A California Court of Appeals has ruled that a driver who was pulled over for making an unsafe lane change, then detained while a police officer conducted an illegal “dog sniff,” will get a new trial where the evidence gathered by the ”certified narcotics collection police dog” will be suppressed.

In a 2-1 decision by Division Three of California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, authored by Justice Joanne Motoike on July 14, the appellate court reversed the defendant’s misdemeanor conviction for possession of methamphetamines and drug paraphernalia. The opinion found that while the initial police stop was lawful at its inception, it violated the Fourth Amendment because its “manner of execution unreasonably infringe(d) interests protected by the federal constitutional standards... concerning the suppression of evidence obtained during a governmental search and seizure.”

The illegal search occurred when then Anaheim Police Department Officer Anthony McGlade and his partner, a dog named Titan, followed the pickup truck driven by defendant Joseph Gyorgy one March afternoon in 2018. McGlade had received a tip from an undercover officer who was staked out at the Tampico Hotel in Anaheim where drug trafficking was a problem. The officer saw Gyorgy at the motel and thought he had “acted suspiciously.” McGlade followed the defendant’s truck and pulled it over when the driver “abruptly” changed lanes in violation of the California Vehicle Code that requires signals and forbids turns that are not made with “reasonable safety.”

McGlade activated his body camera and proceeded to question Gyorgy, who had proper identification, was not on parole, and had no weapons, but admitted he was a registered sex offender with two additional arrests for non-violent felonies. Gyorgy also told McGlade he had been staying at the Tampico motel. The officer told Gyorgy to get out of his pickup and to sit on a curb while he awaited the arrival of another officer so he could be patted down for “safety purposes.”

The other officer arrived “five or six minutes” after the traffic stop. About a minute later, McGlade took Titan from his police car and over Gyorgy’s objections, told the defendant he had a right to investigate the truck. The dog began to sniff 11 minutes and 54 seconds after the initial traffic stop. During the sniff, Titan “alerted” the officers about a suspicious smell that came from under the truck. The dog then entered the truck, where he also sniffed drugs. McGlade and his fellow officer then searched the truck and found methamphetamines as well as a handgun and ammunition, which were illegal because of his felony convictions.

Gyorgy was arrested and charged with “unlawful possession of drugs, paraphernalia, a firearm and ammunition.” Before his preliminary hearing, he filed a motion to suppress all the evidence because the police officer violated the state’s Penal Code when they detained him in “an unreasonable and prolonged manner.” California’s Office of the Attorney General, which prosecuted the case, argued the officers had a reasonable suspicion to detain Gyorgy because of his initial Vehicle Code violation and the findings from Titan’s sniff of the pickup’s exterior. On cross-examination of the officers, the court learned that no citation for violations of the state’s Vehicle Code had ever been written. The officer said no citation was needed because there was already probable cause to search the truck.

Orange County Superior Court Judge H. Shaina Colover denied Gyorgy’s motion to suppress the evidence believing the officers’ actions met the requirements of the California Penal Code. After the preliminary hearing, the defendant tried again for a motion to suppress. This time, the motion was again denied by Judge Gary S. Paer, who said it had been a lawful traffic stop with lawful, non-prolonged detention and probable cause to search due to the dog sniff. Paer found no Fourth Amendment violation since there was no unreasonable search or seizure. At trial, Gyorgy was convicted of the misdemeanor charges of possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia.

The California Appellate court opinion reversed Gyorgy’s conviction, noting, “A seizure for a traffic violation justifies” only a “relatively brief encounter,” the length of which is determined by balancing the traffic violation against safety concerns. The stop may “last no longer than is necessary to effectuate that purpose… (and) authority for the seizure thus ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are – or reasonably should have been--completed.”

Judge Motoike’s opinion cites precedent from the United States Supreme Court that ruled “on-scene investigation into other crimes detour from the traffic stop’s mission” and found that it is illegal to “detour” from that mission.” In addition, McGlade made several other errors during the traffic stop. McGlade did not verify the validity of Gyorgy’s license, did not check that he was the owner of the pickup, and neither he nor his fellow officer wrote a proper citation. He also improperly questioned Gyorgy about his criminal history.

In addition, Motoike was not persuaded by the prosecutor’s arguments that the extended stop was “supported by reasonable suspicion of independent criminal activity.” Instead, she found that the dog sniff was “unrelated to any investigation of Gyorgy’s (vehicle) registration status” and the call from the undercover office was “insufficient to create a reasonable suspicion Gyorgy was “involved with drugs.”

The opinion concluded that because the “prolonged stop was unreasonable within the meaning of the

Fourth Amendment, the trial court erred by denying the motion to suppress.” Judgment was reversed, defendant’s convictions were vacated, and Gyorgy’s case was remanded. It will next be heard without Titan’s sniff-related evidence.