Unreasonably Prolonged Stop, Evidence Suppressed

At about 12:45 p.m. on March 16, 2018, an Anaheim Police Department officer pulled over Joseph Gyorgy, who was driving a black pickup truck.  The officer has been contacted prior to the stop by an undercover police officer who stated that the truck had just departed the Tampico Motel and was suspicious.  The motel was a well-known truck trafficking location.

After the officer pulled over Mr. Gyorgy, he explained that he did so after observing an unsafe lane change in violation of Vehicle Code § 22107.  All of the traffic stop and the officer’s interactions with Mr. Gyorgy were captured on the officer’s body video camera.

In the first minute of the traffic stop, the officer requested Gyorgy’s driver’s license, which Mr. Gyorgy handed over.  The officer then asked Mr. Gyorgy if he was on probation or parole, whether the truck was his, whether he was a narcotics or sexual offender registrant, whether he had any needles or sharp objects in his truck and whether he had any weapons or drugs in the truck.

Gyorgy responded that he indeed was a registered sex offender, but denied everything else.  The officer then asked if he was current on his registration and Gyorgy replied he was.  The officer then asked where he lived and Gyorgy explained that he was living in motels at the time being due to some family difficulties.

The officer then asked about prior arrests and Gyorgy mentioned two prior arrests, one for a theft offense and one for another nonviolent offense.

This questioning lasted four or five minutes.  At this point, the officer ordered Gyorgy to step out of the truck so he could pat him down for weapons for officer safety purposes.  Gyorgy got out of the truck and walked to the nearby sidewalk to be patted down.

The officer then explained that he could not do so until another officer arrived on scene.  While Gyorgy sat on the curb, with the police officer standing nearby, Gyorgy asked why he was being held for a pat-down search for an unsafe lane change.  The officer said he could not answer that.  Gyorgy then asked, “what is really going on here?”  The officer responded, “I’ll get to that.  I’ll tell you shortly.”

At about the five or six minute mark after the traffic stop, another officer appeared on scene and a pat-down search was performed on Gyorgy.  Nothing was found.

After this, the officer informed Gyorgy that he was a K-9 handler and that he had the right to take his police dog around Gyorgy’s truck.

 

Gyorgy then told the officer that he did not have the right to search the interior of his truck.  The officer responded, “It really doesn’t matter what you think.  I have the right to be able to do this.”

The officer had the police dog perform several “laps” around the truck, sniffing.  At eleven minutes and 54 seconds, the police dog alerted the officer that it detected narcotics inside.  The officer then opened up the door to the truck and let the dog (named Titan) inside. 

The officer then went inside and found methamphetamine and a glass pipe with white residue indicative of having been used to smoke methamphetamine.  They also found an unloaded handgun and six live rounds of ammunition.

Gyorgy was then arrested and charged in the Orange County Superior Court with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, as well as being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Gyorgy then moved under Penal Code § 1538.5 to suppress the “fruit” of the search, arguing that the search was the produce of an illegally prolonged detention, relying on Rodriguez v. United States (2015) 575 U.S. 348.  What began as a lawful traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment’s shield against unreasonable seizures when the officers detoured from the traffic stop’s mission by conducting the dog sniff and inquiring to matters unrelated to the traffic stop.

The trial court in Orange County denied the motion and so Mr. Gyorgy appealed this ruling to the Fourth Appellate District court in Santa Ana.

The Fourth District reversed the trial court, finding that the detention was unduly prolonged and thus the search that followed violated the Fourth Amendment because the duration of the stop went “beyond the time reasonably required to complete the mission of issuing a ticket for the [traffic] violation.”  Rodriguez, supra, at 350-351.

For more information about suppression of evidence issues with prolonged detentions, please click on the following articles: