Opinion
Case No. 01-892-CR-ALTONAGA.
April 15, 2004
ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS
THIS CAUSE came before the Court for an evidentiary hearing on April 1, 2004, on Defendant, Anthony Flowers' Motion to Suppress Evidence [D.E. 348]. The Court has carefully considered the testimony and evidence presented, and is otherwise fully advised.
I. Factual Findings
At approximately 12:32 a.m. on July 4 or 5, 1993, Master Deputy Ron Wilcox of the Orange County Sheriff's Office was working traffic on the Florida Turnpike and stopped Defendant, Anthony Flowers' ("Flowers") vehicle because the radar showed it to be traveling 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour speed zone. Upon stopping Flowers' vehicle, Officer Wilcox asked him to pull the car onto the grass off the paved shoulder, and to step out of the car and keep his hands clear. Flowers complied. In response to Officer Wilcox's request to see a driver's license and vehicle registration, Flowers produced his driver's license and a rental agreement for the car, showing it to have been rented by a Keith Coffee, whom Flowers identified as his cousin.
According to Officer Wilcox's testimony, given some 10 years after the traffic stop, Flowers was informed he had been pulled over for speeding, and he "wasn't concerned with that." Furthermore, when he was told the Officer was writing him a ticket, Flowers was "very, very casual." Now, Officer Wilcox found this lack of concern suspicious because, "[i]t was routine for an individual to show some concern if they were going to get a ticket." Contrary to this sequence of events as described by Officer Wilcox, in the police report the Officer prepared following the incident, he wrote: "I observed that Anthony Flowers appeared to be extremely nervous as he spoke to me. I informed Anthony Flowers that I was issuing him a speeding citation. I observed that Anthony Flowers showed little or no concern that he was getting a citation."
The discrepancy in the timing of Flowers assuming a casual, rather than concerned air could be explained by the length of time since the Officer first recorded his observations. Certainly, more than 10 years had elapsed since the events occurred and their narration by the Officer in court. Nonetheless, the Officer did read his report and meet with counsel for the Government before testifying. Thus, the absence of any mention during Officer Wilcox's in-court testimony that Flowers initially was "extremely nervous" upon being pulled over, in light of the apparent significance Flowers' change in attitude had in arousing the Officer's suspicions, as the Government argued at the hearing, and as is explained further below, leads the undersigned to conclude that Flowers never initially exhibited "extreme" nervousness, as was noted in the report.
After the Officer advised Flowers he would be receiving a citation, he questioned Flowers about his travel. Flowers responded that he was traveling back from Atlanta, Georgia, but could not specifically remember where he had been. The fact that he had called a friend to get him to his location in Atlanta, and could not tell the Officer exactly where he had gone, made the Officer more suspicious. According to the veteran Police Officer, it was part of his responsibility as a criminal patrol officer to "find out what an individual is up to." Flowers further informed Officer Wilcox that his driver's license had once been suspended and he had once been on probation for a drug arrest.
While it should not be unusual for a person traveling interstate to fail to remember precisely the location he was coming from, based on the temporal proximity of Flowers' visit to Atlanta to his questioning by the Officer, Officer Wilcox was skeptical when Flowers was unable to identify where in Atlanta he had just come from. That Wilcox became suspicious as a result of the imprecise answer is apparent from the subsequent actions taken.
Four to five minutes after pulling Flowers over, Officer Wilcox "was met" by Deputy Ronnie Bradshaw, who was accompanied by Argo, a police dog. Detective Bradshaw's police report indicates he was "requested" by Officer Wilcox. According to Officer Wilcox's testimony, the combination of factors that had aroused his suspicions — the Defendant's lack of concern coupled with an inability to describe precisely where in Atlanta he had been — led to a decision in his mind to "run the dog real quick." He so told Deputy Bradshaw. In his police report Officer Wilcox explains that Deputy Bradshaw told Flowers he was going to walk his dog around the vehicle, and Flowers said "go ahead." His in-court testimony is silent on this critical issue of "consent," leading the undersigned to conclude that no verbal consent was in fact given by Flowers. The dog began his work at approximately 12:43 a.m. Of course, Argo gave an active alert to the presence of drugs.
It was then that Officer Wilcox "[f]inished up with the ticket." He continued to question Flowers, asking him what he had in the car, whether he had any weapons, drugs or large amounts of currency in the car, and asking him to empty out the contents of his pockets. Flowers said he had a small amount of luggage in the car.
Officer Wilcox was concerned about a pant pocket that appeared to be bulging. Upon inquiry by the Officer as to its contents and whether he could put everything that was inside his pockets on the hood of the police car, Flowers removed approximately $400 from his pocket, and all the while was "very casual." Flowers told the Officer the money was his pay from working with his father's construction company. After ascertaining that Flowers was unarmed, Officer Wilcox asked Flowers if he could search the car, and Flowers said "no problem."
In the search, as Officer Wilcox approached the back seat of the car, Flowers began showing signs of nervousness, putting his head down, stretching his neck and looking like someone who was very upset about something, although he never said anything verbally. When Officer Wilcox felt a lump on the felt-type material in between the back seat and the back, he used a knife to cut the area. Inside he found a brick-size object which, upon later inspection, yielded $19,400 in dollar bills of different denominations.
Deputy Bradshaw performed a secondary search and found nothing else. No drugs were ever found. When Officer Wilcox questioned Flowers about the brick-sized object, Flowers first said he had no idea what it was. He then said it was not his, and he started walking away saying he had never seen that before. When asked by the Officer as to what could be inside, Flowers surmised it could be drugs, from things he had seen on television. When he was told by the Officer it was money, Flowers said he had no idea where it had come from. The nervousness and ashen, sweaty look that had been on Flowers' face disappeared, replaced by the casual stance he had shown earlier.
Later, when he was offered the opportunity to travel with the officers present to a location where the money would be counted and confiscated, Flowers declined. He did ask for a form to take back to "the people who own this money," because he did not want them to think he had stolen it. Officer Wilcox knew then that Flowers was lying about not knowing anything concerning the money. He advised Flowers that "at no time" had Flowers been under arrest, and that he was "free to go." Flowers signed a form indicating he did not wish to go with the officers and then was allowed to leave.
By the time Officer Wilcox gave Flowers the speeding ticket, the canine had just alerted to the presence of narcotics. It was after the alert and issuance of the ticket that the searches of the car took place. From the time of the stop to the issuance of the speeding ticket, approximately nine minutes elapsed. From the time of his stop to the time Flowers was permitted to leave, it was approximately an hour and forty-five minutes.
II. Issues Raised
The foregoing facts raise two issues concerning the legality of the search and seizure. The first issue presented is whether the traffic stop took longer than necessary to process a speeding ticket. Once the speeding ticket was written, the next issue is whether Officer Wilcox had a reasonable and articulable suspicion sufficient to detain Flowers after the initial traffic stop had concluded by the writing of the citation, until the time Flowers was advised he could leave following the tearing out of the package containing the money.
III. Analysis
Flowers does not challenge that his traffic stop was properly initiated due to his driving over the speed limit, and thus does not suggest the Officer's action was not justified at its inception. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20 (1968). Rather, Flowers maintains that all evidence seized as a result of the foregoing events, and any and all statements and derivative evidence flowing therefrom, should be suppressed because they are the result of a search and seizure that violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Under the exclusionary rule, evidence obtained in an encounter that violates the Fourth Amendment, including evidence derived from the illegal conduct, cannot be used in a criminal trial against the victim of that illegal search and seizure. United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099, 1112 (11th Cir. 1990).
This is because the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects persons from unreasonable searches and seizures. Traffic stops, like the one that occurred here, are seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653 (1979). The legality of such a stop is analyzed under the standard articulated in a Supreme Court decision that did not involve a traffic stop, the decision of Terry v. Ohio. A traffic stop is considered an intermediate category of police-citizen encounters. The other two categories of police-citizen encounters are the "brief, consensual and non-coercive interactions that do not require Fourth Amendment scrutiny, Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429 (1991)," and the "technical arrests, full-blown searches or custodial detentions that lead to a stricter form of Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975)." United States v. Perkins, 348 F.3d 965, 969 (11th Cir. 2003).
What occurred to Flowers was an investigatory stop, and certainly "[a] brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time." Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145-46 (1972) (citations omitted). The Fourth Amendment allows law enforcement officers to conduct brief investigatory stops based upon a showing of reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is about to be committed. Terry, 392 U.S. 1; United States v. Lee, 68 F.3d 1267, 1270 (11th Cir. 1995). Reasonable suspicion requires "specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. Reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch, but less than probable cause, and is to be determined based upon the totality of the circumstances; it is to be gleaned from facially innocuous actions when viewed through the eyes of a trained, experienced police officer. Lee, 68 F.3d at 1271.
The analysis to be applied to the legality of the investigatory stop under Terry requires the Court to principally consider two questions. The first is whether an officer's actions during the traffic stop were "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." United States v. Purcell, 236 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). The second inquiry is whether the duration of the stop was limited to the time necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop. Id. (citing United States v. Pruitt, 174 F.3d 1215, 1219 (11th Cir. 1999)). In other words, the stop may not take "`any longer than necessary to process the traffic violation' unless there was "articulable suspicion of other illegal activity." Id. (quoting United States v. Holloman, 113 F.3d 192, 196 (11th Cir. 1997)). See also United States v. Hardy, 855 F.2d 753, 759 (11th Cir. 1988) ("Several issues and circumstances are deemed relevant to the analysis, including the law enforcement purposes served by the detention, the diligence with which the police pursue the investigation, the scope and intrusiveness of the detention, and the duration of the detention.") (citations omitted).
A. The Traffic Stop 1. Scope of the Traffic Stop
Although not specifically articulated as such by Flowers, the actions taken by the Officer that could arguably have exceeded the permissible scope of an investigatory stop are: 1) the request that Flowers exit his vehicle; 2) the questioning by the Officer as to Flowers' whereabouts in Atlanta; 3) the questioning as to the status of Flowers' driver's license and registration; 4) the questioning of Flowers' criminal background, if any; 5) the questioning as to the contents of the car; and 6) the request that Flowers empty his pockets. First, because the Officer had probable cause to stop the Defendant for speeding, he could lawfully order the Defendant out of the automobile. See Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997). That request did not broaden the scope of the stop. And the request that Flowers empty out his bulging pant pockets, made after Argo had alerted, is consistent with the Officer's authority to conduct a protective search of the driver and vehicle for the Officer's safety. See Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 111 (1977); Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049-51 (1983).
Questioning, of itself, constitutes neither a search nor a seizure. Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279 (quoting United States v. Shabazz, 993 F.2d 431, 436 (5th Cir. 1993)). Nonetheless, questioning may exceed the permissible scope of an investigatory stop under certain circumstances. The Eleventh Circuit has not established or adopted any particular guideline or test to determine when that scope has been exceeded. It has recognized two divergent lines of cases, a test from the Tenth Circuit and a test from the Fifth Circuit. The test from the Tenth Circuit "limits the questions a police officer may ask to those questions that are justified by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or reasonable safety concerns." United States v. Boyce, 351 F.3d 1102, 1111 (11th Cir. 2003) (citing Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279). The Fifth Circuit test "holds that questions unrelated to the reason for the initial stop are only unlawful if they extend the duration of the initial seizure." Id.
Under either test, questioning regarding the driver's license and registration, and the resulting perusal of the rental agreement, were permissible. Indeed, the Eleventh Circuit has recognized that if a rental agreement shows the person detained is not authorized to drive the vehicle, such information "raises a reasonable suspicion that the car is stolen." Id. at 1109.
Given that there is no evidence that the Officer ran a computer check on Flowers to ascertain his criminal background, if any, the questioning regarding whether or not Flowers had a criminal background was certainly related to the Officer's reasonable safety concerns associated with a midnight stop and consistent with his request for a back-up unit. See Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1278 (quoting United States v. McRae, 81 F.3d 1528, 1535-36 n. 6 (10th Cir. 1996) ("In the context of the `tragedy of the many officers who are shot during routine traffic stops each year, the almost simultaneous computer check of a person's criminal record, along with his or her license and registration, is reasonable and hardly intrusive.'")). Officer Wilcox appeared to ask the questions regarding criminal background as part of his routine in gathering information before issuing a citation. In Purcell, the court found that so long as a criminal computer check did not prolong the stop beyond a reasonable time, such request did not constitute a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. at 1279. Cf. Boyce, 351 F.3d at 1107 (officer "did not request a criminal history check as part of his routine computer check.". . . . [He] "did not request the criminal history check until several minutes after he had written the warning."). In this case, asking Flowers the question certainly took less time than running a computerized criminal history check would have, and Officer Wilcox asked the question prior to writing the citation.
Officer Wilcox's questions concerning the contents of the car were asked after Argo had provided an active alert, and thus after Officer Wilcox had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The initial, valid seizure had at that moment changed from a routine traffic stop to an investigative stop based on suspicions of criminal activity other than the traffic violation, particularly since the ticket had just been written. See, e.g., United States v. Long, 320 F.3d 795, 800 (8th Cir. 2003) ("an investigative stop can grow out of a traffic stop so long as the officer has reasonable suspicion to expand his investigation, even if his suspicions are unrelated to the traffic offense that served as the basis for the stop") (citation omitted). Moreover, the Officer's concerns for his safety had at that moment become more heightened, and thus also justified the questions.
As to Officer Wilcox's earlier questions regarding where Flowers was coming from, and what neighborhood in particular he had been in Atlanta, that discussion certainly served to extend the duration of the initial seizure, in that it diverted the Officer away from his intended objective of writing a speeding ticket. The Officer became involved in trying to find out what part of town Flowers had been in to a very detailed degree:
It was casual conversation. "Mr. Flowers, where are you coming from tonight?"
It's a little bit after midnight on a holiday. He informed me he was coming from Atlanta, Georgia. He had visited some friends and he was traveling back to South Florida and, respectively, I do have relatives, I did have relatives at the time that lived in Atlanta and I started just casually asking him about "Did you go to Georgia Tech? Did you go near the Tech Bowl?"
I forget now the name of the county my brother moved from. "Did you happen to go to this place?" Mr. Flowers, did not recognize I was being inquisitive to try to find out if he really was coming from Atlanta, Georgia.
He said he did not remember where he had been, but he had to call a friend to get him to the location. That seemed a little bit suspicious because he sounded like a real intelligent person and if I had been traveling to Atlanta, Georgia I would know where I had been.
Nonetheless, the Officer did indicate that it was his routine and obligation to find out what an individual had been up to before being stopped for a traffic infraction. This routine practice finds support in the law. For example, the Eleventh Circuit in Boyce acknowledged that "conflicting answers about where one is traveling to or from may give rise to a suspicion of drug activity because most drivers know the answer to these questions and because the driver may be trying to hide the fact that he is going to or coming from a known drug-source state." 351 F.3d at 1109 (citing United States v. Williams, 271 F.3d 1262, 1270 (10th Cir. 2001) and United States v. Wood, 106 F.3d 942, 947 (10th Cir. 1997)). Thus, such questioning did not extend the scope of the initial stop impermissibly.
2. Duration of the Traffic Stop
According to the Eleventh Circuit in its most recent pronouncement on the subject of what constitutes an acceptable duration for a traffic stop:
An officer may only prolong a traffic stop in special circumstances. First, police officers conducting a traffic stop may "prolong the detention to investigate the driver's license and the vehicle registration, and may do so by requesting a computer check." Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1278. Similarly, out of interest for the officer's safety, we have found that officers may permissibly prolong a detention while waiting for the results of a criminal history check that is part of the officer's routing traffic investigation. Id. At 1278. In addition, an officer may prolong a traffic stop if he has "articulable suspicion of other illegal activity." Boyce, 351 F.3d at 1106.
The canine sniff in this case occurred at approximately 12:41 a.m., nine minutes after Flowers was first pulled over for speeding, and before Officer Wilcox had finished processing the speeding ticket. Deputy Bradshaw arrived at the scene shortly after Flowers was pulled over, and the Defendant was not kept waiting for the canine unit. Thus, the nine minutes preceding the canine sniff and corresponding issuance of the speeding ticket, are the relevant ones in the examination of whether the officer detained Flowers longer than was necessary to conclude the initial traffic stop. See Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279.
Certainly, nine minutes constitutes a reasonable and not unduly long period of time to process a speeding ticket. See cases cited in Perkins, 348 F.3d at 970 ( Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1278 (fourteen minutes not unreasonable on its face); Hardy, 855 F.2d at 761 (50-minute investigative stop not unreasonable); cf. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 709 (1983) (90-minute Terry stop probably too long); United States v. Codd, 956 F.2d 1109, 1111 (11th Cir. 1992) (two-and-a-half hour investigative detention too long)). See also United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491, 1502 (10th Cir. 1996) (30-minute wait for computer check during traffic stop found reasonable). Nevertheless, it is important to carefully examine what occurred during the nine or so minutes to ascertain whether Officer Wilcox used any improper basis to prolong the stop longer than it would have taken him to issue a speeding ticket.
The conversation regarding where in Atlanta Flowers had been unquestionably served to prolong the stop longer than if the Officer had refrained from such inquisition. The rest of the chatter pertained to reviewing the driver's license, checking the rental agreement in lieu of vehicle registration, ascertaining that Flowers was the proper driver, and making checks associated with officer safety. The initial question, then, is whether the few minutes spent talking about Atlanta rise to a constitutional violation. In Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279, a three-minute detention after the requested information arrived was considered de minimus and not unconstitutional. See Boyce, 351 F.3d at 1107 n. 4. Moreover, that "casual" questioning regarding Flowers' whereabouts prior to the stop appeared to be part of Officer Wilcox's routine. Thus, the few seconds or minutes spent ascertaining where Flowers had been in Atlanta does not render the corresponding detention of Flowers during that time impermissible under Terry, particularly given the recognition that "conflicting answers about where one is traveling to or from may give rise to a suspicion of drug activity." Boyce, 351 F.3d at 1109.
The next event that may arguably have caused a delay in the processing of the speeding ticket was the canine sniff. However, the facts do not support such a conclusion. While Deputy Bradshaw walked Argo around the vehicle, Officer Wilcox continued at his location and did not participate in the canine sniff by either leading Argo around or by stopping to observe. Officer Wilcox indicated he certainly became aware of the active alert by Argo, but his awareness occurred while he was still positioned next to Flowers and while he was still working on issuing the ticket, which he did shortly thereafter. Thus, the canine sniff, which is certainly not a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, see United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983), did not serve to impermissibly prolong the traffic stop, the purpose of which had concluded through issuance of the ticket.
B. Reasonable Suspicion to Detain Flowers Beyond the Traffic Stop
Once Argo gave his active alert during the period Flowers was lawfully detained in the context of the traffic stop, Officer Wilcox had more than a reasonable and articulable suspicion sufficient to detain Flowers beyond the initial traffic stop. It is this fact that makes this case distinguishable from Boyce, upon which the Defendant relies to request that all evidence seized from the July 1993 traffic stop be suppressed. Flowers maintains that reasonable suspicion was lacking and that the total length of his detention was unreasonable. Because, indeed, Boyce appears to raise similar, if not identical, factual and legal issues as the ones presented here, a careful review of Boyce is necessary to ascertain whether Boyce requires the result urged by Flowers.
In Boyce, the defendant was stopped for driving under the speed limit and weaving on the highway in Liberty County, Georgia, at 11:23 p.m. 351 F.3d at 1104. The entire traffic stop was captured on videotape. Like Flowers, Boyce handed the officer, Edwards, his driver's license and rental agreement, and also was engaged in conversation with the officer. Id. In explaining that he was tired from driving since the morning, Boyce was unclear as to whom he was going to visit, whether she was his "girlfriend" or "ex-girlfriend." Id. As to his trip, Boyce also said he planned to return two days after the rental agreement indicated the car was to be returned. Id.
The officer in Boyce became suspicious, but nonetheless told Boyce he was only going to give him a warning. Id. at 1105. After writing the warning, the officer requested a criminal history check. Id. Several minutes later, the officer asked Boyce if there were any drugs or weapons in the car and asked if he could search the car. Id. When Boyce refused, he was asked to wait for the arrival of a drug dog unit Edwards had called for. Id. The drug dogs alerted on Boyce's trunk and a search yielded containers of marijuana and ecstasy. Id.
The Eleventh Circuit found that the evidence should have been suppressed for several reasons. First, the court rejected the government's argument that waiting for a criminal history check may serve to prolong a traffic stop, because the check was not requested until after the warning had already been written and could therefore not serve to prolong Boyce's detention. Id. at 1107. Second, the court rejected the district court's factual finding that factors existed giving rise to a reasonable suspicion by the officer that Boyce was engaged in criminal activity because the indicia of nervousness testified to by the officer were completely and utterly contradicted by the images captured on videotape. Id. at 1108-1109. The officer was totally discredited. Furthermore, the "discrepancies" in Boyce's answers as to his girlfriend's status, and his plan to return the rental car late, did not create a reasonable suspicion either. Id. at 1109. "Because the totality of the circumstances are not sufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that Boyce was involved in criminal activity, Edwards [the officer] could not lawfully hold him beyond the time of the initial investigation." Id. at 1110.
It was significant to the court in Boyce that the decision to detain the defendant and call the drug unit was prompted by Boyce's refusal to allow a search of his car:
The only significant event between the time that Edwards wrote the warning citation and the time Boyce [sic] called the drug dog unit was Boyce asserting his constitutional right not to let Edwards search his car. . . . [T]he tape shows that Edwards immediately called in the drug dog unit after Boyce refused to allow a search. The immediacy of Edwards's response also indicates to us that the refusal to consent was the deciding factor for Edwards to continue Boyce's detention. The police cannot base their decision to prolong a traffic stop on the detainee's refusal to consent to a search. Such a refusal may only be considered when the police have already observed, before asking for permission to search, facts sufficient to raise a reasonable suspicion.Id. Lastly, the court found questioning by the officer concerning whether Boyce was carrying any contraband exceeded the permissible scope of an investigatory stop because it extended the duration of the seizure, there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and there was no testimony that it was concern for officer's safety that prompted the questions. Id. at 1111.
The present case is distinguishable from Boyce principally because Flowers was not required to wait while the canine was summoned or the sniff conducted. The fortuitous presence of Argo and Deputy Bradshaw, and the resulting canine sniff, did not operate to prolong the traffic stop. The results of the canine sniff were received before the ticket was completed, and thereupon the speeding ticket was given to Flowers. Nothing else remained to be done regarding the traffic citation at that point.
Certainly, the undersigned agrees with the Defendant that neither his casual air, nor his inability to recall precisely the location he had visited in Atlanta, support a finding of reasonable suspicion by Officer Wilcox. Flowers' casual attitude may have been his way of handling the "unsettling show of authority" resulting from the midnight stop. See Perkins, 348 F.3d at 970 (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 657 (1979)). Had Flowers first been nervous and later relaxed visibly when told he was only receiving a speeding ticket, as the Government suggested in argument, such change in attitude may have supported a suspicion by the Officer. However, as previously noted, such change in attitude simply did not occur.
Flowers' inability to give a street name and number in Atlanta is also not unusual without the Officer knowing more about his memory, attention to detail, and intellect. The only basis for a reasonable and articulable suspicion to further detain Flowers arose from the results of the canine sniff, which was not impermissible in light of the rapidity with which it was performed. Moreover, no reasonable suspicion was necessary to conduct the canine sniff itself. See Merrett v. Moore, 58 F.3d 1547, 1553 n. 11 (11th Cir. 1995) (a canine sniff of the exterior of a car in a public area, such as during a traffic stop, is not an unconstitutional search, even if conducted without an individualized reasonable suspicion of drug-related criminal activity, "so long as the use of the dogs did not make the delay caused by the [traffic stop] unreasonable"). "A person's privacy interest in his automobile on a public road is less than a person's privacy interest in his residence. The use of dogs on the exterior of cars constitutes no search." Id. at 1553 n. 11 (citing cases in accord from other circuits).
All activity from the time of the issuance of the ticket to the conclusion of the detention pertained to ascertaining whether there was any contraband in the vehicle, consistent with the dog's alert and the resulting reasonable and articulable suspicion sufficient to support the search of the vehicle, and the later efforts to secure the contraband located.
For the foregoing reasons, it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion to Suppress [D.E. 348] is DENIED. DONE AND ORDERED.