That’s still too long.
The law states a reasonable amount of time for the given stop. No excuse lets them lengthen it to whatever they want.
It’s absolutely true that a traffic stop cannot be extended past the time required to complete the stop.
However, part of “completing the stop” is the signature on the ticket.
And once the officer tell her she’s under arrest, and she refuses, that clock stops, because he now has new probable cause to arrest her for resisting arrest. EVEN IF THE INITIAL ARREST WAS ILLEGAL.
Does everyone reading understand that in Texas, it’s no defense to the charge of resisting arrest to say that the arrest was illegal.
Yes?
That’s not really my point. My point (one of them anyway) is I thought everyone knew to be nice to a cop during a traffic stop in the hopes you get a warning instead of a ticket. Is that not common knowledge? But I also thought everyone knew that the “getting off with a warning” didn’t become official until the cop hands you the warning or says “have a nice day” or whatever and you drive away. Not as soon as he says the magic words “I’m going to give you a warning”
Yes, that’s correct. But courts have never offered a bright-line test… (“Thirty minutes is too long.”) It’s always fact-dependent.
It’s called de-escalating. Sure he doesn’t need a reason, but if he wanted to simply do his job if he gives the driver the reasons why he is stopping writing a warning, apprehending, arresting… then it brings the the entire heated situation down a few notches so that everyone can breathe a little. We all gotta live in this world, some just want to make some people’s lives miserable and that’s really unacceptable and unprofessional in his line of work.
If he changed his mind about arresting her after he gave her the warning, why wasn’t she charged with failure to signal?
Did the trauma of being viciously assaulted cause him to forget this dastardly crime? Or it is more likely that the police officer knew he’d have some splaining to do if he threw her jail over failure to signal, so he came up with a more serious offense–one he didn’t have to prove to anyone?
I will be quite angry if this cop isn’t fired. Police officers shouldn’t behave the way he did. They shouldn’t lie to cover their asses either.
The law is broken if it is legal for a police officer to abuse their authority like this.
After the citation is signed, the law says they can’t then effect an arrest. So the answer to that question is, “Until the citation (or warning) is signed, the officer can change his mind.”
I agree with this 100%
Sorry, I was unclear there…I wasn’t saying that ‘a traffic stop cannot be extended past the time required to complete the stop’ was speculative. Reading the articles, what seemed speculative to me is that this incident WAS extending the stop.
And yes, I understand that aspect. There is a lot of anger and speculation as well as folks thinking that because they feel or believe the law should be some way that’s the way it is in this this thread.
I don’t understand your point with this sentence. Are you saying he changed his mind about giving a warning BEFORE he gave a warning? Are you saying after he changed his mind he MUST charge her with failure to signal in addition to resisting arrest? Maybe you could clarify.
Because, monstro, in cases like this, the usual practice is to charge the most serious set of related charges.
For example, if Brock crosses the street in the middle of the block, Officer Jenny can detain him for jaywalking. If he then shoves Officer Jenny, he’ll be arrested and charged with the assault, and not the jaywalking. And if he shoves her, then grabs her gun and runs off with it, he’ll likely be charged with the serious felony theft and not the jaywalking or the shove.
Agreed. He violated clearly established department policy – policy that exists to prevent situations like this. He’s unsuited to be an officer.
I also agree with this 100%
Welcome to the SDMB, where strong feelings about what the law should be are just as valid as actual citation to statute and caselaw.
Gotcha. And I agree – the officer did not extend the stop within the meaning of Rodriguez.
However, he did extend the stop in a more colloquial way: by being an ass. If he had behaved properly, recognized that it’s perfectly normal to be upset over being stopped, and calmly defused the tension, the stop would have ended sooner, and happier. But that’s beyond the scope of Rodriguez.
Not sure why you don’t get this. The officer did not extend the stop for any reason, good or bad. He was trying to complete the initial stop.
Had she signed the thing, completing the stop, he couldn’t then extend it for another reason (sniffing for drugs, checking with ICE, secondhand smoke).
Any other reading leads to an absurd conclusion.
Officer: License and registration, please.
Citizen hands them over.
Officer goes back to his car, runs them through the system.
Officer: I am writing you a ticket for failure to signal. Sign here, and you can either mail in payment for the fine, or appear in court. Further instructions are on the back.
Citizen: I need a smoke.
Time passes. Citizen lights a cigarette. Checks her cellphone. Fixes her hair. Still hasn’t signed.
Officer: Oops, this stop has gone beyond what is reasonable under Rodriguez. You’re free to go.
I don’t think officers of the peace carry guns in the pokemon isles.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
However, he did extend the stop in a more colloquial way: by being an ass. If he had behaved properly, recognized that it’s perfectly normal to be upset over being stopped, and calmly defused the tension, the stop would have ended sooner, and happier. But that’s beyond the scope of Rodriguez.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I totally agree to this as I said up thread. Thanks for the clarification…appreciated.
I’m not sure this is true. I think an argument can be made that by asking for the cigarette to be extinguished, the stop was unreasonably extended. I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk either way.
From the officer point of view, the argument can be made that he wanted to hand her the warning or ticket to sign, but noticing that she had a lit cigarette, in the interest of saftey he did not want to hand it to her so he could avoid potentially being burned or attacked with the cigarette. He asks her to put it out, she refuses. Then, in the interst of his own safety, he orders her out of the vehicle where he can control the scenario. If that’s how it went down, that wouldn’t be in violation of Rodriguez, IMO.
However, if he orders her out in a retaliatory fashion as a result of her refusal or protected speech, then I think that is more problematic, legally.
Edit: You do get a lot of love, legally speaking, in these threads on the law. Well deserved.
What injury did Encinia sustain?
No he didn’t.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
He has to have probable cause to detain her.
[/QUOTE]
He did have probable cause to detain her.
Regards,
Shodan