Court Opinion

ID: 9515148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:54:16.1817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:25.584256
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 22.] I dissent because Trooper Mar-quardt’s subsequent search of De La Rosa’s vehicle without reasonable suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment.
[¶ 23.] Once a traffic stop is complete, the police officer must allow the driver to proceed without further constraint. State v. Ballard, 2000 SD 134, ¶ 12, 617 N.W.2d 837, 841 (citing State v. Woolfolk, 3 S.W.3d 823, 828 (Mo.Ct.App.1999)). In order to detain the driver any further, the officer must have a “reasonable, articulable suspi*690cion that [the] person is involved'in criminal activity unrelated to the traffic violation.” Ballard, 2000 SD 134, ¶12, 617 N.W.2d at 841 (quoting State v. Anderson, 258 Neb. 627, 605 N.W.2d 124, 132 (2000)) (citations omitted). Thus, we have held that when an officer tells the driver that he or she is free to leave, the “Fourth Amendment intercedes to limit a further detention or search.” Ballard, 2000 SD 134, ¶ 17, 617 N.W.2d at 842 (citing United States v. $404,905 in U.S. Currency, 182 F.3d 643, 648 (8thCir.1999)).
[¶ 24.] By accepting the assertion that an officer does not need reasonable, suspicion to detain a citizen after a traffic stop, the majority not only disregards constitutional principles inherent in the stop analysis, but unreasonably limits our decision in Ballard to encompass only those cases in which an officer actually tells the person they are free to leave. Such a limitation on Ballard eviscerates the protection it provides for motorists. It would mean that an officer would only need to refrain from saying the words to extend the stop unreasonably. Trooper Marquardt testified that his purpose for the initial stop was served, therefore, whether he actually said the words, “this stop is finished,” the stop was over for constitutional purposes before he chose to re-séize the Defendants for a canine drug sniff. As in Ballard, the Court should be sensitive to the “dubious message we send to law enforcement officers and the public,” 2002 SD 134 ¶ 18, 617 N.W.2d at 842, by saying that an officer need only withhold the fact that the citizen is free to end the encounter in order to justify a continued intrusion without independent justification. We should follow the well-established rule that the officer must have reasonable suspicion to detain a driver for any period longer than it takes to pursue a reasonable investigation based on the grounds for the initial stop.5 See e.g., State v. Kenyon, 2002 SD 111, 651 N.W.2d 269; State v. Durke, 1999 SD 39, ¶ 17, 593 N.W.2d 407, 410; State v. Ramirez, 535 N.W.2d 847, 849 (S.D.1995) (citing State v.. Watson, 165 Conn. 577, 345 A.2d 532, 537 (1973)).
[¶ 25.] The majority narrows the parameters of Fourth Amendment protections and disregards the rule of Terry by adopting the holding of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. 404,905 in U.S. Currency, 182 F.3d 643 (8thCir.1999). In Currency, a police officer stopped a truck and U Haul trailer for speeding. Id. at 645. After the purposes of the underlying stop were accomplished, but before the officer returned the driver’s documents, the officer told the driver that there would be a sniff of the truck and trailer for drugs. Id. at 646. The Eighth Circuit held that when a police officer makes a traffic stop and has a canine unit at his or her immediate disposal, it does not violate the Fourth Amendment to detain the motorist after the initial stop is completed for a canine sniff of the vehicle’s exterior, whether or not the officer has reasonable suspicion to support the extended detention. Id. at 649.
[¶ 26.] The court in Currency relied largely on the fact that the amount of time taken to perform , a sniff test was minimal and that the level of intrusion on the individual -was likewise de minimis. Id. The problem with this reasoning is that it detracts from the real question in Fourth Amendment analysis and instead concentrates primarily on the amount of time *691necessary to conduct a sniff test. However, the threshold question, before we address the amount of time necessary to effectuate the second stop, is whether the officer had an appropriate basis upon which to detain the citizen at that time. See e.g., Terry, 392 U.S. at 22, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 906 (stating, “[t]his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence”) (additional citations omitted); Kenyon, 2002 SD 111, ¶20, 651 N.W.2d at 275 (stating, “[t]he investigating officer is not constrained by the time it would have taken to issue the warnings if, in the interim, articulable facts lead him to a reasonable suspicion that other criminal activity is afoot ”) (emphasis supplied). In any situation falling within the Fourth Amendment, the officer is required to at least have reasonable suspicion to detain a citizen. Lacking such suspicion, the detention infringes on the individuars right to be free from seizure of his or her person. When a traffic stop is completed, the officer’s remaining duty is to release the individual from detention. When he fails to release the defendant, he creates a new stop for which he is required to have reasonable suspicion, regardless of whether the intrusion was minimal or egregious, or lengthy or short. Any other rule is unconstitutional.
[¶ 27.] The State’s request that this Court look primarily to the length and intrusiveness of the stop is not supported by the reasoning underlying the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The proper inquiry is two-fold. First, the Court is to determine “whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception” and second “whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20, 88 S.Ct. at 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d at 905. The analysis requires that the officer have a “specific and articulable” suspicion before a stop is permissible. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 906. The intrusion must be temporary and last no longer than necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 238 (1983). Furthermore, the methods used must be the least intrusive means available to the officer to either verify or dispel his or her reasonable suspicion. Id. These constitutional principles shatter the foundation of the State’s arguments.
[¶ 28.] Because Trooper Marquardt would have been constitutionally justified in the sniff test had he done it before the traffic stop was finished, the majority reasons that the requirement that an officer have reasonable suspicion to continue the detention after the stop is completed is an artificial distinction. The majority errs in its analysis. The primary inquiry in the stop analysis is whether the officer was independently justified in the second intrusion, not whether the officer told the citizen that he or she was free to go. Simply put, the majority’s holding is that this Court should disregard Terry analysis whenever an officer chooses to detain a citizen by simply refusing to inform him or her that the initial valid stop is complete. Furthermore, accepting the holding in Currency leaves courts speculating on the length of time after a stop is over that an officer would be justified in detaining the motorist anew. This is a can of worms best left unopened. Trooper Marquardt’s initial stop of the Defendants was both subjectively and objectively over. There is nothing in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence which indicates that once a stop is objectively over, the officer may re-seize the individual for a different purpose without reasonable suspicion.
*692[¶ 29.] Fourth Amendment inquiries require the Court to look at the totality of the circumstances, but the presumption that no bright-line should be drawn lessens the constitutional protections and blurs the officer’s responsibilities when detaining a citizen. The cases upon which the majority relies for the proposition that a totality of the circumstances or balancing test applies to determine whether the second stop was constitutional are premised on the threshold finding that the officer had an articulable suspicion upon which to base the stop. For example, the majority cites United States v. Place for the proposition that a drug sniff is minimally intrusive and therefore not a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. 462 U.S. 696,103 S.Ct. 2687, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). This proposition is supported by Place but the level of intrusiveness of the sniff search is not the issue here, for the question revolves around whether the second detention, not the sniff search itself, was constitutionally permissible. The Court in Place was very pointed in its discussion of seizures, stating, “some brief detentions of personal effects may be so minimally intrusive of Fourth Amendment interests that strong countervailing governmental interests will justify a seizure based only on specific articulable facts that the property contains contraband or evidence of the crime.” Place, 462 U.S. at 706, 103 5.Ct. at 2644, 77 L.Ed.2d at 120 (emphasis supplied). Thus, even in acknowledging that the drug sniff itself was not a “search,” the Court was very clear in pointing out that for the seizure itself to be constitutional, there must be reasonable suspicion. But the State argues that “when weighed against the compelling governmental interest in this case, any additional momentary delay for the canine sniff was a de minimis intrusion on Defendants’ personal liberty.” Both the Eighth Circuit Court and the State misapprehend the law on stops.6 Before any balancing takes place, it is necessary that the officer had an objective basis upon which to make the stop.
[¶ 30.] The Fourth Amendment exists to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. Although the State’s interest in drug interdiction is compelling, to allow the end to justify the means violates this Court’s duty to ensure that drug interdiction comports with constitutional limitations on the government’s ability to intrude on a citizen. We should affirm.

. That reasonable investigation includes making a request for driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance. An officer may also have the driver accompany him or her to the patrol car and make a computer check on automobile registration and outstanding warrants. United States v. Bloomfield, 40 F.3d 910, 915 (8thCir.1994).

. See e.g., United States v. Holt, 229 F.3d 931, 935 (10thCir.2000) (rejecting the proposition of Currency that Teiry analysis is not applicable in such cases and stating that the Eighth Circuit's opinion had "little support and questionable analysis").