This video was submitted by a guy who was pulled over in Pflugerville, Texas for an allegedly broken tail light. For 45 minutes, a police officer asked the man questions entirely unrelated to the reason for the stop. Apparently this officer received some sort of interdiction type “training,” and he concluded he was able to find drug smugglers otherwise disguised as law abiding citizens. Meanwhile, the drug sniffing dog was en route, and after it arrived, the dog smelt nothing.
Here’s the man’s explanation about his experience:
A passenger and I were driving within the speed limit on Pfleugerville parkway. At 14:24 officer Z. Tatum #436 did a u-turn and got behind my vehicle. He remained behind me through three stoplights and engaged his emergency lights at 14:32. He approached the passenger side of my vehicle and explained the reason for the stop was that my third, center, brake light wasn’t functioning and he intended to give me a written warning for that. He collected my drivers license, registration, and proof of insurance, then returned to his cruiser. At 14:35 he returned to the driver’s side and asked me to exit my vehicle. I asked why, and he said “I just want to talk to you”. At this point officer Adkins #391 and another unidentified officer were on the scene. Officer Tatum explained that he had called a neighboring jurisdiction and had requested a K9 officer to report to the scene. He repeatedly asked if there were drugs in the car, by name, and each time, I honestly answered that there were no drugs in the car. I also offered that there were no weapons in the car and voluntarily surrendered my pocket knife, placing it on the roof of the car.
I asked officer Tatum what reasonable suspicion he had that there were drugs in the vehicle but he only gave me vague responses. I asked about the legality of extending the stop beyond the scope of writing the warning for the infraction that was the purpose of the stop, and he insisted that it was within his authority to do so. I know it is not in his authority to do so, and extending the stop was a violation of my fourth amendment protections. I asked again about what reasonable suspicion he had and he responded with “I’m trained up and have been to a few classes” and that my behavior somehow indicated something to him. The K-9 unit, Round Rock officer Garmong #5160 didn’t arrive on scene until 15:11. They arrived at my vehicle at 15:13 after a brief conversation with the Pflugerville officers, did an open air sniff of the car, circling it four times as well as into the open passenger window, and returned to their vehicle at 15:18 without indication or further incident. After finally printing the written warning, officer Tatum handed it to me and I was released to return to my vehicle at 15:20. However, officer Tatum had not returned my driver’s license, and I had to go pick it up at The station later.
His timeline is as follows:
14:24 officer makes u-turn to get behind me. 14:25 stoplight 14:27 stoplight 14:31 stoplight, left turn 14:32 lights, contact 14:35 officer returns to unit 14:38:02 returns to my car 14:38:30 I exit car second unit on scene, 3rd officer on scene 15:11 K-9 unit arrives 15:13 K-9 at car 15:15 K-9 returns to unit 15:18 K-9 unit leaves 15:20:30 I return to my car.
A federal lawsuit was filed after a man was shot and killed by a Princeton (West Virginia) Police Officer inside his own house, following allegations from his neighbor that he had been riding his ATV through the neighbor’s yard. The officers were captured on bodycam footage engaging in an investigation within the curtilage of the man’s yard, and ultimately kicking in the door and shooting him. The officer who shot and killed the man claimed that the man had a baseball bat and refused to drop it. Conveniently however, he wasn’t wearing a bodycam, despite a department policy mandating that he do so. Some of the shooting was captured on another officer’s bodycam. It was recently released by the family’s lawyers.
Seven years ago, in Fort Collins, Colorado, the Fort Collins Police Department slammed this girl to the pavement. The obviously-unnecessary use of force was caught on video. A lawsuit was filed. The officer was denied qualified immunity. He appealed to the 10th Circuit. In a published opinion, the 10th Circuit found that the officer indeed used excessive force – a Fourth Amendment violation – but, since the plaintiff wasn’t able to point to a similar prior case finding a similar violation, that the officer gets qualified immunity. The remaining claims against the city were just settled for $300K.
The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller recently published a scandalous report detailing private for-profit police training of 1000’s of police officers from around the country that, among other things: promoted the use of unconstitutional policing tactics for motor vehicle stops; glorified violence and an excessively militaristic or “warrior” approach to policing; spoke disparagingly of the internal affairs process; promoted an “us vs. them” approach; and espoused views and tactics that would undermine almost a decade of police reform efforts in New Jersey, including those aimed at de-escalating civilian-police encounters; and which included over 100 discriminatory and harassing remarks by speakers and instructors, with repeated references to speakers’ genitalia, lewd gestures, and demeaning quips about women and minorities.
Specifically, the report details a 2021 seminar held in Atlantic City, NJ, attended by approximately 1,000 police officers from across the country. Along with the report, the Acting Comptroller released video footage…
Here’s a media report about one of the instructors subsequently being charged with criminal violations for the video he bragged about, showing him shooting at a fleeing vehicle.
Here’s another media report about the founder of the training company retiring from police-work shortly after being sued for misconduct.
Here’s the list of states that sent police officers to the 2021 seminar featured in the report and video footage:
Video from Texas shows a guy being pulled over based on the allegation that his mud flaps were too short. But then, the officer opens the passenger side door on his own, while holding his pistol. He orders the driver out of his truck, making the new allegation that he smells marijuana. Then he frisks the man and searches his vehicle. During this entire ordeal, the driver is filming with his phone and questioning/accusing the officer. He actually did a really good job of completely destroying the alleged justification for the officer’s conduct.
This is an interesting situation. A black employee of a firearms-related company, apparently run by military vets offering a number of different products, realized they were missing an AR-15 “lower,” which was supposed to have been mailed out by a particular employee. Rather than discuss the matter with the employee, they called the cops, who arrested the employee pretty much immediately, ultimately holding him for multiple hours. However, it seems that the missing lower was found only 10 minutes after this man was arrested. Oops… it was all a big mistake. But the employee was still fired and sent packing, with an apology from the cops.
Ring doorbell video surfaced showing the arrest of a man at his own front door, after he refused to provide identification to police officers in Clayton County, Georgia. The footage showed officers arresting the man without a warrant. After the footage went viral, the police department then made their own Youtube video responding to the footage, as well as the allegations. But the issue remains: can cops constitutionally arrest a homeowner at his own front door without a warrant?
The Fourth Amendment guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The constitutional protection of people in their houses extends to the “curtilage” of the home, which is “the area ‘immediately surrounding and associated with the home.'” Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1670 (2018) (quoting Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013)).
Subject to a few exceptions, the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement from entering a home or its curtilage to conduct a search without a warrant. United States v. Walker, 799 F.3d 1361, 1363 (11th Cir. 2015). United States v. Stephen, No. 19-12172 (11th Cir. Aug 06, 2020)
The Indiana State Police performed a traffic stop on a tractor trailer. Inside the truck they found around two million dollars in cocaine. Here’s the bodycam footage. But will this seizure hold up in court?
Thursday, May 26, 2022, at approximately 4:00 p.m., an Indiana State Trooper stopped a tractor-trailer at the thirty-seven mile marker eastbound on Interstate 70 for a routine compliance inspection. The driver of the tractor-trailer was identified as Leonardo Hernandez, age 38, of Miami, Florida, with one passenger in the vehicle. During the conversation with the driver and passenger, criminal indicators were observed, and a consent search revealed approximately forty-four pounds of suspected cocaine. Leonardo Hernandez and Rolando Bermudez Acevedo were taken into custody and transported to the Putnam County Jail.
The tractor-trailer was enroute from Phoenix, Arizona, to Indianapolis, Indiana.
The estimated street value of the cocaine is one million dollars.
One of the most complicated questions I’m asked is, can a passenger in a car subject to a traffic stop refuse to provide identification to police officers, when ordered to provide it? As a common practice, police officers around the country request identification from traffic stop passengers in order to run a check for warrants. State law varies on this. And the Supreme Court hasn’t yet addressed the issue directly.
The United States Supreme Court has held that a traffic stop qualifies as a “seizure” of both the driver and any passengers, since even a passenger would conclude that an officer was “exercising control to the point that no one in the car was free to depart without police permission.” Brendlin v. California , 551 U.S. 249, 255-57, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007).
Because traffic stops are considered “a species of investigative stop rather than a formal arrest,”9 they are generally evaluated under the principles enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio and related cases. Under Terry , a traffic stop “must be temporary and [must] last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.” “The stop becomes unreasonable — and thus constitutionally invalid — if the duration, manner, or scope of the investigation” exceeds “the circumstances that justified the stop in the first place.” Id. (citing Royer , 460 U.S. at 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, and United States v. Brignoni-Ponce , 422 U.S. 873, 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975) ).
The basic essentials of a traffic stop are relatively easy to discern with respect to the driver. When an officer stops a driver for a traffic violation, “the officer may ask the motorist to produce routine driving documents” — including the driver’s license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration. A police officer may run a computer check to verify the validity of the driver’s documents — in order to ensure that the driver is authorized to continue driving — and doing so does not generally unreasonably extend the scope or duration of a valid traffic stop. Even a warrants check for the driver may reasonably be viewed as part of the traffic stop, “as long as this check [is] done expeditiously, so as not to significantly extend the duration of the stop.”
But the rationale for these “routine” checks is significantly diminished as to a passenger who has been seized solely by virtue of being present in a vehicle subject to a traffic stop — particularly for a minor equipment violation like a dirty or non-illuminated license plate. The SCOTUS has not yet addressed whether an officer’s request for a passenger’s identification and a subsequent warrants check fall within the scope of a “routine” traffic stop, and therefore may be done without a reasonable suspicion of criminality or other particularized justification.
But over time, the United States Supreme Court has expanded the authority of police officers over both drivers and passengers during routine traffic stops. For instance, the Supreme Court has held that police officers may inquire into matters unrelated to the stop — as long as the inquiry does not unreasonably extend the stop. (CompareIllinois v. Caballes , 543 U.S. 405, 125 S.Ct. 834, 160 L.Ed.2d 842 (2005) (holding that use of a narcotics-detection dog to sniff around the exterior of motorist’s vehicle during the temporal duration of the routine traffic stop did not infringe on motorist’s Fourth Amendment rights), with Rodriguez , 575 U.S. 348, 135 S.Ct. 1609 (holding that extending an otherwise- completed traffic stop in order to conduct a dog- sniff was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment, absent reasonable suspicion); see also Arizona v. Johnson , 555 U.S. 323, 333, 129 S.Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 (2009) (“An officer’s inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop … do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.”); Brown , 182 P.3d at 625, 632 (recognizing that the Fourth Amendment offers little protection to motorists who consent to a request to search their vehicle, even when the officer has no reason to suspect that the motorist is carrying contraband); 4 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.3(b), at 510-11.)
The Court has also authorized officers to order both drivers and passengers to exit the vehicle, even absent a particularized safety concern. See Pennsylvania v. Mimms , 434 U.S. 106, 111, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) (authority under federal law to order the driver out of the car); Maryland v. Wilson , 519 U.S. 408, 410, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997) (authority under federal law to order passengers out of the car).
In line with this authority, all federal circuit courts to address the issue have concluded that officers may request a passenger’s identification during a traffic stop and run a warrants check, even absent an independent basis for doing so — at least as long as doing so does not unreasonably extend the duration of the stop. See, e.g. , Fernandez , 600 F.3d at 61-62 (discussing United States v. Henderson , 463 F.3d 27, 46-47 (1st Cir. 2006) ). (SeeUnited States v. Fernandez , 600 F.3d 56, 61 (1st Cir. 2010) (“Although the [Supreme] Court has not explicitly held that an inquiry into a passenger’s identity is permissible, its precedent inevitably leads to that conclusion.” (emphasis in original)); United States v. Soriano-Jarquin , 492 F.3d 495, 500 (4th Cir. 2007) (“If an officer may ‘as a matter of course’ and in the interest of personal safety order a passenger physically to exit the vehicle, he may surely take the minimally intrusive step of requesting passenger identification.” (internal citation omitted)); see also United States v. Pack , 612 F.3d 341, 351 (5th Cir. 2010) (holding that officers do not need reasonable suspicion to ask a passenger for his or her identification during a lawful traffic stop and run a computer check on the passenger’s license and background); United States v. Smith , 601 F.3d 530, 542 (6th Cir. 2010) (same); United States v. Sanford , 806 F.3d 954, 959 (7th Cir. 2015) (same); United States v. Cloud , 594 F.3d 1042, 1044 (8th Cir. 2010) (same); United States v. Diaz-Castaneda , 494 F.3d 1146, 1152-53 (9th Cir. 2007) (same); United States v. Rice , 483 F.3d 1079, 1084 (10th Cir. 2007) (same); United States v. Purcell , 236 F.3d 1274, 1278-79 (11th Cir. 2001) (same). But seeUnited States v. Landeros , 913 F.3d 862, 870 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that an officer may not order a passenger to identify himself absent particularized suspicion that he has or is engaged in criminal activity).
Several state courts have reached similar conclusions, grounding their decisions in (1) generalized concerns for officer safety;
See, e.g. , State v. Williams , 264 Ga.App. 199, 590 S.E.2d 151, 154 (2003) ; Cade v. State , 872 N.E.2d 186, 189 (Ind. App. 2007) ; State v. Martinez , 424 P.3d 83, 89-90 (Utah 2017) (collecting cases).
(2) the need to create a record of witnesses to the traffic stop;
See, e.g. , State v. Griffith , 236 Wis.2d 48, 613 N.W.2d 72, 82 (2000).
or (3) a determination that the request is simply part of (and did not unreasonably extend) the investigation into the traffic violation and does not constitute a separate Fourth Amendment event.
See, e.g. , State v. Ybarra , 156 Ariz. 275, 751 P.2d 591, 592 (Ariz. App. 1987) ; People v. Vibanco , 151 Cal. App. 4th 1, 14, 60 Cal. Rptr. 3d 1, 10-11 (Cal. App. 2007) ; People v. Bowles , 226 P.3d 1125 (Colo. App. 2009) ; Loper v. State , 8 A.3d 1169, 1173 (Del. 2010) ; People v. Harris , 228 Ill.2d 222, 319 Ill.Dec. 823, 886 N.E.2d 947 (2008) ; State v. Smith , 683 N.W.2d 542, 547-48 (Iowa 2004) ; State v. Landry , 588 So.2d 345, 345-47 (La. 1991) ; State v. Gutierrez , 9 Neb.App. 325, 611 N.W.2d 853, 858 (2000) ; Cortes v. State , 127 Nev. 505, 260 P.3d 184, 190 (2011).
Other state courts, however, have concluded that officers are prohibited from requesting identification from passengers during a traffic stop, absent reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing or some other case-specific justification beyond general officer safety concerns.
See, e.g. , People v. Spicer , 157 Cal. App. 3d 213, 221, 203 Cal. Rptr. 599, 604-05 (Cal. App. 1984) (holding that an officer unlawfully requested the passenger’s license during a traffic stop for drunk driving, where there was no indication that the passenger would be given custody of the car and the officer did not explain to the passenger his reason for requesting her driver’s license); Commonwealth v. Alvarez , 44 Mass.App.Ct. 531, 692 N.E.2d 106, 109 (1998) (holding that an officer, who testified that he asked the defendant, a vehicle passenger, for his license out of “routine practice” and without any objective basis for suspecting the passenger of wrongdoing, violated the Massachusetts Constitution); State v. Johnson , 645 N.W.2d 505, 510 (Minn. App. 2002) (holding that, in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing, the officer had no authority to expand the stop by taking the passenger’s identification and running a warrants check on him); State v. Affsprung , 135 N.M. 306, 87 P.3d 1088, 1094-95 (N.M. App. 2004) (holding, under the Fourth Amendment, that a generalized concern for officer safety, without more, was insufficient to justify requesting the defendant’s identification and conducting a warrants check, where the defendant was simply a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a faulty license plate light); State v. Thompkin , 341 Or. 368, 143 P.3d 530, 534-36 (2006) (holding that the defendant, a passenger in a vehicle stopped for failing to signal a turn, was unlawfully seized under the Oregon Constitution when the officer requested and retained his identification to run a records check, without any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity); State v. Rankin , 151 Wash.2d 689, 92 P.3d 202, 206-07 (2004) (en banc) (holding that the Washington Constitution precludes officers from requesting identification from a passenger for investigative purposes, absent an independent basis for making the request).
One of the most common questions I get asked is, what’s the deal with the sovereign citizen videos. Do these guys ever win in court? Here’s a brand new one that just made the news in Volusia County, Florida. The bodycam footage was released by the sheriff there, showing two people arrested after claiming essentially that laws don’t apply to them as sovereign citizens. Is there anything to this?
This happened in Florida. Florida is in the 11th federal circuit. So to find the applicable federal constitutional law, you look first to the U.S. Supreme Court and then to the 11th Circuit. Then elsewhere. The federal courts in Florida and the 11th Circuit have addressed sovereign citizen arguments multiple times. One recent case out of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Ford v. Antonides, issued in October of 2022, alleges basically these same facts.
There, the plaintiff, Tyree Ford, filed a pro se civil rights lawsuit from the Lee County Jail, alleging that he was unlawfully arrested after a traffic stop and seeking 2 million dollars in damages. The Court wrote that:
Instead of alleging facts showing that the stop of his car was somehow improper (leading to a claim for false arrest or false imprisonment), Plaintiff bases his claims against Defendant Antonides on an argument that he was immune from the traffic stop she initiated (and that eventually led to his arrest) because he displayed a sign on his car informing her that he was a “Traveler – Not for hire. Private Property.” (Doc. 1 at 6). This argument is similar to those espoused by self-proclaimed “sovereign citizens,” as explained in a 2019 law review article:
The most common type of Sovereign Citizen claim encountered by local and state police, as well as federal border patrol agents, is the “right to travel.” Citing the Constitution, Supreme Court cases, and a plethora of other sources, Sovereign Citizens believe they are not required to have driver’s licenses, license plates, vehicle registration, or to stop at border or sobriety checkpoints. Similar to other claims, Sovereign Citizens discussing the “right to travel” place special emphasis on the words being used.
They differentiate between a driver and a traveler; an automobile and a motor vehicle; commercial and non- commercial; and public versus private conveyances. Once a Sovereign Citizen claims that he or she is merely a traveler or traveling, he or she then uses federal and state cases to support the “right to travel.” Sovereign Citizens also believe the right to travel constitutes a complete bar on government interference with travel in the absence of probable cause or evidence that a victim has been harmed.
These types of claims-that a plaintiff is entitled to different treatment as a “sovereign citizen”-are routinely rejected by federal courts as frivolous. See, e.g., United States v. Sterling, 738 F.3d 228, 233 n.1 (11th Cir. 2013) (noting that so-called “sovereign citizens” are individuals who believe they are not subject to courts’ jurisdiction and that courts have summarily rejected their legal theories as frivolous); United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 761-67 (7th Cir. 2011) (describing the conduct of a “sovereign citizen” and collecting cases rejecting the group’s claims as frivolous, and recommending that “sovereign citizen” arguments “be rejected summarily, however they are presented.”); Reed v. Jones, No. 4:21CV3051, 2021 WL 2913023, at *3 (D. Neb. July 12, 2021) (“sovereign citizen” argument that motor-vehicle registration and licensing laws do not apply to plaintiff rejected as frivolous); Trevino v. Florida, 687 Fed.Appx. 861, 862 (11th Cir. 2017) (per curiam) (affirming dismissal of 1983 action based on sovereign citizens as frivolous and noting that if those theories challenged the conviction, habeas was the proper avenue of relief).
Nothing alleged in Plaintiff’s complaint even remotely suggests that he is entitled to relief against Defendant Antonides under recognized theories of relief. And, as noted, Plaintiff’s sovereign citizen argument has been soundly rejected by federal courts. Accordingly, all claims against Defendant Antonides are dismissed from this action as frivolous and for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), (ii).
There are many more cases just like this using a lot of the same language. Every one of them dismissing the arguments as frivolous and quickly moving on. And that’s just the 11th Circuit. It’s the same around the country.
So to answer your question, no there’s nothing to it. That’s not to say that I don’t think that Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave at the idea of the government requiring license plates and licenses to operate his carriage. But it’s the reality we live in.
