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A dog sniff that led to a man’s conviction on drug and firearms charges did not unconstitutionally prolong the underlying traffic stop, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Thursday.
The case of United States of America v. Adrian L. Johnson, 22-2932, began in January 2021, when Sheriff’s Deputy Matthew Haber began following the car driven by Adrian Johnson after Haber saw Johnson looking beneath his arm — a move the deputy thought might be an attempt to hide Johnson’s face as he passed the marked police vehicle. Haber also ran Johnson’s plate, learned that it was expired and thus pulled him over.
When he ran Johnson’s license, Haber learned that had a suspended license and a prior conviction. Johnson also could not produce registration, so Haber decided to impound the car.
Johnson refused to consent to a search of the car but did allow a search of his person, which revealed $1,600 in cash. He was then placed in the back seat of a police vehicle while officers inventoried his car pursuant to DeKalb County policy for impoundments.
Meanwhile, a police dog alerted to the presence of drugs in Johnson’s car in a sniff that took about 85 seconds. Johnson was handcuffed, though not arrested, and informed that his car would be searched.
That search revealed methamphetamine, a meth pipe, fentanyl, a digital scale and two guns, which led to Johnson’s arrest.
The government subsequently filed drugs and weapons charges against Johnson, who moved to suppress all evidence found in his car as the fruits of an unconstitutional search. But the Indiana Northern District Court found no Fourth Amendment violation and, thus, denied the motion to suppress.
Johnson then agreed to a plea deal that allowed him to reserve his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. He did so, but the 7th Circuit affirmed, rejecting his argument that the dog sniff unconstitutionally prolonged the traffic stop.
“Haber did not have to wait for a colleague to show up with a dog, because he was himself a ‘K-9 Deputy’ and already had a drug-sniffing dog with him,” Senior Judge Diane Wood wrote. “By the time Haber brought the dog to Johnson’s car, Johnson was already in trouble.
“The officers knew that he was driving with a suspended license, and so they had probable cause to arrest him,” Wood continued. “Even if, as the record indicates, Haber did not plan to arrest Johnson for the misdemeanor, he would not have allowed Johnson to drive away without a valid license.
“The district court therefore correctly found that by the time Haber brought the dog out of his vehicle, Johnson ‘was already in police custody and going nowhere.’ The stop was prolonged not by the dog sniff, but by Haber’s discovery that he would have to impound Johnson’s car and not allow him to drive away in it.”
Further, at the time the dog sniff began, Johnson was being walked to a police car, the appellate court noted.
“Securing a person in a police vehicle can be ‘reasonably incidental’ to a traffic stop,” Wood wrote, quoting United States v. Lewis, 920 F.3d 483, 492 (7th Cir. 2019). “That is particularly so in this case; the officers were required to inventory and impound the car, and the alternative to placing Johnson in a police vehicle would have been to leave him standing on a highway on a cold January night.
“… Because Johnson does not challenge the drug-sniffing dog’s reliability, we can accept the district court’s finding that the dog’s alerts gave the officers probable cause to search the car,” Wood concluded, citing Florida v. Harris, 586 U.S. 237, 246-47 (2013). “The search of Johnson’s car therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In light of that fact, we have no need to reach the government’s alternative arguments.”
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