Traffic Stop Wasn’t Unduly Prolonged to Allow for Dog Sniff

US v. Perez: Perez was pulled over due to issues with his registration tag (although police had information he was selling drugs, too). While investigating the state of the tag, an officer learned that Perez’s license “should not be good” and had another officer pursue why that was so. All the while, they were waiting for a drug sniffing dog to arrive. The dog arrived about 15 minutes into the stop, by which point Perez had gotten out of the car and it had been confirmed that his license was suspended due to a pair of prior DUI convictions. The dog alerted to the car and officers recovered methamphetamine and firearms. After unsuccessfully moving to suppress that evidence, Perez pleaded guilty to drug and firearm charges and was sentenced to 180 months in prison.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Perez’s conviction, upholding the denial of his motion to suppress. The court rejected Perez’s argument that the officers intentionally prolonged the stop to provide time for the drug dog arrive, abandoning the purpose of the initial traffic stop to pursue a criminal investigation. The court agreed with the Government that, in light of the multiple traffic issues being investigated (the tag, the status of Perez’s license) that the stop was not unreasonably lengthy. The court noted that at the time the dog arrived “not only had the officers not finished investigating the multiple infractions . . . they also hadn’t issued Perez citations for the infractions.” Also, given the nature of the infractions, Perez couldn’t drive the car away and a tow vehicle hadn’t arrived yet. “In sum,” the court concluded, “though the stop could have been shorter (and begun more efficiently), it wasn’t impermissibly prolonged.” 

Judge Motz concurred in the result, due to the fact that Perez “was not free to drive away after receiving the citations” and therefore “I cannot say that the officers prolonged the stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” She wrote separately “to emphasize that law enforcement officers may not deliberately draw out an investigation of a traffic stop to give a canine unit time to arrive and conduct a dog sniff.”