In United States v. Campbell, No. 16-10128 (Jan. 8,
2019) (Tjoflat, Martin, Murphy (E.D. Mich.)), the Court affirmed the
denial of a motion to suppress.
The Court first concluded that the highway patrolman had reasonable
suspicion to stop a motorist based on a rapidly blinking turn signal. The Court relied on Georgia law, which not
only required that the turn signal clearly indicate an intention to change
lanes but that it be in good working condition.
Because a rapdily blinking signal indicated that something was not in
good working condition, it gave the officer reasonable suspicion to believe
that the car was in violation of the traffic code.
However, the Court found that the officer unlawfully
prolonged the stop by asking questions unrelated to the stop. Relying on the Supreme Court's 2015 decision
in Rodriguez v. United States, the Court found that an officer
unlawfully prolongs a stop where, without reasonable suspicion, he diverts from
the stop's purpose and adds time to the stop in order to investigate other
crimes. That standard, the Court found, abrogated the
Eleventh Circuit's earlier precedents, which had employed a general
reasonableness standard. Applying the
correct standard, the Court concluded that the officer in this case unlawfully
prolonged the stop -- not by asking about the driver's travel plans (which was
related to the reason for the stop), but by asking whether he had contraband in
the car, which added 25 seconds to the stop.
The Court nonetheless affirmed by applying the good-faith
exception to the exclusionary rule, because the officer's conduct was permissible
under Eleventh Circuit precedent at the time of the stop. Although the government did not raise the good
faith exception on appeal, the parties addressed the issue in the district court,
waiver was a prudential doctrine, and ignoring the exception here would be a
miscarriage of justice by suppressing the truth for no reason other than to
teach the government's counsel a lesson.
Judge Martin concurred in part and dissented in part,
disagreeing with the majority's decision to apply the good faith exception
despite the government's failure to raise it.
She would "not put this Court in the business of resusciating
arguments the government was made aware of, then clearly abandoned. In my experience, this Court rarely extends
the same courtesy to the criminal defendants and pro se litigants who
come before us."
