Ordering Occupants Out of Their Vehicles -- And into Officers' Cruisers

May an officer, during a traffic stop, order an occupant out of the stopped vehicle? Into the officer’s vehicle? The law on this question has become unsettled. Mimms: officers may order occupants out. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that, in the interest of officer safety, an officer may order any or all of a vehicle’s occupants out of the vehicle during a traffic stop. Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977) (ruling that an officer may order a driver out of the driver’s vehicle during a traffic stop; this is “at most, a mere inconvenience” that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because it “diminishes the possibility . . . that the driver can make unobserved movements” preparatory to assaulting the officer); Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997) (describing Mimms as holding that an “officer may as a matter of course order the driver of a lawfully stopped care to exit his vehicle,” and extending the same rule to passengers; the presence of passengers makes a stop more dangerous and the intrusion on passengers is “minimal”). Rodriguez: officers can’t extend stops without reasonable suspicion. Recently, in Rodriguez v. United States, __ U.S. __, 135 S.Ct. 1609 (2015), the Court ruled that a traffic stop must end when “tasks tied to the traffic infraction are – or reasonably should have been – completed.” Thus, a traffic stop may not be extended, even briefly, to allow a drug dog to sniff the stopped vehicle absent reasonable suspicion of criminal activity [...]