Justices: Drug search that delays traffic stop is unconstitutional

Richard Wolf | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police cannot detain drivers stopped for traffic violations in order to search for drugs without reasonable suspicion.

The 6-3 decision was a victory for privacy groups opposed to police searches and a defeat for the government and law enforcement officials.

"A traffic stop does not license police to pursue unrelated investigations that prolong detention of car and driver beyond the time it takes to complete the stop's traffic-centered mission," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. A dog sniff, she added, "lacks the same tie to roadway safety."

Ginsburg was joined by the court's liberal bloc as well as Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, both of whom tend to oppose police and prosecutorial overreach.

The ruling sends the case back to a lower court to determine if police had a reasonable basis to suspect that Dennys Rodriguez was engaged in drug dealing. That's something Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, said the police clearly did based on questioning at the scene.

"This is an unnecessary, impractical and arbitrary decision," Alito said. "The police officer did have reasonable suspicion, and as a result, the officer was justified in detaining the occupants for the short period of time (seven or eight minutes) that is at issue."

The case stemmed from a 2012 traffic stop in Nebraska in which K-9 officer Morgan Struble stopped Rodriguez for veering on to a highway shoulder. The driver received a warning, at which point the officer asked for permission to walk his dog around the car. When Rodriguez, who had a passenger next to him, refused, he was detained until a backup officer arrived. The dog then sniffed and alerted to methamphetamine.

Lower courts upheld the arrest on drug charges, not because the officer had reason to suspect Rodriguez was a drug dealer, but because the delay of 7-8 minutes was not too much of an imposition. But the justices reversed those decisions because the traffic stop and drug search were unrelated.

"The government's argument, in effect, is that by completing all traffic-related tasks expeditiously, an officer can earn bonus time to pursue an unrelated criminal investigation," Ginsburg wrote.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy dissented along with Alito. Thomas, writing for all three, said the entire police investigation was "reasonably executed" and therefore constitutional.

"Had Officer Struble arrested, handcuffed and taken Rodriguez to the police station for his traffic violation, he would have complied with the 4th Amendment," Thomas said. "But because he made Rodriguez wait for seven or eight extra minutes until a dog arrived, he evidently committed a constitutional violation. Such a view of the 4th Amendment makes little sense."

The decision comes two years after the high court allowed a dog sniff to occur during a routine traffic stop -- because the officer in that case had probable cause to conduct the search -- but not at the door of a private home.