## Facts

- A vehicle driven by Shawn Miller, with Shawn Michael Jones as a passenger, was stopped in Salina, Kansas, for speeding (30 mph in a 20 mph zone).
- The officer obtained Miller’s driver’s license and asked Jones for identification; Jones said he had none but provided a name and a birth date.
- While preparing the speeding citation, the officer ran routine records checks on both the driver and the passenger.
- The records check revealed an outstanding warrant for a person with Jones’s name; the physical description matched Jones, though the warrant listed a different birth year.
- The officer returned to the vehicle and asked Jones to confirm his birth date; Jones then provided the birth date listed on the warrant.
- The officer arrested Jones on the warrant; Jones attempted to flee and struggled with the officer before being restrained.
- A search incident to arrest uncovered controlled substances and drug paraphernalia, leading to possession charges and an obstruction charge.
- The district court denied Jones’s motion to suppress, and Jones was convicted after a bench trial on stipulated facts.

## Issues

1. Whether, during a lawful traffic stop, an officer may request identification from a passenger and run a routine records check on that passenger without unlawfully expanding the stop.
2. Whether the passenger’s seizure remained within a scope and duration strictly tied to and justified by the traffic stop.
3. Whether evidence found after a warrant-based arrest and search incident to arrest must be suppressed as the fruit of an unlawful detention.

## Decision

- The Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress and affirmed the convictions.
- The court held the officer acted within the permissible scope of the traffic stop by requesting passenger identification and verifying it through a routine records check.
- The court concluded the records check did not unreasonably extend the stop because it was performed while the officer was completing the citation.
- Because the warrant provided lawful grounds to arrest Jones, the subsequent search incident to arrest was lawful and the evidence was admissible.

## Legal Principles

- When material facts on a suppression motion are undisputed, the suppression ruling presents a question of law subject to unlimited (de novo) appellate review.
- During a routine traffic stop, the scope and duration of a passenger’s seizure must be strictly tied to and justified by the circumstances of the stop, and the detention must be reasonable in length.
- An officer conducting a lawful traffic stop may order a passenger out of the vehicle pending completion of the stop.
- An officer may request passenger identification to complete records of the stop and identify potential witnesses, and may verify the passenger’s identity by running a routine records check.
- Obtaining names of witnesses is within the scope of a traffic stop; evidence of other crimes discovered through actions taken within the stop’s reasonable duration is admissible.
- The incremental intrusion from requesting a passenger’s identification is minimal because the passenger is already stopped due to the traffic stop.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the officer’s authority, during a lawful speeding stop, to ask a passenger for identification and run a routine records check as part of documenting the stop and identifying witnesses, so long as these steps do not unreasonably prolong the detention; the resulting warrant arrest and search incident to arrest were valid, and suppression was properly denied.


State v. Jones, 27 Kan. App. 2d 910 (Kan. Ct. App. 2000)