U.S. v. Lewis

In prosecution on charge of possession with intent to distribute heroin, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress drugs seized from defendant’s car following traffic stop, under circumstances, where: (1) officer stopped defendant on suspicion of following too closely; (2) during process of generating warning ticket, officer discovered that defendant, who otherwise appeared to be unusually nervous, was on federal supervised release for cocaine conviction; (3) officer requested drug-sniffing dog roughly five minutes into stop; (4) officer handed defendant warning ticket approximately 11 minutes after defendant had been stopped; (5) about 10 seconds later, drug-sniffing dog arrived and alerted to presence of drugs in defendant car about one minute later; and (6) police subsequently found heroin in defendant’s car. Ct rejected defendant’s claim that officer lacked legal grounds to make instant traffic stop, since officer’s time-distance calculation of 1.2 second delay was sufficient to support belief that defendant was following truck too closely, in spite of defendant’s claim that he had changed lanes to go behind truck to avoid impeding oncoming police vehicle. Ct. further rejected defendant’s claim that officer prolonged stop in order to permit dog-sniff, or that he prolonged detention by taking time to question defendant about matters unrelated to traffic warning. Moreover, one-minute delay occasioned by dog-sniff beyond time it took to complete routine traffic stop was justified by reasonable suspicion.