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If a driver is detained after the mission of the traffic stop is complete, that is an illegal seizure
and any evidence obtained then is the product of that illegal seizure and must be suppressed.
Likewise, when an officer delays the time it takes to reasonably complete a traffic stop through
unrelated investigation (waiting for a drug dog or through unrelated questioning) such that
evidence is obtained after the stop should have been complete, the evidence is also the product of
an unlawfully extended detention and must be suppressed.
Our prior decision in Matthews v. Commonwealth, 65 Va. App. 334, 344-45 (2015),
flows naturally from Rodriguez. In both cases, the mission of the traffic stop (and the detention
authorized by the reasonable suspicion for that stop) was complete, law enforcement continued
to detain the defendant anyway, and incriminating evidence was then uncovered. After the
traffic stop was completed in Matthews, the officer “issued Matthews a warning for the dangling
object and gave the learner’s permit and ID back to Matthews,” and then asked him to consent to
a search.12 Id. at 340. Matthews agreed. When Matthews sought to suppress this evidence as
the product of an illegal detention, we agreed that Matthews was still seized when the officer
12 Prior to this point, another officer had asked about Matthews’s criminal history and
tattoos, and also asked for consent to search. Matthews, 65 Va. App. at 345. Matthews
suggested that these earlier questions had also “prolonged the stop.” Id. But because even the
“prolonged” traffic stop had unquestionably ended by the time the second officer confirmed with
Matthews (still seized) that he would in fact consent to a search, we did not analyze the
independent impact of the earlier questions.
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