Best Consumer Protection Lawyers in Apex, NC

Drug Dog Better Be On Time: High Court Strengthens Fourth Amendment In Sniffing Case Too bad, officer. If your drug dog isn’t handy, you can’t keep the driver waiting. According to Julian Hattem with the Hill, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that officers cannot keep someone waiting or detained – absent probable cause after the officer has already dealt with the original issue, such as having issued a ticket for speeding. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “We hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures.” In the case at hand, a driver was pulled over for “erratic driving,” and the officer issued the driver a warning. The officer then asked the driver if he could have a drug-sniffing dog check the vehicle. Despite the driver’s refusal, the officer made the driver wait until the dog’s arrival. The dog found methamphetamine. Again, Ginsburg: “The tolerable duration of police inquiries in the traffic-stop context is determined by the seizure’s ‘mission to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop. Authority for the seizure thus ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are or reasonably should have been completed.”...