Reference no: EM133214755

You're walking down the street, and a police car drives past you, pulls into the next street, and parks. As you walk past him, the officer gets out and asks you if you "have a moment to speak with" him. You stop to be polite, and the officer informs you that he has been sent a complaint involving a white male wearing blue jeans, a black coat, and a Yankees cap carrying a backpack. You happen to be a white male in blue jeans and a black coat on your way home from work with a backpack, and you're also a Yankees fan. The officer explains that the person was reported to have stolen a GPS unit from a parked car and asks if you have one in your bag. You don't, and when he asks to "check to make sure for his report," you give him the go-ahead.

So the officer starts searching your bag, and searching, and searching... and searching. You thought it would take a minute to look through your bag, but this guy is looking at EVERYTHING. After 5 minutes of him digging around, you tell him, "this is taking too long, are you done yet?" He replies that it's going to be another minute. 5 minutes later, he's still looking. You tell him, "I'm going to be late getting home," just before he finds a small bag of marijuana in a small zippered pocket of the backpack.

Should he have stopped when you said it was taking too long? Should you havea been more insistent? Once consent to search is given, how clear do you have to be if you want the search to stop? Should you have to be a lawyer to figure out the proper phrase to stop the search, or should he stop when you express your thoughts about it? Did he exceed the scope of your consent?