Photo by Mesa0789 on Flickr
Ever been pulled over by the Police and the first thing an officer says is, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
Or worse, after the obligatory “license, registration and proof of insurance” demand, the patrolperson asks, “where are you coming from?” “Where are you going to?” “Do you still live at this address?”
According to the LA Times, starting January 1st 2024, California law enforcement officers will be required to tell a motorist why they’ve been stopped before they question the driver on any subject.
The bill going into effect in two weeks was written by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), and was passed by the legislature back in 2022. The only exception to the new law is if the officer “reasonably believes that withholding the reason for the stop is necessary to protect life or property from imminent threat.”
The intent of the new law is to restrict “pretextual stops,” in which police may use a minor infraction — sometimes not mentioned to the driver, either at the start of an interaction, or ever — as the basis to pull over a vehicle, smell for illicit drugs, utilize the plain-view doctrine to see if suspicious objects are visible, and use investigatory interview techniques to probe whether other possible crimes have been committed.
California’s new law is potentially very important because the Supreme Court (Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 2015) has ruled that police may not prolong a traffic stop beyond the time reasonably required to complete the issuance of a ticket for the violation. Absence of evidence, police cannot extend a traffic stop fishing for additional violations to charge you with.