In a 6-3 decision Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police cannot hold motorists beyond what is necessary to conduct routine traffic stops.
The majority opinion in Rodriguez v. United States – penned by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – determined "without additional reasonable suspicion, the officer must allow the seized person to depart once the purpose of the stop has concluded," Autoblog reports.
The ruling comes from a case between Nebraska police officer Morgan Struble and driver Dennys Rodriguez, the latter pulled over for a routine stop before a drug-sniffing dog was used to find drugs in the vehicle. The issue that led to the Supreme Court's ruling was the amount of time it took to complete said stop, which would have ended the moment Struble issued the written warning to Rodriguez. Instead, the officer kept the driver stopped until backup arrived to conduct the search.
Though lower courts had ruled that a wait of less than 10 minutes was a minimal intrusion into the driver's Fourth Amendment rights at worst, the Supreme Court declared that the stop could only last for as long as was needed to conclude the original purpose for the stop.
Law enforcement groups warn the ruling could actually lengthen the time for a given stop or force officers to forego safety to conduct a stop as quickly as possible, a view shared by Justice Samuel Alito in his dissenting opinion. Alito wrote Struble's apparent mistake "was following prudent procedures motivated by legitimate safety concerns."
[Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons]
The post Supreme Court Rules Police Cannot Drag Out Traffic Stops appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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