In United States v. Nault, --- F.4th ---, No. 20-30231 (9th Cir. 2022), a divided panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Shane Nault’s motion to suppress evidence that resulted from a search of the vehicle he was driving.
Beginning in reverse order with the dissent:
In Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 355–56 (2015), the Supreme Court held that, when police stop a vehicle for a traffic violation, they may prolong the stop to conduct “ordinary inquiries” incident to the stop, including asking the driver for his license, registration, and proof of insurance, because these inquiries are “part of the officer’s traffic mission” and “serve the same objective as enforcement of the traffic code: ensuring that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly.” The officers, however, may not prolong a traffic stop to conduct inquiries unrelated to the purpose of the stop. Id. They may not, for example, prolong the stop to investigate other crimes. Id. at 356–57.This case, however, is unlike Rodriguez. Police officers approached Shane Nault’s vehicle, which was already parked in a private lot, because they were looking for Joei Ross, who was the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant. When they learned that Ross was not present, their mission was completed and their authority for the seizure ended. The officers nevertheless prolonged the stop to thereafter conduct an unrelated traffic safety investigation, asking Nault for his license, registration, and proof of insurance. These inquiries, of course, were not part of the officers’ mission in making the stop. The officers therefore violated Nault’s Fourth Amendment rights.
The majority disagreed with this seemingly straightforward analysis.
Officer Chroniger’s continuation of the stop to request Nault’s documents did not violate the Fourth Amendment because that request fell within the mission of the stop.An officer conducting a vehicle stop has interests extending beyond that of “detecting evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” An officer’s “mission” includes certain “ordinary inquiries incident to the traffic stop,” even if they are not required to investigate a particular traffic violation. Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Those inquiries “[t]ypically … involve checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance.” Id. Such routine checks “ensur[e] that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly.” Id. By contrast, unrelated inquiries such as dog sniffs or other non-routine checks, which are “aimed at ‘detect[ing] evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing,’” lack the same “close connection to roadway safety,” and must be justified by independent reasonable suspicion.We therefore must determine whether Officer Chroniger’s request for documents—as it would be in a typical traffic stop—was “fairly characterized as part of the officer’s traffic mission.”The circumstances of Officer Chroniger’s encounter with Nault implicate the same vehicle safety purpose discussed in Rodriguez. When Officer Chroniger pulled into the Zip Trip parking lot, Nault was sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck. The engine was running. There was no indication either that someone else had driven Nault to the gas station or that someone else would drive him away. As with any traffic stop, Officer Chroniger had a strong interest in ensuring that Nault had the ability to legally operate his vehicle.It is of no moment that Officer Chroniger never observed Nault commit a traffic violation. In describing the scope of an officer’s mission during a traffic stop, the Supreme Court said categorically that it includes the “ordinary inquiries” that Officer Chroniger conducted, without any need for individualized suspicion that a driver poses a risk to others or is violating vehicle licensing, registration, or insurance requirements. While an interest in traffic safety would not alone justify a stop to conduct these ordinary inquiries, these inquiries can be performed during a traffic stop once the intrusion of a stop has been justified by some other lawful basis.Of course, a traffic violation is not the only lawful basis for an officer to conduct a vehicle stop. An officer may stop a vehicle with reasonable suspicion that a person inside “has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.” That can include suspicion that the vehicle’s driver is the subject of an outstanding warrant. Under Rodriguez’s categorical rule, a routine document check would remain part of the officer’s mission even when the suspicion that justified a stop was based on an outstanding warrant rather than a traffic violation. That is precisely the case here.We hold that Officer Chroniger did not unconstitutionally prolong the stop, and the evidence acquired during the subsequent investigation and search of the truck was not tainted. As discussed above, that investigation revealed further indicia of intoxication from Officer Chroniger’s field sobriety tests, and a positive alert from a dog sniff. Combined with the evidence from the controlled methamphetamine buy from Nault out of the same truck a month earlier, the search warrant was amply supported by probable cause. Therefore, no Fourth Amendment violation occurred and the district court correctly denied the motion to suppress.
