[P-Marlowe]

He did establish what he, and Thomas/Alito thought was reasonable suspicion after stopping the guys, strong masking odor, excessive nervousness, and a suspect story by both, which is all that is required to detain someone for investigation of criminal activity.

The question of reasonable suspicion was not an issue before the Supreme Court. It was basically stipulated that there was no reasonable suspicion and the only issue before the court was whether, in the absence of a reasonable suspicion, the police may detain a driver based on some hunch long enough to bring a police dog to sniff for drugs.

Thomas and Alito had no jurisdiction to question the ruling of the lower court that there was no reasonable suspicion. That was not an issue to be decided. I think Justice Thomas' opinion is way off base. The only question was whether a continued delay after all the basics of a traffic stop has been completed violates the 4th amendment protection against unlawful seizure of a person. In this case I think Scalia was right and Thomas was wrong.

We need to have more protections from this current tyrannical government, not less.

[xzins]

the officer asked whether he could walk his drug-sniffing dog around the vehicle. The driver, Dennys Rodriguez, refused. However, the officer nonetheless detained him for “seven or eight minutes” until a backup officer arrived with a dog of his own

That seemed like an oddity to me. At least, I don't understand it. Why could the traffic stop officer not use his own dog, but it was ok to use a follow-on dog from another officer? At least, that's what that part of the article seems to be saying. It could be poorly written, or I could be poorly understanding.