Police officers make an obviously pretextual stop -- the defendant's a known gang member, and he doesn't have front plates on his vehicle -- and wait to pull him over in order to give the canine officer (who they called before the stop) time to arrive. The canine alters on the driver's side door, and after searching, the police then find a gun in the center console, so arrest the defendant for being a felon in possession.
The trial court suppresses the evidence because the police waited to pull the guy over, but the Court of Appeal reverses. You're allowed to have pretextual searches, the Court of Appeal says, and the relevant clock only starts ticking for an illegal "prolonged detention" once the guy's actually pulled over, not at the point you "decide" you're going to pull him over (but wait a bit so the dog can start making its way over).
All that makes doctrinal sense, at least according to existing precedent. So no qualms there (again, at least under existing law).
But I'll add one additional point -- not about doctrine, but about the real world (and, parenthetically, how it relates to doctrine).
The Supreme Court doesn't allow the police to "prolong" a traffic stop for an additional period of time to get a canine, interrogate the driver about unrelated (potential) criminality, etc. So you can only detain the driver for the "normal" period of time it takes to write a ticket.
One way around that is the way the police employed here -- just wait to stop you until the dog's nearby. But you can't complain, because your "stop" was just the normal length.
But the other way around it is to make the "normal" period of time it takes to write a ticket as long as possible. You've presumably seen a traffic ticket -- perhaps even gotten one (or several) yourself. They aren't even a page long. It's notecard-sized or so. With little boxes to check etc. Sure, you might have to run a records check first, but how long do you think it takes to fill out those little boxes?
Maybe -- MAYBE -- two minutes. Three at ABSOLUTE most. Probably a fair piece less if you're an actual police officer who's written literally thousands of them in your lifetime.
But if you're called to the stand to testify as to how long it "normally" you to write a ticket, what do you think you say. Remembering, of course, that that's the standard for whether or not you've engaged in unconstitutional "prolonged detention" such that the stop is impermissible and your arrest and conviction gets thrown out.
Here's what you say:
"Writing a citation can take him anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes."
Since it "normally" takes the officer "from 5 to 10 minutes" to write the citation, there was no illegal "prolonged detention" because the canine dog here arrived three minutes after the stop and alerted to "drugs" in the vehicle exactly 10 minutes after the stop -- so purportedly the canine search in no way "prolonged the detention" since it was going to take the officer 10 minutes to fill out the citation in any event (even without the dog).
I'm sure that's what the officer testified to, and, yep, the trial court (and Court of Appeal) relies upon that testimony. What certainly did not happen here is that the officer took his own sweet time to fill out the citation while waiting for the dog to arrive and then the dog alerts on the "drugs" at just the exact moment that it "normally' takes the officer to fill out the citation form.
Nope. Definitely not.
(I'm putting the word "drugs" in quotes, by the way, because there's literally no mention anywhere in the opinion of there ACTUALLY being drugs in the vehicle. The only conviction is for the firearm in the center console. So unless that's what the dog was smelling -- no small feat, I would imagine -- the stop was justified because (1) it took the "normal" period of time, (2) the dog "actually" smelled drugs and alerted accordingly, but (3) oops, no drugs, but yay, firearm, hence the arrest of a known member of a gang via a pretextual stop.)
The point is simply this: There are laws, and then there are ways around those laws. Criminals aren't the only ones who have figured that out.
