Ordering Occupants Out Is Not Climbing Into the Van

Ordering someone out of a vehicle is not the same as climbing into a van. Pennsylvania v. Mimms lets an officer order the driver out on a lawful traffic stop. Maryland v. Wilson extends that to passengers. Neither case is a warrant to open the cargo area because it is 95 degrees, a canine is en route, or the officer thinks people might be inside.

Mimms and Wilson cover orders out of the vehicle. Entry is a search. It needs its own exception.

If officers have a lawful stop and reason to believe occupants are in the vehicle, they may order those occupants out. That is Wilson. They may also control the stop for safety. Entering the van to look for people, without consent, is a search of the vehicle. A drug dog on the way does not create that authority. Heat and suspected smuggling may support an emergency-aid or exigency claim, which the Supreme Court treated as a fact-specific emergency in Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006). Officers have to be able to articulate why delay would cost a life or destroy evidence. “We think someone is in there” plus a hot day is the start of that showing, not the end of it.

Do not teach a Third Circuit passenger-control case as if it were a nationwide bright line. Do not teach a commercial video Q-and-A as the holding. Write the objective: given a stop, the officer will distinguish an order-out under Mimms/Wilson from a vehicle entry, and will name the exception they are using before they put a boot inside. Then run the scenario. Have counsel read the block.

Sources: Pennsylvania v. Mimms; Maryland v. Wilson; Brigham City v. Stuart.