Five Ways to Pursue Hunches is the focused mini course on what to do with an instinct that has not yet become reasonable suspicion. A hunch is not reasonable suspicion, so the question is never whether an officer may act on a feeling. It is which of five lawful doors to walk through, and how to keep the stop from outliving the reason for it.
The course covers the ground rules first, CREW as the test of reasonableness and Whren on pretext, then the scope limit that governs all five methods. The mission is set by the violation and behaves like a melting ice cube, with Rodriguez marking the point where a detention for a dog stops being de minimis. It then works through the five methods themselves: consent, the downtime already being spent on a records check, multitasking while diligently working the ticket, the backup officer, and the conversion.
After completing this course, you will be able to pick the method that fits the stop in front of you, keep the clock on your side, and keep a hunch from turning into a suppression issue.
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