Diverting from the “mission of the traffic stop” to investigate other possible criminal violations for which there is no reasonable suspicion may convert an otherwise lawful traffic stop into an illegally prolonged detention. 

• Prolonged detentions 
• Mission of the traffic stop 
• Reasonable suspicion 
• Criminal investigations unrelated to the mission of the traffic stop 

During a traffic stop for an observed traffic violation, an officer has about 10 or 11 minutes to complete the “mission of the traffic stop.” Using that time, however, to conduct an unrelated criminal investigation, including the use of a drug sniffing dog around the detainee’s vehicle, constitutes an illegally prolonged detention. 

During the early afternoon of March 16, 2018, an undercover officer told an Anaheim police officer, who had a drug-sniffing K-9 partner named “Titan,” that the driver of a specific pickup had been at the Tampico Motel and had “acted suspiciously,” whatever that means. The officer knew that drug trafficking was a problem at that motel. With this knowledge, he located the truck and followed it in his marked police car when he (conveniently) observed the driver of the truck make a quick lane change, cutting off another vehicle. (Veh. Code, § 22107, unsafe lane change.) Initiating a traffic stop, the officer, with his body camera activated, contacted the driver (defendant Gyorgy), the sole occupant of the truck.  

The officer asked for, and received, Gyorgy’s driver’s license. The officer then questioned Gyorgy about all kinds of things except the traffic infraction: whether he was on probation or parole, whether he was a narcotics or sex registrant, whether he had any needles or sharp objects in his truck, whether he had any weapons or drugs in the truck. In response, Gyorgy told the officer that he was in fact a registered sex offender, but denied everything else. Asked about prior arrests, Gyorgy claimed that he had two arrests, one for a theft, but both nonviolent felonies. Still without addressing the traffic violation, the officer asked Gyorgy whether he was current on his sex offender registration requirements. After Gyorgy claimed that he was, the officer asked him where he was registered and where he lived. Gyorgy provided a long explanation about how the house he had been living in was sold after his mother passed away and that he was having difficulties with his family and inheritance issues, necessitating him staying in local motels, including the Tampico, thus living in Anaheim for only two days.  

Now four or five minutes into the traffic stop, the officer ordered Gyorgy out of the truck so that he could pat him down for weapons, for “officer safety purposes.” Gyorgy complied. But instead of patting him down right away, the officer directed him to sit on the curb and wait until another officer arrived. As they waited, Gyorgy asked why he had been pulled over and what was going on. The officer told him: “I’ll get to that. I’ll tell you shortly,” or words to the effect.  

A second officer arrived at the scene between the 5th and 6th minutes of the traffic stop. It was at this point that the officer finally told Gyorgy that he had been stopped because of an unsafe lane change, describing how another vehicle had to slam on its brakes. When asked why he had been told to get out of his truck, the officer simply told him: “For officer safety.” The officer then patted Gyorgy down for weapons and found nothing.  

Now 7½ minutes into the traffic stop, the officer told Gyorgy he was going to conduct a dog sniff around his truck. When Gyorgy refused to give the officer permission to use the dog to search the truck’s interior, the officer told defendant that it didn’t matter, because he had the right to conduct a dog sniff. Gyorgy had his own dog, a small Maltese, in the truck, which the officer allowed Gyorgy to take out after he objected to the officer doing it himself. The officer then had Gyorgy and his Maltese sit again on the curb as the officer, again over Gyorgy’s objections, opened the driver’s door, turned on the ignition, and rolled up the driver’s window (apparently a half-open window being a hazard to Titan as Titan sniffed the truck).  

The officer then had Titan sniff the exterior of the truck, eventually leading to Titan alerting at the driver’s door. It was now 11 minutes and 45 seconds into the traffic stop. Letting Titan into the truck, the dog was unable to pinpoint exactly where there might be drugs. But based upon the original alert, the officers searched the truck and found methamphetamine, methamphetamine paraphernalia, an unloaded handgun, an empty magazine, and six live rounds. A records check was then conducted, resulting in information to the effect that defendant was in fact a felon and prohibited from possessing firearms. He was arrested.  

Gyorgy was never written a citation for the totally forgotten illegal lane change. Charged in state court with a pile of drug- and gun-related offenses, his motion to suppress all the evidence was denied. Convicted after a jury trial of the misdemeanor charges of possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia (but for an unknown reason, not the gun-related charges), Gyorgy appealed. 

The Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 3), in a 2-to-1 decision, reversed the trial court. On appeal, Gyorgy argued that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by an “unlawfully prolonged” detention and that the trial court erred by not suppressing the resulting evidence. The majority of the court agreed.  

The basic law is well settled. Traffic stops are considered Fourth Amendment seizures, although lawful so long as based upon at least “reasonable suspicion.” The initial traffic stop itself in this case was lawful, since “pretext” or “pretextual stops” are well settled in the law. The officer’s observation of Gyorgy making an unsafe lane change justified the initial detention. “Nevertheless, a traffic stop ‘that is lawful at its inception can violate the Fourth Amendment if its manner of execution unreasonably infringes interests protected by the Constitution.’” (Illinois v. Caballes (2005) 543 U.S. 405, 407.) To remain lawful, a police officer must diligently attend to the “mission of the traffic stop,” and then — absent the intervening development of a reasonable suspicion of any other criminal activity — let the detainee leave. (Rodriguez v. United States (2015) 575 U.S. 348, 350–351.) 

The “mission of the traffic stop” has been held to include the issuance of the traffic ticket, making “ordinary inquiries incident to [the traffic] stop” such as checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance. (Rodriguez, supra, at p. 355.) It has also been held to include “a criminal history check...which is done by consulting an in-car computer terminal or radioing dispatch.” (People v. Lopez (2019) 8 Cal.5th 353, 363, fn. 4.) “And although not specifically compelled by law, certain other steps customarily taken as matters of good police practice are no less intimately related to the citation process: For example, the officer will usually discuss the violation with the motorist and listen to any explanation the latter may wish to offer.” (People v. Tully (2012) 54 Cal.4th 952, 981.) “These tasks are included within the officer’s mission during a traffic stop because they serve the same objective as enforcement of the traffic code: ensuring that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly.” (Rodriguez, supra, at p. 355.)  

The only legal way to extend the mission of the traffic stop, absent the detainee’s consent, is for the officer, while engaged in the above, to develop independent reasonable suspicion of some other ongoing criminal activity. A dog sniff of a detainee’s vehicle, however, is what the court referred to as “a detour” from the traffic stop’s mission. “The dog sniff's purpose is not connected to roadway safety...but to ‘detect[ing] evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” (Rodriguez, Ibid.)  

However, a dog sniff itself, as held by the U.S. Supreme Court not to constitute a search (Illinois v. Caballes, supra.), it is not illegal so long as it does not extend the time it would have taken to accomplish the mission of the traffic stop. (People v. Vera (2018) 28 Cal.App.5th 1081, 1088-1089.) Should the dog detect illegal contraband, that fact alone is sufficient to extend the detention long enough to investigate that newly developed probable cause.  

As noted, Titan alerted on Gyorgy’s truck at 11 minutes and 45 seconds into the contact. That, in itself, is not long enough to necessarily constitute an illegally prolonged detention. But the problem was that the officer detoured from the traffic stop’s mission almost immediately. After asking Gyorgy for his driver’s license at the initial contact, nothing more was done relative to the traffic violation for the entire 11 minutes and 54 seconds of the detention. Almost everything the officer did after asking for the license was in preparation for conducting a dog sniff of the truck. The purpose of the stop was not even mentioned until Gyorgy asked about it, more than five minutes into the stop. As noted by the court, the officer’s “detours prolonged the traffic stop’s duration beyond the time necessary to effectuate the stop’s purpose.” The officer “spent most of the 11 minutes and 54 seconds of the detention (prior to the dog alert) performing tasks unrelated to the traffic stop mission.”  

Therefore, the detention in this case was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Gyorgy’s motion to suppress the resulting evidence should have been granted. 

The lesson learned here is that it is not necessarily how long the traffic stop lasts that is important, but rather what an officer does during that time.  

For instance, had the officer sought to handle the traffic violation by a least beginning to write the citation as he was arranging for a cover unit to watch his back, and then let the other officer finish the ticket as he got Titan out of his car and conducted the sniff – assuming all this could have been accomplished within a reasonable 10 or 11 minutes – the result would have been different.  

Other cases have held that as long as the officer is actively pursuing the mission of the traffic stop, as long as 11 minutes is not unreasonable: 

People v. Carter (2005) 36 Cal.4th 1114, 1139-1142, 10 minutes 

United States v. Salkil (8th Cir. IA, 2021) 10 F.4th 897, 10 minutes, 45 seconds. 

United States v. Cole (7th Cir. 2021) 21 F.4th 421, 9 minutes 

United States v. Goodwill (7th Cir. 2022) 24 F.4th 612, 10 minutes 

United States v. Gorman (9th Cir. 2017) 859 F.3rd 706, 714-719, 10 minutes 

But it’s hard to fault the officer here. He was either trained, or just assumed from his training, that he had about 10 minutes or so during which he could do whatever he wanted with the detainee. And until this case, there was nothing to tell him he was wrong in this assumption. As this case points out, however, that’s just not the law.  

By the way, the dissenting justice, Eileen C. Moore, did not disagree with the majority’s “mission of the traffic stop” analysis. Instead, she believed that within the first few minutes of the contact, with Gyorgy admitting he was subject to sex offender registration requirements that were apparently not up to date (as he was new to the Anaheim area and temporarily living in a motel), plus other suspicious circumstances (furtive driving, the motel he was staying, convoluted answers to the officer’s questions, etc.), the officer had sufficient reasonable suspicion to detain him further to investigate these issues. Per Justice Moore: “Under any reasonable interpretation of the developing facts, this was no longer a routine traffic stop restricted by the time necessary for (the officer) to write a traffic ticket.”   

The majority opinion specifically rejected this argument, however, which it basically had to do if it was going to make its “mission of the traffic stop” point. Based upon this argument alone, however, this case is one the prosecution should seriously think about seeking Supreme Court review.  

PUBLISHER NOTE:   Also see a related case by Robert Phillips published April 28, 2024:

Fourth Amendment Waiver Searches: Don’t Prolong a Detention Beyond Why You First Stopped a Driver
A 2023 appellate case from Sacramento illustrates problems when an officer prolongs a detention during a traffic stop by asking about other possible criminal activity first, before discovering a subject’s Fourth Amendment probation waiver and finding incriminating evidence.