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59. Are the man and the passenger correct?
At their joint trial, the man and the passenger claim that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated because the officer improperly (1) stopped the car for speeding as a pretext for investigating a hunch rather than for the stated purpose of issuing a traffic ticket and (2) ordered the passenger to step out of the car even though there was no reason to believe that the passenger was a criminal or dangerous.
A police officer had a hunch, not amounting to probable cause or reasonable suspicion, that a man was a drug dealer. One day while the officer was on highway patrol, her radar gun clocked the man's car at 68 mph in an area where the maximum posted speed limit was 65 mph. The officer's usual practice was not to stop a car unless it was going at least 5 mph over the posted limit, but contrary to her usual practice, she decided to stop the man's car in the hope that she might discover evidence of drug dealing. After she stopped the car and announced that she would be writing a speeding ticket, the officer ordered the man and his passenger to step out of the car. When the passenger stepped out, the officer saw that the passenger had been sitting on a clear bag of what the officer immediately recognized as marijuana. The officer arrested both the man and the passenger for possession of marijuana.
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A is correct. The man and the passenger are incorrect on both grounds. First, the law provides police officers with the option to make a pretextual lawful traffic stop. Here, the vehicle was technically driving over the speed limit, which establishes probable cause to believe a traffic law was being violated. This is permissible even though the officer's ulterior motive was to investigate the drug crime. Second, ordering the passenger out of the car was constitutional because the officer's safety may be in question, and thus ordering the passenger out was permissible.
B is incorrect. Although it is correct that the stop of the vehicle was permissible because it was an objectively justifiable traffic stop (despite the officer's ulterior motive), based on probable cause, it is not true that ordering the passenger out of the car was unconstitutional. During a lawful traffic stop, both the driver and any passengers may be ordered to step out of a car in the interest of officer safety.
C is incorrect. Although it is correct that the officer's order that the passenger step out of the car was constitutionally permissible, it is incorrect that the initial stop was unconstitutional because it was a lawful traffic stop, regardless of the fact that the officer had ulterior motives. Her subjective motivation does not render the traffic stop unconstitutional.
D is incorrect. Neither argument presented by the man and the passenger is correct. The pretextual stop by the officer was constitutional because it was based on probable cause to believe a traffic violation had occurred, which means it was objectively justifiable. Moreover, both the driver and any passengers may be ordered to step out of the car during a lawful traffic stop.