I really do not know why I even bother to respond to such utter ignorance, but when normally intelligent people are making fools of themselves, I must admit that I am a little bit of a dick......
The Supreme Court, in Whren v United States (517 US 806 [1996]), unanimously held that where a police officer has probable cause to detain a person temporarily for a traffic violation, that seizure does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution even though the underlying reason for the stop might have been to investigate some other matter.
Some federal and state courts have extended the rule of Wilson, finding that ordering a passenger to remain inside of or to get back into a lawfully stopped vehicle is valid. This issue has been addressed by the United States Courts of Appeal for the Third, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits. See United States v. Moorefield, 111 F.3d 10, 13 (3d Cir.1997) (applying the Wilson analysis to a situation where police officers ordered a passenger to remain in the vehicle and put his hands in the air during a traffic stop, and finding that "the benefit of added officer protection far outweighs this minor intrusion [of ordering the passenger to remain in the car with his hands in the air]"); United States v. Williams, 419 F.3d 1029, 1034 (9th Cir.2005) (finding that "it is reasonable for an officer to order a passenger back into an automobile that he voluntarily exited because the concerns for officer safety originally announced in Wilson, and specifically the need for officers to exercise control over individuals encountered during a traffic stop, outweigh the marginal intrusion on the passenger's liberty interest"); United States v. Holt, 264 F.3d 1215, 1223 (10th Cir.2001) (using the situation where an officer orders a passenger to remain in the vehicle as guidance where "considerations of officer safety [ ] outweigh fairly intrusive conduct during a traffic stop"); United States v. Clark, 337 F.3d 1282, 1288 (11th Cir.2003) (finding that the officer's actions were objectively reasonable in ordering a passenger in the vehicle to get into the car as the officer investigated the violent conduct of the driver and the passenger); Rogala v. District of Columbia, 161 F.3d 44, 53 (D.C.Cir.1998) (finding that, under the circumstances of the case, "it follows from Maryland v. Wilson that a police officer has the power to reasonably control the situation by requiring a passenger to remain in a vehicle during a traffic stop"). In addition, the Court of Appeals of Virginia has addressed a similar issue, citing Rogala in support, and finding that an officer can order the driver of a vehicle back into a car, because such an order is a de minimis intrusion and reasonable due to the "weighty public interest in officer safety." Alston v. Virginia, 40 Va.App. 728, 581 S.E.2d 245, 252 (2003) (internal quotation omitted). In Alston, the Court found that although the circumstances of that case involved an "overtly dangerous" situation, the "reluctance to second-guess the judgment of experienced officers is not limited to such extreme situations."1 Id.
Now our own legally blonde Dreams and her new companion paddlefoot are telling forum members that the law states that you do not have to follow a police officer's command to stay in your car on a routine traffic stop.....pure ignorance, but this is nothing new.....Dreams justs lacks requisite knowledge on these subjects, but heck we all can spew nonsense from time to time.....but when it comes to being legally blonde.....Dreams and her new sidekick paddlefoot have the market cornered.
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