Twice within the past month I’ve seen police here in Massachusetts mistakenly cite to Pennsylvania v. Mimms when ordering drivers out of their cars during routine traffic stops.
Mimms is a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in 1977.
Essentially it holds that the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not prevent an officer from “order[ing] all drivers out of their vehicles as a matter of course whenever they [have] been stopped for a traffic violation.”
While this ruling applies nationwide, we here in Massachusetts have added protections under Article 14 of the Declaration of Rights.
Police cannot “as a matter of course” order people to get out of their automobiles.
Instead, the Supreme Judicial Court has held that at least one of three scenarios must exist to justify an exit order during a routine traffic stop.
First, an exit order is justified if a reasonably prudent man in the policeman’s position would be warranted in the belief that the safety of the police or that of other persons was in danger. Second, the officers could have developed reasonable suspicion (based on articulable facts) that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity separate from any offense of the driver. Third, the officers could have ordered the defendant out of the car for pragmatic reasons, e.g., to facilitate an independently permissible warrantless search of the car under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement
Commonwealth v. Cruz, 459 Mass. 658 (2011).
Note these factors apply to routine traffic stops.
Police may also stop a vehicle if there is reasonable suspicion that “crime is afoot.”
When that’s the case, police can almost certainly order the vehicle’s occupants out.
According to the SJC,
A reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is justification to act in a more intrusive manner. That is, when the police reasonably believe that a motorist has committed a crime, a motorist reasonably should expect that the police may engage in greater intrusions than when the motorist is suspected merely of a driving infraction.
Commonwealth v. Bostock, 450 Mass. 616 (2008).
I hope this clarifies things for those confused officers citing Pennsylvania v. Mimms.