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latitude to protect their own safety. This latitude does not mean that the objective facts should be
reviewed with such deference that officer safety systematically defeats the constitutionally
protected right of citizens to be free of unreasonable seizures. It does mean, however, that
judicial hindsight should be grounded in the reasonableness review that lies at the heart of the
Fourth Amendment. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit observed, “the
Supreme Court’s decision in Rodriguez does not require courts to second-guess the logistical
choices and actions of a police officer that, individually and collectively, were completed
diligently within the confines of a lawful traffic stop.” Hill, 852 F.3d at 384. Here, Officer
Allen’s twelve second exchange, inquiring about weapons, illegal drugs, or “anything crazy,”
was reasonable under these particular circumstances.
II. K
NIGHT-WALKER’S CONSENT WAS NOT TAINTED.
The Court of Appeals further reasoned that the illegal extension of the stop tainted
Knight-Walker’s consent and rendered the subsequent search illegal. That conclusion must be
reversed because we conclude that the stop was not illegally extended. Moreover, the circuit
court found that Knight-Walker’s consent was voluntary. “Whether 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. In the present case, the circuit court’s finding that
Knight-Walker consented to the search is supported by the record. Among other considerations,
after viewing the video of the officer’s interaction with Knight-Walker, the circuit court observed
that the officer “was being polite, she was being polite, everybody was being polite.” Jump to an indexed page (10 of 10)