COA: Dog sniff didn’t unlawfully prolong traffic stop

A traffic stop that led to a man’s marijuana convictions was not unlawfully prolonged by a dog sniff, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled, so evidence found as a result of the sniff was not improperly admitted at trial.

In Patrick Neil Tinker v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-2880, Fishers Police Officer Joseph Hancock stopped a vehicle heading northbound on Interstate 69 at 11:27 p.m. on Feb. 16, 2016, after observing the car rapidly switching and straddling lanes without signaling. The men inside the vehicle — Patrick Tinker, the driver, and Jerome Dowdell, the passenger — indicated they were heading back to Fort Wayne from Indianapolis, but Hancock had seen them just 45 minutes earlier driving south on I-69. The men also appeared nervous, wouldn’t make eye contact and had “elevated” breathing, so Hancock called for another officer and a K-9 unit.

Once the assisting officer arrived, Hancock asked Tinker to step out of the vehicle at 11:38 p.m., when he began to smell raw marijuana. The K-9 unit arrived at 11:41 p.m., and the dog “quickly alerted” on the vehicle.

A search of the trunk revealed 3.45 pounds of vacuum-sealed marijuana, so both men were arrested, with Tinker facing two counts each of felony dealing in and misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He moved both prior to and during his trial to suppress the evidence found in the trunk, but the Hamilton Superior Court denied his requests, and Tinker was found guilty of one Level 6 felony count and one Class B misdemeanor count.

On appeal, Tinker challenged the admission of the evidence obtained during the search of the vehicle he was driving, arguing the dog sniff unlawfully prolonged the initial traffic stop. But the Court of Appeals disagreed, with Judge Terry Crone writing the dog sniff occurred “within the time reasonably required to complete the stop’s mission.”

Specifically, Crone said the nine minutes that passed after the initial stop at 11:27 p.m. were spent doing registration and background checks on the men, and waiting for another officer, not the K-9 unit, to arrive. Once the K-9 unit arrived, the sniff was conducted one minute after Hancock asked Dowdell to step out of the vehicle and answer questions about where the men were going.

“The canine alerted while the traffic stop was ongoing and before Officer Hancock had completed the mission of the stop,” Crone wrote. “Therefore, the subsequent search of Tinker’s vehicle was not rendered invalid and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence obtained during that search.”