1. You have a friend or relative who is a police officer.   Although this may work occasionally – depending on who you know and how closely you are connected to him/her – more often than not, mentioning your distant connection to law enforcement, even when done with the best intentions, can backfire. Many officers will not think your friend or relative’s position with, say, the New York State Troopers is relevant to whether you should be cited for speeding in Georgia. Worse yet, it can come across as inappropriate and off-putting. Contrary to popular belief, many speed reductions or warnings (in lieu of a citation) are the result of being genuinely respectful and pleasant during the encounter.

2. You know your rights because you went to law school or studied criminal justice.   In almost every instance, telling the officer you know your rights is an immediate indicator that you, in fact, do not fully comprehend your rights. Very few drivers have a clear understanding of the full scope of their constitutional protections during a traffic stop. And far fewer have any idea as to how to invoke those protections. Usually this statement is viewed as an attempt to intimidate the officer so that he will not issue the citation. However, even a law degree from Harvard will not prevent a police officer from issuing a traffic ticket. In fact, it likely only serves to make issuing the traffic ticket all the more gratifying.

3. You were just keeping up with traffic.This is usually brought up in a manner that implicitly (or explicitly) accuses the officer of unjustly singling out an individual driver. Although it may feel very unfair in the moment, the officer is not singling you out. The fact that “everyone” was speeding is probably why that location has been selected for speed enforcement. Despite the fact that “keeping up with traffic” feels like a perfectly reasonable explanation, is not a legal defense or justification.

4. You are going to hire a lawyer. It is always important to talk to a lawyer when you are charged with a criminal or traffic offense. However, an intemperate remark to this effect while the officer is writing the ticket serves no useful purpose – other than to make you that much more memorable later in court. Since officers frequently have a lot of discretion about how your ticket will be prosecuted in court – including fine and speed reductions – it is usually to your advantage to make a favorable impression or at the very least be completely forgettable during the traffic encounter.

5. Ask him for his badge number and spelling of his name. Knowing the officer’s name is important information to have, however his name and badge number will always be on the ticket. Most of the time this question is asked in a terse, pseudo-threatening manner that implicitly challenges his authority – or at least suggests that you have concerns about the manner in which he has handled the traffic stop. Although many traffic tickets are worth fighting in court, it is never a good idea to antagonize the officer while he is issuing you a speeding ticket on the side of the road. If an officer treats you unfairly during a traffic stop, be sure to address that behavior in court, or at a later time with the police department — but do not confront him in this manner while he is writing up the traffic citation on the side of the road.

EHGlawfirm.com provides the information in this website for informational purposes only. The information is not intended to be legal advice and should not be construed as such. The use of this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Each case is unique. Case results depend on a variety of factors unique to each case, and the results of any case do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any future case undertaken by any lawyer.

This question was first asked in Georgia a few years ago, by both officers and drivers as the first law prohibiting texting while driving went into effect. With regard to the no-texting-while-driving ban, officers wanted to know if they were now required to inspect the driver’s phone to confirm whether they had been texting. As everyone became more accustomed to the new law, officers have become comfortable enforcing this law without routinely searching the cell phones of drivers.

The question of whether a phone may be searched during a traffic stop or subsequent to an arrest was left unresolved and therefore, such searches had been examined on a case-by-case basis. However, the United States Supreme Court weighed in on the propriety of such searches this summer in Riley v. California.

In Riley v. California, police had initiated a traffic stop on Riley. The roadside investigation led to information that implicated Riley in a weapons charge. He was arrested and his cell phone was confiscated. The officers perused the messages and photos saved on his phone. Those photos and messages connected Riley to a local gang and a recent shooting.

Using a number titled “my home” on the phone, investigators traced the number to a physical address. They secured a warrant and searched his residence. They discovered drugs, ammunition, firearms and cash. He was later charged and convicted for his participation in a shooting and the prosecution sought an enhanced sentence based upon Riley’s affiliation with gang activity.

Riley appealed the conviction, claiming the initial warrantless search of his cell phone was illegal. Since the only evidence linking him to the shooting was the phone, Riley argued his conviction should be reversed. The United States Supreme Court agreed.

The Court examined the competing concerns during this type of investigation: the privacy interests of citizens, law enforcement investigative interests and officer-safety interests.

Of paramount concern during any investigation is officer safety. Officer safety is a recognized legal principle that trumps many privacy interests during a citizen-officer encounter. For instance, under normal circumstances, an officer is not permitted to pat down an individual who is not otherwise being arrested. However, if an officer has reason to believe that person presents a physical threat to the officer then he is permitted to perform a pat down – also known as a Terry-Frisk.

Officer safety is not a concern however when an officer comes across a cell phone during the course of an arrest. It is difficult to imagine a scenario wherein an officer’s safety hinges on a warrantless search of a cell phone. Therefore, the Riley Court rejected the notion that officer safety concerns would justify a rule that permitted officers to routinely search cell phones in the absence of a warrant.

Similarly the Court dismissed the proposal that such searches should be permitted because the phone may contain information related to the commission of a crime. The Court distinguished cell phones, with their immense storage capacity from other types of physical objects that may be discovered over the course of an investigation or arrest. Since the information stored on a cell phone can date back for years, and contain very detailed personal information there are very serious privacy concerns at risk. Given the extreme privacy concerns, such searches should normally only be conducted after obtaining a search warrant.

Riley v. California is important for a number of reasons. In a broad sense, it represents a new era for Fourth Amendment concerns as technology cements itself as an omnipresent surveillance system of our day-to-day lives. Our phones track where we go, who we see and what we do. Although this opinion seemingly promotes the protection of privacy, it foreshadows what will likely be a long and arduous battle between privacy and law enforcement interests as we figure out what exceptions will exist and how liberally they will be invoked.

Generally, most lawyers would say yes. If an officer decides he wants to conduct an “open-air search” by walking a K-9 around your car during a traffic stop, normally that is permissible.

The idea behind this kind of search is that a driver has no reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to the air around a vehicle. Since – theoretically – Joe Q. Public would be able to “sniff” the air around the car, there is nothing to prevent a police officer from using his drug dog to do the same.

However, this entitlement is not without exception. On August 13, 2014, the Georgia Court of Appeals sharply limited law enforcement’s ability to conduct these kinds of open-air searches during traffic stops in Bodiford v. State (A14A0683).

In October of 2012, Bodiford was pulled over for speeding 10 miles per hour above the speed limit. For those familiar with Georgia speeding enforcement, it is fairly routine for drivers to exceed the speed limit by 10-12 mph or so, without significant fear of being pulled over. The fact that Bodiford was targeted for this type of traffic stop for a relatively minor infraction at 6:40 pm could be described as somewhat unusual.

At the hearing, the officer described Bodiford as very nervous. He was observed to be sweating excessively, breathing heavily and shaking a bit. The officer had Bodiford exit the car while he issued a written warning. Bodiford signed the citation (which usually is an indicator that the purpose of the traffic stop has been resolved and the encounter has ended), but the officer did not turn the warning over to him. Rather he held onto the ticket and then started questioning Bodiford about the status of his license.

The officer then decided to run a license check. At that point he began to question Bodiford about what was in his car. He asked if there was any contraband. Bodiford told him there was not. The officer asked permission to search his car. At this point Bodiford inquired about his rights – was he required to consent to the search?

In response, the officer goes to his patrol car to retrieve his K-9. This is 9 minutes into the stop. Luckily there is a video of this traffic encounter and dispatch can be heard trying to notify the officer that the license check came back as valid. However the officer ignored dispatch because he wanted to conduct the open-air search.

The K-9 alerted – meaning the K-9 indicated it smelled drugs. And upon a subsequent search of the vehicle, a large quantity of cocaine was discovered under the passenger seat.

Bodiford was charged with trafficking cocaine – a very serious felony offense.

The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision, finding that the search was impermissible. The Court of Appeals found the officer’s conduct very questionable. The officer claimed he was having trouble communicating with dispatch and that was what resulted in the delay. However, the Court of Appeals points out that he had no trouble communicating the original license query and dispatch can be heard very clearly on the video attempting to get the officer’s attention.

Ultimately, the Court of Appeals found that the officer unconstitutionally prolonged the traffic stop. The officer had no additional reason to hold Bodiford – beyond his initial observations that Bodiford appeared nervous – and that was an insufficient reason to hold Bodiford beyond the permissible purposes of writing a ticket and checking his license.