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defendant is unlawfully detained, our Supreme Court has concluded that where consent to search
was the “product[] of an illegal detention” evidence “obtained as a result of the illegal seizure
should have been suppressed as the ‘fruit’ of an illegal seizure.” Harris v. Commonwealth, 266
Va. 28, 34 (2003).11
Before Rodriguez, the federal circuit courts were split on whether the seizure for a traffic
stop remained lawful if the activities related to the traffic stop had concluded, but the driver was
held for only a small amount of extra time while waiting for a drug dog to arrive. Rodriguez
gave a clear answer. 575 U.S. at 355. A lawful detention ends when the “tasks tied to the traffic
infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed.” Id. The traffic stop in Rodriguez
had plainly ended. Yet the officer continued to hold Rodriguez on the scene for seven or eight
more minutes so that a canine sniff could take place. The Court held that this additional
detention was unjustified by the original mission of the stop, so the evidence obtained from that
illegal detention had to be suppressed if no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity justified
detaining Rodriguez beyond completion of the traffic stop. Id. at 357-58.
While the traffic stop in Rodriguez had actually ended before the canine sniff took place,
the Supreme Court made clear that it would have been equally improper to extend a stop through
a seven or eight minute detour earlier in the detention so that the drug dog would arrive before
the stop was completed. For this reason, the “critical question” was “not whether the dog sniff
occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket.” Id. at 357. Expressed in visual form, in both
situations, evidence discovered following a canine alert must be suppressed:
11 Whether consent is the fruit of prior illegality is a separate question from whether
consent was voluntary when given. As I take up later, “[w]hether a consent to a search was
voluntary ‘is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances.’”
Gray v. Commonwealth, 233 Va. 313, 327 (1987) (quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S.
218, 227 (1973)). “The mere fact that a defendant is in custody is not enough in itself to
demonstrate a coerced consent to search.” Id. Jump to an indexed page (23 of 23)