Court Opinion

ID: 9606622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:51:22.005902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:34.909499
License: Public Domain

Sears, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
In Daniel v. State, this court held that the “questioning of a vehicle’s drivers and passengers outside the scope of a valid traffic stop passes muster under the Fourth Amendment when the officer has a reasonable articulable suspicion of other illegal activity or where the traffic stop has de-escalated into a consensual encounter.”1 Today, this reasonable standard is effectively rendered irrelevant, replaced with a meaningless standard that allows any and all manner of interrogation, unrelated to the initial purpose of the traffic stop, so long as the questioning does not prolong the duration of the traffic stop. As the type of interrogation that occurred in this case will never require more than a few seconds, and the opportunities to extend the time for a traffic stop are seemingly endless, the result is carte blanche authority to interrogate any citizen for any purpose whether related to the scope of the initial traffic stop or not.
Traffic stops are inherently time-consuming and coercive events providing ample opportunity for interrogations. Most citizens naturally feel compelled to submit to any request from a police officer who has already seized them for some other legal violation. As the majority notes, we already recognize that it does not unreasonably *740prolong the scope or duration of a traffic stop to run a computer check on the citizen’s driver’s license, insurance, and vehicle registration. As we continue to develop further technological advances, other “routine” checks will undoubtedly become standard practice. And while the citizen with the broken tail-light waits for the completion of the exhaustive background search, he can now be legally subjected to questioning on any subject for any reason.
“It is a well-recognized principle that a state court is free to interpret its state constitution in any way that does not violate principles of federal law, and thereby grant individuals more rights than those provided by the U. S. Constitution.”2 Contrary to the majority’s deferral to the U. S. Supreme Court, “[federal constitutional standards represent the minimum, not the maximum, protection that this State must afford its citizens.”3 Being subjected to any and all manner of probing interrogation, when that interrogation is entirely unrelated to the purposes of the initial seizure and is based on no articulable suspicion, constitutes an independent and unreasonable seizure and should be prohibited under the Georgia Constitution.
Under the majority’s approach to the protection of civil liberties, however, the continued erosion of our constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is not hard to imagine. By sanctioning the rule that “anything goes” within the nebulous time frame for a traffic stop, we render the well-reasoned Daniel standard irrelevant, encourage the adoption of probing interrogation as standard practice, and contribute to the erosion of the civil liberties and protections provided under the Georgia and United States Constitutions.
Furthermore, cloaking the erosion of our citizens’ rights in a seemingly reasonable, but altogether feckless legal standard, breeds contempt for the rule of law and does a disservice to the ends of liberty and justice.
*741Decided July 13, 2006.
Ricky W. Morris, Jr., Sexton, Key & Hendrix, Joseph S. Key, for appellant.
Tommy K. Floyd, District Attorney, Blair D. Mahaffey, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Accordingly, I would hold that the Georgia Constitution4 protects our citizens from any interrogation beyond the scope of the initial traffic stop unless the officer has a reasonable articulable suspicion of other illegal activity or the stop has devolved into a consensual encounter.5
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Hunstein and Justice Benham join in this dissent.

 277 Ga. 840, 841-842 (597 SE2d 116) (2004).

 Powell v. State, 270 Ga. 327, 331, n. 3 (510 SE2d 18) (1998); see also Green v. State, 260 Ga. 625, 627 (398 SE2d 360) (1990) (Georgia Constitution provides broader protection than U. S. Constitution for right against self-incrimination); Fleming v. Zant, 259 Ga. 687, 690 (386 SE2d 339) (1989) (Georgia Constitution provides greater protection against cruel and unusual punishment than U. S. Constitution); Colonial Pipeline Co. v. Brown, 258 Ga. 115 (3) (365 SE2d 827) (1998) (Georgia Constitution provides greater protection against excessive fines and forfeitures than U. S. Constitution); Grissom v. Gleason, 262 Ga. 374, n. 1 (418 SE2d 27) (1992) (Georgia Constitution’s equal protection provision may provide greater rights than U. S. Constitution).

 Fleming, 259 Ga. at 690.

 Ga. Const., Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XIII (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”).

 Contrary to the majority’s assertion, the protections afforded under the Georgia Constitution are properly at issue in this appeal. Salmerón raised the issue in his motion to suppress filed in the trial court, as well as multiple times during the hearing on that motion to suppress. Although Salmerón dedicated most of his brief to the specific question this Court certified to the parties, which was narrowly tailored to the U. S. Constitution, Salmerón does explicitly argue in his brief that his consent “was the product of an illegal detention in violation of Salmeron’s rights . . . under Article I, Section I, Paragraph XIII of the Georgia Constitution.” Appellant’s brief, p. 13. Accordingly, the majority is wrong to state that Salmerón did not invoke the protections under the Georgia Constitution in this Court. Moreover, this Court is not limited in its ruling by the specific certiorari question addressed to the parties. See Security Life Ins. Co. &c. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 278 Ga. 800, 801 (606 SE2d 855) (2004) (the posing of certiorari questions in no way limits this Court in its decision-making authority).