No Reason Needed to Order Passenger Out of Vehicle.

State v. Krenik, Minn.Ct.App., 10/27/2009.  An officer stopped a car for, among other things, having an object suspended from the rearview mirror.  Ms. Krenik was the front seat passenger.  Ms. Krenik’s friend had a suspended license for which the officer issued her a citation.  Another officer then directed Ms. Krenik to get out of the car; somehow the officer thought that this was the best method by which to ascertain that she was okay to drive the car since her friend could not.  Ms. Krenik’s friend, explaining why she was driving on a suspended license, had already blabbed to the cops that Ms. Krenik had had a miscarriage earlier in the day and was distraught.

As Ms. Krenik got out of the car, the police officer instructed her to keep her hands out of her pockets.  At first she did that, but then either forgot or thought nothing of it, – or remembered that’s where the bong pipe was - but soon she put her hands in the front pouch of her sweat shirt.  This was the green light for the officer to pat search the pouch, and to find the bong pipe therein.  The cops then did a full blown search during which they found a container inside of which they found methamphetamine.

Ms. Krenik moved to suppress the pipe and the meth;  the trial court ruled that the stop had been valid and that the pat search which produced the pipe was a valid “plain feel” search under Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366 (1993).  The vexing question was whether the officer had need of a reason to have directed that Ms. Krenik get out of the car in the first place; otherwise, all that business with her hands in and out of the pouch would never have happened.  The trial court ultimately concluded that the directive that Ms. Krenik get out of the car needed no justification whatsoever.

The appellate court agreed.  That court relied on Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997), which said that an officer who is making a traffic stop may order passengers out of the car pending completion of the stop.  See, State v. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d 145 (Minn. 2009).