passenger, and activities.” All of these general investigative questions have been considered lawful in previous opinions of this Court. See fn. 28, supra. To interpret such questions now as a “drug investigation” is pure speculation as to the officer’s subjective intent in asking the lawful questions — when it is well established that an officer’s subjective intent during lawful questioning plays no role in Fourth Amendment analysis: “We . . . foreclose any argument that the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved.”34
I also submit that to apply Knowles v. Iowa35 to the instant case of brief investigative questioning, as urged by the majority, is to twist the frame of the Fourth Amendment even further. I candidly cannot fathom how a less than five-minute period of general investigative questioning prior to the issuance of a traffic ticket can be analogized to the full-blown automobile search invalidated in Knowles. Surely a result should be authorized by how it is reached.
“The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. Reasonableness, in turn, is measured in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances.”36 To that end the law does not, I think, champion our holding in Smith v. State that the Fourth Amendment requires police officers to have the same “articulable suspicion” necessary to support a traffic stop in order to simply question an already validly stopped driver about matters reasonably related to traffic law enforcement, when such questioning does not “unreasonably prolong” a valid detention.37
While this Court has always been rightly sensitive to the danger that an officer will enlarge upon his authority to conduct a Terry-type search and seizure, our Fourth Amendment vigilance cannot permit us the equally offensive course of improperly expanding search and seizure law, thereby denying the people of Georgia the modicum of protection achieved through an officer’s ability to investigate and enforce the law within the parameters of the constitution. Likewise, we cannot ask police officers to continue to stand the wall between *874the law-abiding and the lawless, if we are going to unjustifiably dismantle it brick by brick.
Decided March 30, 2001.
T Joseph Campbell, District Attorney, Donald S. Smith, Assistant District Attorney, for appellant.
White, Choate & Watkins, Jay Choate, Cook & Connelly, Bobby Lee Cook, Rex B. Abernathy, for appellees.
The trial court’s determination that a Terry violation resulted when the officer asked questions unrelated to the seat belt violation is error as a matter of law. To the extent that our decision in Smith v. State supports the trial court’s erroneous determination, it should be overruled. The judgment below should be reversed.
2. The bottle containing the residue of cocaine was found pursuant to a consensual search. No factual findings were made by the trial court with regard to this issue. Accordingly, this case should be remanded for further findings of fact as to the issue of consent with a right of further appeal.38
I am authorized to state that Judge Mikell joins in this dissent.

 See, e.g., State v. Bassford, 183 Ga. App. 694, 698 (2) (359 SE2d 752) (1987).

 216 Ga. App. 453 (454 SE2d 635) (1995).

 392 U. S. 1, 21 (88 SC 1868, 20 LE2d 889) (1968).

 Id. at 19-20.

 Smith v. State, supra at 454.

 Id. at 455 (2).

 Id. Interestingly, such determination based on the questions asked by the officer was not necessary to resolve the Smith case. The facts in Smith clearly established that the original traffic detention had ended and Smith was improperly held further in order for the officer to summon a K-9 unit.

 See, e.g., State v. Sims, 248 Ga. App. 277 (546 SE2d 47) (2001); Almond v. State, 242 Ga. App. 650, 652 (530 SE2d 750) (2000); Lyons v. State, 244 Ga. App. 658, 660 (535 SE2d 841) (2000); see also State v. Milsap, 243 Ga. App. 519, 521 (528 SE2d 865) (2000) (Ruffin, J., dissenting).

 (Citations and punctuation omitted; emphasis supplied.) United States v. Purcell, 236 F3d 1274, 1279-1280 (11th Cir. 2001).

 Radowick v. State, 145 Ga. App. 231, 237 (244 SE2d 346) (1978).

 See United States v. Sharpe, 470 U. S. 675, 685-686 (105 SC 1568, 84 LE2d 605) (1985) (“ ‘the purpose underlying a Terry stop [is] investigating possible'criminal activity.’ ”).

 See, e.g., United States v. Hardy, 855 F2d 753 (I) (N.D. Ga. 1988); Almond v. State, supra; State v. Hall, 235 Ga. App. 412 (509 SE2d 701) (1998); Sprauve v. State, 229 Ga. App. 478 (494 SE2d 294) (1997); Gamble v. State, 223 Ga. App. 653, 655-656 (478 SE2d 455) (1996); Sutton v. State, 223 Ga. App. 721, 723-724 (478 SE2d 910) (1996); Pitts v. State, 221 Ga. App. 309 (471 SE2d 270) (1996); Roundtree v. State, 213 Ga. App. 793 (446 SE2d 204) (1994); Benavides v. State, 193 Ga. App. 737 (388 SE2d 886) (1989); State v. Combs, 191 Ga. App. 625 (382 SE2d 691) (1989); O’Keefe v. State, 189 Ga. App. 519, 520 (376 SE2d 406) (1988); Lombardo v. State, 187 Ga. App. 440 (370 SE2d 503) (1988); Smith v. State, 184 Ga. App. 304, 305-306 (361 SE2d 215) (1987); Daugherty v. State, 182 Ga. App. 730 (356 SE2d 902) (1987).

 Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38-39 (117 SC 417, 136 LE2d 347) (1996).

 See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (99 SC 1391, 59 LE2d 660) (1979).

 State v. Hall, 235 Ga. App. 412, 415 (509 SE2d 701) (1998); see also O’Keefe v. State, supra at 525 (“ ‘The public has a compelling interest in detecting those who would traffic in deadly drugs for personal profit.’ ”).

 Kan v. State, 199 Ga. App. 170, 171 (1), (2) (404 SE2d 281) (1991).

 Delaware v. Prouse, supra at 658; Sutton v. State, 223 Ga. App. 721, 723 (478 SE2d 910) (1996).

 Supra.

 174 F3d 1215 (11th Cir. 1999).

 Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 813 (116 SC 1769, 135 LE2d 89) (1996); Garmon v. State, 271 Ga. 673, 678 (3) (524 SE2d 211) (1999). See also Stansbury v. California, 511 U. S. 318, 323 (II) (114 SC 1526, 128 LE2d 293) (1994); Hightower v. State, 272 Ga. 42, 43 (2) (526 SE2d 836) (2000) (subjective intent of officer during questioning generally irrelevant for Fourth Amendment purposes).

 525 U. S. 113 (119 SC 484,142 LE2d 492) (1998).

 (Citation and punctuation omitted; emphasis supplied.) Ohio v. Robinette, supra at 39.

 Whren v. United States, supra at 817-819; Delaware v. Prouse, supra at 659-660.