“Here Is Your Stuff Back, Man”: When Returning a Driver’s License and Registration Doesn’t Terminate a Stop

Consider a fact pattern that takes place every day, all across the country: a police officer stops a motorist for a traffic infraction, runs the motorist’s license through a computer database and finds nothing exceptional, and returns the driver’s license and registration, perhaps along with a warning or a citation. The officer then asks the driver for consent to search the driver’s car. The driver consents and the officer finds drugs. Did the officer do anything wrong in this situation? Are the drugs subject to suppression? The answers depend on whether the traffic stop ended when the officer returned the driver’s license. As a recent case shows, that can be a complex determination. Traffic stops must stay focused on traffic violations. Under Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015), “the tolerable duration of police inquiries in the traffic-stop context” depends on the “mission” of the stop, which is “to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop.” An officer isn’t permitted to extend the stop, even briefly, to investigate other criminal activity, unless the officer has developed reasonable suspicion. So if an officer without reasonable suspicion were to compel a driver to remain at the side of the road and answer questions or respond to a request to search, that would violate the Fourth Amendment. The return of documents usually marks the end of the stop. In order to determine whether an officer improperly extended a stop beyond its scope, it is necessary to determine when the stop ended. “Generally, [...]