19-minute traffic stop not unreasonable

United States v. Mayville, 955 F.3d 825 (10th Cir. 2020) (Fourth Amendment – 19 minute stop is not an unreasonable extension of a traffic stop) Around 2 in the morning, Utah State Trooper stopped a red car for speeding (71 in a 60). Of course, the officer as he approached the car, saw the driver move as if to hide something. Driver gave trooper his out-of-state driver’s license, but couldn’t find the registration. Trooper says he thought driver was “impaired” because he seemed drowsy and confused, and “couldn’t multitask like a normal individual.” Trooper asks dispatch to run the license to check for warrants and for criminal history via a Triple-I check (Interstate Identification Index); he also requests a drug dog. At some point, he moves his car because he’s planning to do field sobriety tests. 14 minutes after the initial stop, the drug dog arrives. Drug dog’s handler asks driver to get out of the car so the dog could search the car. The driver declines. (Dog’s handler says how slow driver was to answer made him think driver was impaired.) The troopers get the driver out for “safety reasons” and the drug-dog sniffs about the car. 19 minutes after the initial stop the drug dog alerts; 30 seconds later, dispatch relays that the driver has a criminal history. The search subsequent to the dog alert revealed a pound of meth, an ounce of heroin, a scale, two guns and a silencer. Defendant argues that by doing the Triple-I check through dispatch instead of with the computer in the trooper’s car, the police unreasonably extended the stop. The Court says cops can check to see if a driver has a criminal history but “officers may not undertake safety precautions for the purpose of lengthening the stop to allow for investigation into unrelated criminal activity.” The district court made a finding that the Triple-I check did not extend the time and that finding was not challenged (the defense contrasted it to the search on license done in the car which took mere minutes). But “even if the Triple I check extended the duration of the stop, Trooper Tripodi’s request for criminal-history records through dispatch was not unreasonable as a matter of law.” 955 F.3d at 832. If this seems to contradict Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 1609 (2015), holding that even de minimis delays caused by unrelated inquiries violate the Fourth Amendment, the Tenth seems to say because the driver made the trooper anxious (the slow responses, the shifty movements) the decision to run the check through dispatch instead of the trooper’s car “did not unreasonably prolong the stop.” The Tenth also says in other circumstances, Triple-I check might unreasonably extend the stop.