Floyd Hintteon Green, Jr. v. United States

fe -y The mission of a lawful traffic stop is typically to address the traffic violation which warranted the stop and attend to related safety concerns. A traffic stop's scope must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification. The officer's safety is a ... legitimate and weighty justification for an additional intrusion into a driver's personal liberty when the intrusion is outweighed by a legitimate concern for the officer's safety. Even when there is nothing unusual or suspicious about a driver's behavior and the officer does not suspect foul play, an additional intrusion may be justified. See Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977). When officers engage in unrelated criminal on-scene investigation, however, these officer safety interests and the state's interest in detecting crime differ in kind. While traffic stops are potentially dangerous and officers can take precautions to complete a stop safety, safety precautions taken to facilitate unrelated criminal investigations are not permissible. See Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015). fe ■: ■ • ' Here, the Eleventh Circuit held that officers during a traffic violation stop can ask about the presence of illegal narcotics without reasonable suspicion as long as the questioning is related to officer safety and does not amount to a fishing expedition meant to investigate unrelated crimes. The officer can also simultaneously ask for consent to search without any reason to suspect the driver is armed and without any indication that there may be illegal narcotics in the vehicle. The question presented is: Does the concern for officer safety permit questioning about the presence of narcotics along with a request to search, during a traffic violation stop where there is no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or any sign that the driver Is armed?