Question: Can a traffic stop be made by police when a car simply has had brief contact with the fog lines?
Answer:No, officer needs more facts for reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
In 2011, a sheriff’s deputy observed Joanna Robinson briefly drive onto the fog line twice. The deputy decided to stop Robinson for “unsafe lane movement.” After stopping the vehicle, the deputy noticed that the driver had glossy, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and the odor of alcohol on her breath. Robinson admitted to having drunk 1 beer, and she failed 3 field sobriety tests. Without being prompted, Robinson told the deputy that she had marijuana. Based on evidence obtained from this stop, Robinson was convicted of operating while intoxicated and possession of marijuana. On appeal, Robinson challenges the admission of the evidence from the stop, which she had sought unsuccessfully to exclude from trial on the basis that the traffic stop was not supported by reasonable suspicion.
On appeal, Robinson argues that the trial court erred by denying her motion to suppress and admitting the evidence. The Court of Appeals noted that an investigatory stop is permissible under the 4th Amendment if supported by reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion is somewhat an abstract concept, not readily reduced to a neat set of legal rules. When determining reasonable suspicion, the reviewing courts examine the totality of the circumstances of the case to see whether the officer had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting wrongdoing. The reasonable suspicion requirement is met where the facts known to the officer at the moment of the stop, together with the reasonable inferences arising from such facts, would cause an ordinarily prudent person to believe criminal activity has occurred or is about to occur. The State bears the burden of proving that an investigatory stop was not violative of the constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. When an investigatory stop is not supported by reasonable suspicion, the evidence collected as a result is excluded from trial pursuant to the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.
In this case, the trial court found from a video of the stop that Robinson drifted to the right twice and immediately corrected her course. The trial court acknowledged that Robinson’s driving was not inconsistent with that of a driver who was momentarily distracted. Thus, swerving within a lane or onto the fog line may or may not give rise to reasonable suspicion. Factors to consider may include whether there is repeated swerving, whether there is swerving over an extended distance or period of time, whether the driver narrowly avoids hitting an object or causing an accident, whether road or weather conditions might explain the driver’s conduct, and whether the driver over-corrects when returning to the proper lane of travel. In this case, Robinson was driving late at night on a road with some curves. On two occasions, she briefly touched the fog line and then immediately returned to her lane. There is no indication that she swerved sharply or over-corrected. Given the fact that it was dark, that the road had some curves, and that Robinson made only brief contact with the fog line, we conclude that the State failed to establish that the traffic stop was supported by reasonable suspicion that Robinson was impaired. Therefore, the evidence obtained from the stop should not have been admitted. We reverse her convictions, which were dependent on the improperly admitted evidence. 985 N.E.2d 1141