A traffic stop is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. So is an accident-scene encounter once officers tell you that you cannot leave. Officers may detain you only long enough to complete the mission that justified the stop or encounter. They must pursue that investigation with reasonable diligence. They cannot stall, make small talk after the real work is done, wait for a preferred DUI officer without justification, or expand the detention to investigate a different crime unless they have new, independent reasonable suspicion.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected any “just a few extra minutes” exception. In Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 191 L. Ed. 2d 492 (2015), the Court held that even a de minimis extension of a completed traffic stop, without reasonable suspicion, is an unreasonable seizure. Georgia courts follow that rule. McNeil v. State, 362 Ga. App. 85, 866 S.E.2d 249 (2021), applied it and suppressed the evidence. State v. Jones, 371 Ga. App. 445, 900 S.E.2d 749 (2024), applied the same diligence requirement inside a DUI investigation. And in McDavid v. State, No. A26A0355 (Ga. Ct. App. July 2, 2026), the Court of Appeals reversed DUI convictions after a single-car accident because the State never proved that the first officers on scene lawfully detained the driver while they waited for a DUI task-force sergeant.

The Supreme Court Rule: Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015)

Officer Struble stopped Dennys Rodriguez for driving on the highway shoulder. He checked licenses, ran records, and issued a written warning. At that point he had “took care of all the business.” Rodriguez and his passenger had their documents back. The mission of the stop was finished.

Struble then asked to walk his drug dog around the car. Rodriguez refused. Struble made him wait for a second officer, then ran the dog. Seven or eight minutes elapsed from the written warning until the dog alerted. Methamphetamine was found.

The Eighth Circuit treated that extra time as a permissible “de minimis intrusion.” The Supreme Court vacated that ruling.

Justice Ginsburg wrote:

“We hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures.”

Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 350.

A seizure justified only by a traffic violation “become[s] unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete th[e] mission” of issuing a ticket or warning. Id. at 350–51 (quoting Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407 (2005)). Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354.

The mission of a traffic stop is narrow. It is to address the traffic violation and attend to related safety concerns. Ordinary inquiries that serve that mission include checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants, and inspecting registration and proof of insurance. Those checks serve roadway safety. Id. at 355.

A dog sniff does not. It is “a measure aimed at detect[ing] evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” Id. at 355 (quoting City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 40–41 (2000)). It is not an ordinary incident of a traffic stop and is not part of the officer’s traffic mission.

The Court rejected the government’s “bonus time” argument—that an officer who finishes traffic tasks quickly should get extra minutes to investigate other crimes. “The reasonableness of a seizure … depends on what the police in fact do.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 357. If the officer can complete the traffic inquiries expeditiously, that is the amount of time reasonably required. A stop “prolonged beyond” that point is unlawful. Id.

The critical question is not whether the extra investigation happens before or after the ticket is written. The question is whether it adds time to the stop. Unrelated checks are tolerated only if they do not lengthen the roadside detention. Id. at 354–55 (citing Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333 (2009)). There is no de minimis exception once the mission is complete.

The officer-safety rationale from Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977) (ordering a driver out of the car) does not save an on-scene investigation into other crimes. That kind of investigation “detours from the officer’s traffic-control mission.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356.

Georgia Applies the Rule Strictly: McNeil v. State, 362 Ga. App. 85, 866 S.E.2d 249 (2021)

In McNeil v. State, 362 Ga. App. 85, 866 S.E.2d 249 (2021), a sergeant stopped a rental car on I-85 for following too closely. He obtained licenses, checked warrants, and reviewed the rental agreement. Those steps were proper. Unrelated “small talk” while those tasks were underway also did not unreasonably prolong the stop.

After those tasks were finished, the only remaining job was to issue the written warning. Instead, about eight minutes into the stop, the sergeant walked back to the driver and extensively questioned her about her candle business. He never started writing the warning and never returned the licenses. Consent to search and a later pat-down produced drugs.

The Court of Appeals reversed. It stated the rule in language every Georgia DUI lawyer should know:

“The United States Supreme Court has held unequivocally that the Fourth Amendment does not allow even a de minimis extension of a traffic stop beyond the investigation of the circumstances giving rise to the stop.” McNeil, 362 Ga. App. at 89, 866 S.E.2d at 254 (quoting State v. Drake, 355 Ga. App. 791, 793(1), 845 S.E.2d 765 (2020) (per curiam), and citing Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356–57).

Citing the Georgia Supreme Court in State v. Allen, 298 Ga. 1, 11(2)(c), 779 S.E.2d 248 (2015), the court added that “activities unrelated to the mission of the [traffic] stop must not extend the time of the stop at all, and such a prolongation of the stop is not permissible even if those activities are done in the middle of the stop.” McNeil, 362 Ga. App. at 89, 866 S.E.2d at 254. If an officer “clearly divert[s]” from the traffic investigation to an unrelated task, the stop is unreasonably prolonged. Id.

Once the original mission ends, continued detention is a second detention. That second detention requires its own reasonable, articulable suspicion of other illegal activity. Nervousness is not enough. A legal product that an officer has occasionally seen used to hide drugs is not enough. Minor differences in travel times are not “meaningful inconsistencies.” Id. at 90–92, 866 S.E.2d at 255–56.

The drugs were fruit of the poisonous tree and had to be suppressed. Id. at 92, 866 S.E.2d at 256.

Diligence Inside the Original Investigation: State v. Jones, 371 Ga. App. 445, 900 S.E.2d 749 (2024)

Rodriguez and McNeil address the first category of prolongation claims: the officer finishes the original mission and then keeps you to investigate something else. Georgia’s own Rodriguez v. State, 295 Ga. 362, 369(2)(b), 761 S.E.2d 19 (2014), decided a year before the U.S. Supreme Court case of the same name, also recognizes a second category: the original investigation itself takes too long because the officer is not diligently pursuing it.

State v. Jones, 371 Ga. App. 445, 900 S.E.2d 749 (2024), is the leading recent DUI example of that second category. An officer stopped the driver for turning into an exit lane. Within minutes he smelled alcohol, saw bloodshot and glossy eyes, and heard an admission of drinking “a few.” He told the driver to “hang tight” while he called for a deputy certified to perform the HGN test.

Then the officer did almost nothing. He moved his patrol car and made small talk about the driver’s mother’s health and the officer’s move to Georgia. He was trained to administer the walk-and-turn and one-leg-stand tests. He had a portable breath test in his car. He used neither. Backup arrived about eleven minutes after the call. Field tests and the PBT followed. Arrest came at the 23-minute mark. The officer kept the driver’s license the entire time.

The trial court suppressed everything obtained after the “hang tight” order. The Court of Appeals agreed. The claimed “safety” reason for waiting for backup was rejected because the officer spent the wait chatting outside the car. His “standard procedure” of always waiting for a second officer was treated as personal preference, not a constitutional justification. Jones, 371 Ga. App. at 450–51, 900 S.E.2d at 753–54.

Jones distinguished State v. Holt, 334 Ga. App. 610, 780 S.E.2d 44 (2015), where the officer promptly used a PBT and then waited while handling other work at the scene. Prompt use of available tools matters. Idle waiting does not.

Goode v. State, 367 Ga. App. 849, 888 S.E.2d 662 (2023), reached a similar result when an officer held a driver for about 30 minutes waiting for another deputy to begin the DUI investigation. The State failed to show the wait was reasonably necessary. Goode, 367 Ga. App. at 852–53, 888 S.E.2d at 665.

Single-Car Accidents Are Not a Free Pass: McDavid v. State, No. A26A0355 (Ga. Ct. App. July 2, 2026)

Accident scenes look different from a simple speeding stop. Officers have extra legitimate work—checking for injuries, securing the vehicle, calling a tow. Courts often start the analysis under the community-caretaking function. That does not mean officers can hold a driver indefinitely while they wait for a DUI specialist.

McDavid v. State, No. A26A0355 (Ga. Ct. App. July 2, 2026), is the published single-car-accident case that makes the point.

John McDavid drove his SUV off the road and into a landscaped median in Alpharetta on July 21, 2023. The vehicle was stuck and later had to be towed. Two Alpharetta officers arrived first. Sergeant Dustin Bak of the DUI enforcement unit arrived later, around 11:30 p.m., and “took over” the investigation. Bak smelled alcohol, heard slurred speech, saw McDavid struggle to produce his license, and had to catch McDavid when he fell getting out of the car. Bak conducted field tests, a PBT, and an Intoxilyzer 9000 test at the jail. McDavid was convicted at a stipulated bench trial of DUI per se and DUI less safe under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-391, and of failure to maintain lane.

McDavid’s motion to suppress alleged that the first two officers refused to let him leave on foot or call a ride, told him he had to remain on scene, and told him to get back in his vehicle. At the suppression hearing the State called only Bak. Neither of the first two officers testified. The trial court treated the initial contact as a first-tier encounter that required no suspicion, found a single-car accident investigation rather than a traffic stop, and held the investigation was not unreasonably prolonged.

The Court of Appeals reversed the convictions.

Georgia recognizes three types of police-citizen encounters: consensual first-tier contacts (no suspicion required, so long as the person is free to leave); brief second-tier seizures (reasonable articulable suspicion required); and arrests (probable cause required). The “touchstone” of a first-tier encounter is the citizen’s ability to walk away. An order to stay in the car, remain on scene, or wait for another officer converts the contact into a second-tier detention. See In the Interest of C. B., 353 Ga. App. 383, 384, 837 S.E.2d 544 (2020); State v. Mrozowski, 371 Ga. App. 501, 504, 901 S.E.2d 327 (2024).

On a motion to suppress, the State bears the burden. O.C.G.A. § 17-5-30(b) (“the burden of proving that the search and seizure were lawful shall be on the state”). Once McDavid alleged that the first officers prevented him from leaving, the State had to put on the first officers—or other competent evidence—to either (1) rebut the claim that he was detained, or (2) show the specific facts those officers knew at the moment they detained him. Bak’s later observations of obvious intoxication did not fill that gap. Testimony about events after the detention does not prove what the first officers knew when they told the driver he could not leave. See State v. Assing, 361 Ga. App. 868, 869, 864 S.E.2d 131 (2021); Kazeem v. State, 241 Ga. App. 175, 177–78, 525 S.E.2d 437 (1999).

The court distinguished Adcock v. State, 299 Ga. App. 1, 2, 681 S.E.2d 691 (2009), where the testifying officer was the first person to approach the driver, from Kazeem, where the first officers restricted the defendant’s movement and never testified. McDavid is closer to Kazeem.

The court also distinguished Stadnisky v. State, 285 Ga. App. 33, 36–38(2), 645 S.E.2d 545 (2007). In Stadnisky there was independent witness testimony about the crash and the driver’s demeanor immediately afterward, a short and documented wait, and a statutory duty to remain under the hit-and-run statute, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-270. McDavid’s crash involved no other vehicle and no injured person. Under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-274, a motorist in a traffic accident “in which there is no personal injury or in which no second party and no property of a second party is involved shall not have the duty to stop or immediately report such accident.” The State could not rely on a duty-to-remain theory to excuse the detention.

Because the only evidence the State presented came after an unjustified detention, the convictions were reversed. The court did not need to reach the Intoxilyzer challenge or the separate “expeditious and diligent investigation” argument McDavid also raised at the hearing.

A dissent argued that the first officers were conducting an accident investigation, that McDavid’s intoxication would have been obvious to anyone at the scene, and that the majority should have construed the record in favor of the trial court. The majority rejected that approach: the State still had to prove the lawfulness of the initial detention with evidence from the officers who imposed it.

What Accident Cases and Traffic Stops Have in Common

Put Rodriguez, McNeil, Jones, Goode, and McDavid together and the picture is clear:

• The original mission of a traffic stop is the traffic violation and ordinary safety checks. Adding time after that mission ends—even a few minutes—for a dog sniff, unrelated questioning, or a wait for another officer requires new reasonable suspicion. There is no de minimis exception. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 350–57; McNeil, 362 Ga. App. at 89, 866 S.E.2d at 254.
• Inside a DUI investigation, officers must use reasonably available tools (other field sobriety tests, a PBT) instead of sitting idle while they wait for a preferred HGN-certified deputy. Jones, 371 Ga. App. at 450–51, 900 S.E.2d at 753–54.
• At a single-car accident, community caretaking and scene-safety work can justify time a simple stop would not. But once officers tell the driver he cannot leave, call a ride, or get out of the car, they have a second-tier detention. The State must prove what those first officers knew then, not what a DUI sergeant observed later. McDavid, No. A26A0355; O.C.G.A. § 17-5-30(b).
• A single-car wreck with no other vehicle and no injury does not automatically impose a statutory duty to remain. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-274. Waiting for the DUI unit is not self-justifying.
• The State bears the burden. If the first officers on scene do not testify, and the motion alleges they ordered the driver to stay, the detention often fails.

Body-camera and dash-camera video now decide many of these motions. Courts look at the exact timeline: when the traffic or accident-mission tasks were completed or reasonably should have been completed; whether the officer then added time; whether unused FSTs or a PBT sat in the patrol car; whether the first officers on an accident scene ever explained why the driver could not leave; and whether any “safety” or “backup policy” claim matches what the video actually shows.

If the video—or the absence of the first officers’ testimony—shows idle time, a clear detour, or an unexplained order to wait for the DUI unit, evidence obtained after that point (field tests, PBT results, statements, Intoxilyzer or blood results) may be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree.

Talk to a Georgia DUI Lawyer Who Knows These Cases

Every minute of a traffic stop or accident-scene detention can be examined. An experienced DUI attorney will obtain the video, reconstruct the timeline, identify which officers must testify, and file a motion to suppress when officers add time after the mission ends, sit idle instead of using available tests, or hold a crash victim for a DUI specialist without proving the detention was lawful from the start.

George C. Creal, Jr., P.C. has been defending DUI and related charges in Metro Atlanta and throughout Georgia for decades. We know how Georgia courts apply Rodriguez v. United States, McNeil, Jones, Goode, and McDavid.

Call (404) 333-0706 or visit www.georgecreal.com for a free case evaluation. Do not assume an accident scene gives police extra time they did not earn. The Fourth Amendment requires diligence—and it does not permit even a de minimis extra delay.

This post is for general information about Georgia DUI and Fourth Amendment law. It is not legal advice. Results depend on the facts of each case. George C. Creal, Jr., P.C. is authorized to practice in Georgia. If your arrest occurred outside Georgia, consult a lawyer licensed in that state.