Summary
approving of Mimms- Wilson rule and holding the rule extends to orders to driver or passenger to remain in the vehicle
Summary of this case from Commonwealth v. GonsalvesOpinion
No. 97-2129
Opinion filed June 17, 1998 JANUARY TERM 1998
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County; Marvin U. Mounts, Jr., Judge; L.T. Case No. 95-7538 CFA02.
Raymond C. Miller of Raymond C. Miller, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Denise S. Calegan, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
We affirm appellant's convictions for resisting an officer and battery on a law enforcement officer, as we hold that Deputy Poston, after lawfully stopping appellant's vehicle and conducting a field sobriety test, could lawfully order appellant to return to his vehicle for the remainder of the traffic stop.
In Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977), the Supreme Court set forth a "bright line" rule, holding that a police officer conducting a lawful traffic stop may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, order the driver to exit the vehicle even when the officer has no reason to suspect foul play from the driver. In reaching this holding, the Court balanced the de minimis incremental intrusion on personal liberty in requiring a person already lawfully stopped to spend his detention outside his vehicle against the "legitimate and weighty" interest in protecting the officer against criminal attacks and the hazards of passing traffic. Id. at 110-11. In Maryland v. Wilson, 117 S.Ct. 882 (1997), the Court extended the holding in Mimms to allow officers to order passengers out of a lawfully stopped vehicle.
We believe that the rationale of Mimms and Wilson applies with equal force to uphold the constitutionality of a police officer's directive to the driver to remain in, or return to, the vehicle during a lawful traffic stop. See United States v. Moorefield, 111 F.3d 10 (3d Cir. 1997); State v. Mendez, 947 P.2d 256 (Wash. Ct. App. 1997); State v. Webster, 824 P.2d 768 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1992).
AFFIRMED.
STONE, C.J., and FARMER, J., concur.