United States v. Bowman, No. 11-1756 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized during the traffic stop that led to his arrest and conviction. The court held that the trooper's prolonged stop of defendant was legitimate and did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights; defendant was not impermissibly seized where there were no facts that indicated that a Fourth Amendment seizure had occurred; the trooper would have had reasonable, articulable suspicion to seize defendant, even if the stop could be deemed a seizure within the purview of the Fourth Amendment; defendant consented to a dog-sniff test; and there was no basis to conclude that the dog was inherently unreliable and that there was no probable cause for the physical search of defendant's car. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. District court did not err in finding that a traffic stop was not impermissibly prolonged; defendant was not seized when the officer asked if could pose a few more questions after he had issued defendant's warning tickets; assuming defendant was seized, the officer had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the seizure; record showed defendant consented to a drug dog sniff; evidence showed the drug dog used was reliable and his alerting provided probable cause to search defendant's vehicle.
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