Denial of suppression motion affirmed; whether officers' unrelated investigations prolonged stop is a factual issue

United States v. Malone, __F.4th__, 2021 WL 3851910 (10th Cir. 2021) Short story: Upholding a suppression loss in a very pretext-y traffic stop. Unrelated investigations—like inquiries into criminality or dog sniffs—don’t run afoul of the Fourth Amendment unless they prolong the stop. Prolongation is a factual question. Longer story: Cops were surveilling a hotel known for criminal activity and zeroed in on a car which they had their cop-buddies scrutinize until a traffic violation occurred. While the driver was looking for insurance and registration, Mr. Malone (passenger/defendant) provided his ID and disclosed he was on parole for burglary of a pawn shop. Cop returned to patrol car while the driver apparently still searching for insurance and registration and found out that Mr. Malone was a suspected gang member. This apparently entitled him to investigate further. Mr. Malone was ordered to exit the car. Cops find a pistol, and eventually charge § 922(g). Defense counsel argued that ordering the exit from the car was a detour. Tenth accepts the exit order constituted a detour, but says officers still acted lawfully because the stop wasn’t prolonged. And because assessing whether prolongation occurred is a factual question, and the appeal didn’t challenge under clear error, the issue was waived. But even if it hadn’t been, the Tenth still would have flushed because it found that arguments made during oral argument were not persuasive—mainly, the time it takes to track down registration and insurance doesn’t add time to render the traffic stop unreasonable.