I’m Rocky Brancato, founder of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., a Tampa criminal defense firm. As a former police academy legal instructor, I taught officers what a lawful traffic stop looks like minute by minute — and our attorneys now put stopwatches to those same stops in suppression hearings. Most drug, gun, and DUI cases in Tampa Bay begin on the side of a road, which makes the length and legality of the stop the first battleground in the case.

What Is the “Mission” of a Traffic Stop?

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015), a traffic stop is a limited seizure whose length is measured by its “mission” — addressing the traffic violation and attending to related safety concerns — and police may not prolong the stop beyond that mission, even briefly, without independent reasonable suspicion of another crime. Florida courts apply the same rule: absent articulable suspicion of criminal activity, the stop should last no longer than necessary to run the required checks and write the citation.

Florida statute law makes the same promise. The Florida Stop and Frisk Law, Fla. Stat. § 901.151, authorizes only temporary detention — no longer than reasonably necessary to determine the person’s identity and the circumstances that justified the stop — and it carries its own statutory exclusionary rule for violations.

The key word is prolong. A dog sniff of a car’s exterior is not itself a “search” — officers can run one during a lawful stop. What they cannot do is make the stop longer to fit the dog in. Once the traffic tasks are done (or should have been done), every extra minute is an unconstitutional seizure unless the State can point to specific facts creating suspicion of a crime.

Can Police Make You Wait for a Drug Dog in Florida?

Not beyond the time the traffic stop itself requires — and a July 2026 decision shows Florida courts enforcing that limit almost to the second. In Hudson v. State, No. 5D2025-1286 (Fla. 5th DCA July 24, 2026), an officer radioed for a K-9 team about four minutes into a stop, and the sniff finally began ten minutes and twenty seconds after the stop started. The officer never issued a ticket and could not even recall whether he gave a written warning — and the State offered no evidence explaining what the officers were doing during the delay. The Fifth District held the stop was “improperly and unnecessarily prolonged,” reversed the denial of suppression, and took the contraband out of the case. Notably, Hudson was a passenger, not the driver — passengers seized by an overlong stop can challenge it too.

Two features of Hudson matter in every Tampa Bay case our attorneys handle. First, the burden: when there is no warrant, the State must prove the seizure stayed lawful — silence in the record about what officers were doing cuts against the State, not the defense. Second, the math: the court did not announce a magic number of minutes; it compared the elapsed time to the tasks actually performed. A twenty-minute stop can be lawful if the officer is diligently working the ticket; a ten-minute stop is unlawful if the officer is just waiting for the dog. That is why we obtain the bodycam, dashcam, dispatch logs, and computer-aided dispatch timestamps in every prolonged-stop case — the timeline is the defense.

Was the Traffic Stop Even Legal to Begin With?

Before asking how long the stop lasted, ask whether it should have happened at all — and on Florida’s most common justification, drifting out of a lane, Tampa Bay drivers currently have the strongest rule in the state. Florida’s lane statute, Fla. Stat. § 316.089, requires driving “as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane.” The districts are split on what a violation requires:

In Peterson, a deputy stopped a driver who twice crossed a lane line on a one-way street with no oncoming traffic, bicyclists, or pedestrians anywhere near — and the Second District reversed, holding a § 316.089 stop requires evidence that the driving “created a reasonable safety concern.” In Ramos Perez, the Sixth District went the other way on similar facts, upheld the stop, and certified direct conflict with Peterson. Until the Florida Supreme Court resolves it, Peterson remains the controlling rule in the Second District — which means that in Tampa Bay, a stop based on harmless lane drift is still challengeable, and preserving the issue protects you whichever way the conflict is ultimately decided.

Which Traffic Stops Turn Into Criminal Cases?

Most of the criminal cases our attorneys defend from Tampa Bay’s roads start as one of a handful of stop types, and the prolonged-stop rules apply to every one of them. A stop for speeding or reckless driving becomes a drug or gun case when a sniff or search follows; a lane-drift stop at 2 a.m. becomes a DUI investigation the moment the officer claims to smell alcohol; and an equipment stop becomes a felony when a records check comes back with a warrant. The legal sequence matters in each: the officer needs a valid basis for the stop, then separate, articulable facts to expand it into a criminal investigation. Each expansion point — ordering occupants out, starting field sobriety exercises, calling the dog, asking for consent — has its own legal standard, and the State must justify each one.

That layered structure is why a stopwatch-and-transcript review wins these cases. An officer who lawfully stopped a car for speeding but had the ticket done at minute six cannot use minutes seven through twelve to build a hunch into a search. And under Rodriguez, it is no answer that the delay was “only a few minutes” — the Supreme Court rejected any de minimis grace period. If any link in the chain fails, everything downstream of it is suppressible.

What Should You Do During a Traffic Stop?

Be polite, hand over your documents, and volunteer nothing — the stop’s legality will be decided later by a judge, not by argument at the window. Three rules protect you most. First, you do not have to consent to a search of your car; “do you mind if I take a look?” is a request, and “I don’t consent to searches” is a complete answer that cannot be held against you. Second, you are not required to answer investigative questions — where you’re coming from, whether there’s “anything in the car” — and short, calm non-answers do not create suspicion by themselves. Third, note the time. The moment of the stop, the moment the officer returned to his car, the moment the dog arrived — those timestamps decide cases like Hudson, and your memory of them helps your lawyer subpoena the right recordings. If the stop turns into a search based on the smell of cannabis, that doctrine has its own limits in our district — see our analysis of whether police can search your car for smelling weed — and if officers order you out and pat you down, the rules in our guide to stop and frisk in Florida take over.

How Do You Challenge an Unlawful Traffic Stop in Florida?

By motion to suppress — and the earlier it is built, the more of the case it takes down. Everything that flows from an unlawful stop or an unlawfully prolonged detention is tainted: the dog alert, the search, the contraband, and usually your statements. When our attorneys take on a stop case in Hillsborough, Pinellas, or Pasco County, the checklist runs: Was the initial basis valid under the Second District’s rules (including Peterson for lane stops)? What was the stop’s mission, and when was each task actually completed? When did the K-9 arrive relative to the ticket? Can the State carry its burden of justifying every minute? Those questions are answered with bodycam footage, CAD logs, and cross-examination — not guesswork — and they need to be raised before trial. The State Attorney’s filing decision comes within weeks of arrest, and a stop that collapses under Rodriguez and Hudson can change what gets filed at all. If your case began with flashing lights on I-275 or a Pasco County back road, our guide to what to do after being arrested in Tampa covers the first steps.

For more about our defense strategies, visit our Hillsborough County criminal defense page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a time limit on traffic stops in Florida?

There is no fixed number of minutes — the limit is functional: the stop may last only as long as its mission requires (license, registration, warrants, and the ticket). In Hudson v. State (Fla. 5th DCA 2026), ten minutes and twenty seconds was too long because the State could not explain what officers were doing. Our attorneys reconstruct that timeline in every prolonged-stop case.

Is a drug dog sniff of my car a search?

An exterior sniff during a lawful stop is not a Fourth Amendment search, so no warrant is needed for the sniff itself. The constitutional violation happens when police extend the stop to make the sniff possible — that added time is an unlawful seizure under Rodriguez v. United States, and it suppresses whatever the dog finds.

Can a passenger challenge a traffic stop?

Yes. A traffic stop seizes everyone in the car, so a passenger can move to suppress evidence flowing from an unlawful or unlawfully prolonged stop — the defendant in Hudson was a passenger. The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. regularly represents passengers charged after someone else’s driving triggered the stop.

Can police stop me just for touching the lane line?

In the Tampa Bay area, generally no — under Peterson v. State, a lane-departure stop under Fla. Stat. § 316.089 requires that the movement created a reasonable safety concern. Other districts disagree, and the Florida Supreme Court has been asked to resolve the conflict, so preserving this issue now is essential. We raise Peterson in Second District courtrooms and preserve the record for whatever comes next.

Do I have to answer questions during a traffic stop?

You must provide your license, registration, and proof of insurance, but you are not required to answer investigative questions about where you are going or what is in the car. Decline politely and remain calm. Questions unrelated to the stop’s mission cannot lawfully add time to your detention.

The officer never gave me a ticket — does that help my case?

It can. In Hudson, the officer’s failure to issue a ticket (and inability to recall a warning) helped show the stop’s “mission” was never the point — the delay was for the dog. If your stop ended in an arrest but no traffic citation, tell your lawyer; The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. treats that as a red flag worth litigating.

Traffic-stop law shifted twice on a single day — July 24, 2026 — when Hudson tightened the clock and Ramos Perez sent the lane-stop split to the Florida Supreme Court. If your arrest anywhere in Tampa Bay started with a traffic stop, call the attorneys of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. — founded by Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato — at (813) 727-7159 now, while the bodycam and dispatch records that prove the timeline still exist and the suppression motion can shape the State’s filing decision.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.
620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 727-7159
Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.