Court Opinion

ID: 9494348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:36:03.252971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:22.089580
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join parts I and II of Judge Briscoe’s opinion. In particular, I fully agree with Judge Briscoe that the analytical framework set forth in Terry applies to traffic stops, even those based upon probable cause, and that Terry requires an analysis of both the scope and the duration of a stop to determine whether an officer’s actions during the stop comported with the Fourth Amendment.
Although the issue is not addressed in Judge Briscoe’s en banc opinion, in the panel majority opinion authored by Judge Briscoe she expressed doubt whether questions relating to a detained motorist’s travel plans were appropriate in light of Terry’s scope requirement. See United States v. Holt, 229 F.3d 931, 937 (10th Cir.2000). In her majority opinion for the court, Judge Briscoe has declined to reach the issue, noting that the issue is not implicated by the facts of this case. Nevertheless, in a portion of his opinion joined by three other members of the en banc court, Judge Ebel has now suggested that questions regarding travel plans are always within the scope of a traffic stop. See Opinion of Judge Ebel at 1221 (“Travel plans typically are related to the purpose of a traffic stop because the motorist is traveling at the time of the stop.”).
Although I concur in the majority’s decision not to definitively decide this issue, I feel compelled to offer the following observations regarding the approach advocated in Judge Ebel’s opinion. For those reasons cogently stated by Judge Ebel in his *1240panel dissent, I disagree that questions relating to travel plans are related to the purpose of a roadside traffic stop. See Holt, 229 F.3d at 942 (Ebel, J., dissenting) (“When a car is stopped for speeding or for a straightforward traffic violation, as opposed to being stopped on suspicion that the driver is falling asleep or driving erratically (in which case the officer would be legitimately concerned with how much further the driver intended to travel), it is difficult to explain how questions concerning the travel plans of the occupant are reasonably related to the circumstances which justified the stop.”); id. (Ebel, J., dissenting) (describing questions relating to travel plans as “wholly unrelated to the purpose of the stop”). Judge Ebel’s en banc opinion offers no convincing rationale for the abandonment of his previous analysis of this question and its replacement with a one-size-fits-all rule holding that questions regarding travel plans are invariably within the scope of a traffic stop. Furthermore, in light of the fact that Holt was never asked any questions regarding his travel plans, this is an odd case within which to advocate such a rule. In the words of Judge Kelly, it appears that Judge Ebel and those who have joined his opinion are suggesting “a Fourth Amendment rule in search of facts.” Opinion of Judge Kelly at 1238.
Although I disagree with Judge Ebel’s suggestion that questions regarding travel plans are always related to the purpose of a traffic stop, I nonetheless am of the view that facially innocuous questions, including those relating to travel plans, are proper during a routine traffic stop as long as they do not extend the duration of the stop. In my view, Terry’s scope requirement is a common sense limitation on the power of law enforcement officers. It prevents law enforcement officials from fundamentally altering the nature of the stop by converting it into a general inquisition about past, present, and future wrongdoing, absent an independent basis for reasonable articulable suspicion or probable cause. The scope doctrine does not, however, prevent officers from engaging in facially innocuous dialog which a detained motorist would not reasonably perceive as altering the fundamental nature of the stop. Accordingly, I do not think it necessary to suggest that questions about a detained motorist’s travel plans are invariably related to the purpose of the stop in order to conclude that they are proper under Terry.
I join parts III and IV of Judge Bris-coe’s opinion in their entirety. I agree with Judge Briscoe that the bright-line rule adopted by the majority allowing law enforcement officials to routinely ask about the presence of weapons during a traffic stop is inconsistent with the scope requirement set out by the Supreme Court in Terry and is unnecessary to ensure officer safety. I further agree with Judge Briscoe that no reasonable officer would have feared for his safety at the time Officer Tucker asked Holt about the presence of weapons.