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IL: Officer's experience must be credited in finding reasonable suspicion

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Questions to the defendant after his traffic stop were not unreasonable and did not extend the stop. The officer’s experience in evaluating a drug interdiction stop has to be given credit. People v. Roa, 2010 Ill. App. LEXIS 98 (February 10, 2010), (on remand in light of People v. Cosby, 231 Ill. 2d 262, 898 N.E.2d 603, 325 Ill. Dec. 556 (2008)): As stated in our prior opinion, effective and efficient interstate drug couriers can successfully avoid apprehension by camouflaging their illegal activity with something as innocuous as an air freshener. Meaningless minutiae that might go unnoticed by the untrained person may become a significant factor to an experienced drug interdiction officer considering the totality of the circumstances attendant to the traveler at hand...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on February 20, 2010 (boomark / email).