City of Dayton v. Erickson

The court of appeals determined that a “pretextual” traffic stop is constitutionally invalid. The court of appeals defined a “pretextual stop” as one in which a police officer “uses a minor violation of the law to make a stop which the officer would not otherwise make in order to conduct a search or an interrogation for an unrelated, more serious offense for which he does not have the reasonable suspicion necessary to support a stop.” The court of appeals’ majority upheld the trial court’s findings that the traffic stop in this case was a pretext because (1) the police officer did not have an…