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checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the
driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance.” Id. at 355 (quoting
Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 408 (2005)). “Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied
to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed.” Id. at 349.
Therefore, “[t]he critical question is not whether the [officer’s unrelated investigative inquiry]
occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, but whether [that unrelated investigative
questioning] adds time to the stop.” Id.
Here, the traffic mission for which Allen stopped Knight-Walker was to determine
whether the driver of the vehicle was in violation of Code § 46.2-301 by driving while her
license to drive was suspended. Having determined that Knight-Walker was driving on a
suspended license but that he was not going to arrest her for it and informing her that despite that
decision she could not drive that night, Allen did agree to allow Knight-Walker to arrange for a
means of leaving the stop legally. Allen’s statement that Knight-Walker could not drive the
vehicle that night, but that he was not going to arrest her for the offense of driving with a
suspended license was a warning, concluded the mission of the traffic stop.4 In order to facilitate
her departure from the scene, Knight-Walker, with her cell phone in hand, was in the process of
arranging for her son to come and pick her up but was interrupted when Allen began asking if
there were drugs in the vehicle and seeking permission to search the vehicle. Following the
Supreme Court’s logic in Caballes and Rodriguez, absent reasonable articulable suspicion of
other criminal activity, any amount of time extending the traffic stop beyond this point through
Allen’s unrelated investigative questioning impermissibly extended the stop.
4 Although no summons appears in the record before this Court, there is some indication
that Allen ultimately issued Knight-Walker a traffic summons for driving on a suspended license,
third offense. Nevertheless, the process was interrupted and extended by Allen’s new line of
inquiry regarding drugs. Jump to an indexed page (23 of 23)