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AK: State constitution bars asking driver for consent in a routine stop without knowing more

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Alaska holds that state constitution provides more protection to motorists in traffic stops such that a request for consent without any factual basis for requesting it was unreasonable. Brown v. State (April 18, 2008): For the reasons explained in this opinion, we join the state courts that have decided that their state constitutions require greater restrictions on police authority in this situation than the restrictions imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We reject the notion that, as long as a police officer’s questions do not extend the expected temporal duration of a traffic stop, the legal nature of the stop remains unaltered even when an officer questions a motorist about other potential crimes and seeks permission to search the motorist and/or the vehicle...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on April 23, 2008 (boomark / email).