reasonable mistake of law in concluding that defendant had violated section eleven seven zero six of view of turning first to the totality of circumstances test there are at least five specific and articulable facts on the face of the record that generated reasonable suspicion in this case first inherently suspicious you turn self second close proximity of you turn to the it two thirty in the afternoon would it make a difference it would absolutely make a difference your honor to tell you the circumstances test is highly fact sensitive fact specific so that would weigh in this case make a difference although the u turn itself in this case is the motorists equivalent of headlong flight in illinois vs workflow so the and it is entirely inconsistent with going about one's business  therefore it is as the supreme court held in were loaded very opposite of going about one's business and it does not interfere with the right of a pedestrian to ignore police and go on his way which leads to another point the cases that deal with reasonable suspicion or flight from police in a pedestrian setting are only partially applicable reduced so this is more like in the pedestrian situation individual that runs the opposite direction when they see the police versus the one that the individual is walk walking past absolutely your iraq scenario in which this took place where there were no commercial or residential destinations accessible via the u turn this was not a return on a residential street were turned into a parking lot of a business this was hea flight back along the bridge across the mississippi river back to iowa and it should be noted that the next closest crossing of the mississippi river was twenty five miles north  person wants to avoid and i counter with the police officer that fact that that by itself creates a reasonable suspicion from the right doing no your honor one is free to attempt to avoid an encounter with police but innocent explanations for his maneuver in this case proposed by senate proposed by the concurrence below are implausible to say the least taking suddenly remember that he forgot something in iowa that he missed a turn in iowa that he wanted to avoid the lay by going through an empty police checkpoint or avoiding counting the pleats but if he wants to simply enjoy countering the police in this case by executing his u turn this place this time he generated reasonable suspicion sufficient for a terry stop so there's always risk just to finish my question there was no way for this motorist to avoid encountering the police there without raisins reason suspicion that is correct your honor at this this place this time and the specific facts because it you turn was there was a turn off on to the much better state park nearby perhaps you know again totally hypothetically perhaps if the defendant had manifested a desire to that he was simply going about his business and wanted to visit the state park although at this time this place has maneuver was highly suspicious and again you turn is the motorist equivalent of everyone white in our brief the time again of day and the day of the week make it more likely that there was criminal activity what checkpoint was well marked and below is also belied by the fact that the checkpoint was not easy there's no evidence of there any other cars and there certainly were no more cars than could fit into the seventeen yards between u turn and the checkpoint the majority considered none of these form the basis for reasonable suspicion warranting a brief investigative stop to determine whether or not criminal activity is indeed ongoing tell us going back to your question about an innocent desire to simply avoid police no criminal activity going on is word low point out the it's holding is entirely consistent the possibility that an innocent person might be stopped for a brief investigators stop and so while it while it is possible that an innocent person would be stopped for this reason this is your honour's the court should reject defendants attempt to overlay or super imposed a separate balancing test on the governing totality of the circumstances analysis the as the supreme court noted in united states versus  to the reasonable suspicion requirement itself strikes this correct balance between the public interest and the individual's right to personal security so that balancing concerns already incorporated into the circumstances tes day which prohibits driving on the left side of the boat way within one hundred feet of any real road grade crossing when it got to the truck or the defendant raised the defense of a veil to him in subsection b which accepts carves out such maneuvers quote upon a roadway with unobstructed pavement of sufficient with two or more lanes of moving traffic in each direction  the the designation of this roadway as obstructed and therefore not within the purview of subsection was reasonable given the fact there brief the conclusion pursuant to high inverse north carolina that this was a reasonable mistake of law and therefore the deputy may stop had reasonable suspicion to make this stop is consonant with this court's decision reasonable suspicion to believe that a driver has committed a violation he may make a stop pursuit that reasonable suspicion even if he is not eliminated the possibility of the applicability of statutory exception reach those who suspicion that the person is trying to avoid leave conduct yes to reasonable suspicion of some criminal activity absolutely yes so what's the difference in the totality of the circumstances if a person fatality circumstances test deals with probabilities based on commonsense conclusions about human behavior so in a hypothetical you pose where it's twelve to thirty in the afternoon and it's congested checkpoint innocent driver  the probability that there is an innocent reason for a driver to avoid a checkpoint increases because you may want to avoid delay the chances that he has been drinking at two o'clock and is now on the road is less common sense would would counsel that it would be here at one fifteen in the morning on a saturday so so those those factors certainly change the weight of the  that stated reasons appeal i'm happy and serene question about the alternative argument that i think there's enough to talk about with respect to the area it's in this case and i'm going to focus on a couple of themes that apply to our argument today the first is that reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime is being committed is not the same as a general perception that something doesn't seem right here even if that perception is a logical or sensible perception that's not reasonable articulable suspicion and then secondly an encounter with the police when they don't have reasonable suspicion that you're committing a crime is optional and so if that is optional then exercising the option to not think the police can't become reasonable suspicion that you're doing something you know there's an undeniable reality about what the police could not tell when they said they can timson turn his truck around and head back toward iowa they could not tell why they could speculate they could make good guesses either and they did find out later that he was unlicensed his license was suspended but of course whenever one of these fourth member cases comes before this court it's because someone was caught doing something illegal and what i hope to convince your honour's to think about today is what it will mean to those who are not guilty of anything if the police in this type of scenario are able to do what they did in this case th were to review the cases from the states that say something more than just an apparent oh voiding i'm going through the checkpoint is necessary if those courts would say the officer has there does not need to be reasonable suspicion to tell someone to pursue someone but to get to be that for this to be reasonable suspicion of a crime you're saying that you don't have the right to avoid the checkpoint and and those factors that you mention the time in the place that is also a factor of how the police decided to set this checkpoint up they put that in place so that you will be able to say that you know that you wouldn't do this and there was no other place for him to turn around so to ferret out crime and so they limit it to just road safety and there can be other tactics employed by the police some would say more effectively then the use of robots so the roadblocks are as by a hair a lot and we don't have to help them work perfectly and the cost here is something to consider again there will be people caught up in the same scenario who will never come before circuit judge who will never have an appeal before the public court of this court because the officer just stopped them in check and said oh well you forget yourself or your mom just won in the hospital oh go ahead that's not a small price that is not an insignificant little well we just have to live with that because checkpoints are solved or they're not that important they don't rise to that level of significance and honoring by this court in my mind they should not be that respect justice should also acknowledge that you know yes innocent people might be caught up in that because of course the police are not going to be able to know ahead of time which type of person they're dealing with well that's what i think makes it not be reasonable suspicion of a crime it's a generic suspicion it's a belief that something doesn't feel right about this that that is enough to pursue that motorist if their concern is that he might be intoxicated or impaired we know from a lot of highway stop cases that it doesn't take much for an officer to figure out how to pull a car over that he wants to go check up but the important thing about this case is in that scenario when an officer goes up to a car let's say he has a valid objective basis for the stop but his true interest is seeing if maybe there's something illegal when that officer asks the motorist we'll let me search your car will you give me your consent and he's refused to consent because that right is the level of suspicion of course but it has to be honored the same thing is true with someone who is merely indicating that they do not want to have this encounter with the police they prefer to not go through the checkpoint and until the police have you know something that indicates that there are up to from thing criminal they have to honor that and in a good number of the states the courts have held that they need to observe something independent of the mere act even if it's a defiance of avoiding a checkpoint before they can stop them now you know we say that you know reasonable this is the touchstone of all fourth amendment increase and we also look at the innocent person who are using that as well we have to acknowledge here that by their very existence by definition a roadside checkpoint is not entailed suspicion so we have to assume the innocent motorist is doing what you know they did when the police decided to go  the fact that a checkpoint isn't place should not be something that the minister is or race or race is the right of a person to go about their business even if their business is nothing more than i don't want to please i don't want to  police and that's an important consideration that was highlighted by the concurring justice not in this case but in a fifth mr case that i cited in my brief people versus gray and that's a case that involved the use  phantom checkpoint i think it was on interstate fifty seven that one motorist that was coming and it was only one place to get off before the checkpoint was going to come up and every person that took that exit saw that the police were at the end of that exit right now state and i can quibble with what makes that fact pattern different but at its core both that case in this case are about the same thing having to give an officer who has in part contributed to the suspicious situation you found yourself in an explanation for the decision you made i just seen botha concurring opinion and he had this to say about the person who's in that predicament a conscious decision to avoid the potential indiscriminate search not unlike the refusal of a consent for a search would not create reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing while the exercise of every constitutional right in the face of an official request to surrender it raises official suspicion and heightens the belief that individual must have something to hide the exercise of the right is not a heck of a vision that authorizes the tepper patient and i have to comment on the use of the word invasion because there's a subtle distinction between that and a void how are you evading the police when they not possessing suspicion when you coming up to a checkpoint there is no suspicion they're very tolerated the supreme court allows them but there is no suspicion when you turn away how can you be of eighty i think of the word evading as the police already have suspicion and they're already pursuing and so you can be guilty of well wardlow was a very close decision both the four member of the senate and five member majority said they did not want to have a person a role and so what became important too but totality of circumstances was the fact that they expect the drug dealing to be going on and the person ran hightail the other way the state will call what my client headlong flight but he didn't he didn't hightail it out of this scene this was if anything the motorists equivalent of the exercise of the right not to have an encounter with the police this is the same as walking away when an officer says i'd like to talk to you implicit in that request as you don't have to you can walk away there is no motorist equivalent headlong flight when you're not speak it is the motorists equivalent of not giving the police the opportunity to confirm that you're not hiding something the key is that in were low there was testimony that this was an area with  existence of a checkpoint is not close to a high drug trafficker or unsafe neighborhood because everybody has to go through it otherwise you'd be saying everybody signs on to make that the same as the high drug crime area in ward and making a u turn using a turn signal and just trying to quietly move the other way is not the same as headlong flight it's simply the exercise of an option though it may be suspicious indication that you are avoiding the police that's not terror there is no statute that says when the police ask you to talk to them if you don't talk with them you've now given suspicion of a crime otherwise you wouldn't really have a wait that's that's my point it cannot be suspicion just not agree to a request that you want the officer stops mr timson if he doesn't ask for his license he just says i demand that you tell me why you didn't go through that checkpoint he has no work requirement of answering that question i demand that i not answer so you know it cannot be suspicion if it's something you have a right to exercise and i i just want to come back to where i was trying to start off here and then is urge you to consider the impact of this case on not just offenders of the law but the non offender too because if a person innocent of any wrongdoing would have chosen to act in the same way mr timson did given the place and time and layout of the road that the checkpoint was set up before that person would have had the same thing happen to them that happened to mr timbs and that is not a small price or a minor intrusion on freedom that type of reaction by the police was not sanctioned by the a very fine distinction rather in the going taking a couple of his his points in order the intrusiveness of a terry that is is not the point on which to hang defendants ha regarding the constitutionality of checkpoints because to check constitutionality of the check point here is not at issue and in fact checkpoints of this nature have longstanding approval this work in the united states supreme court the public interest in maintaining highway safety is a vital one as the united states supreme court noted in delaware vs crouse so it is not something to be lightly tossed officer's demand that you come back the court there held that paper was merely going about his business he did not change his direction much more plausible that he was had an innocent motive and was simply simply exercising his right to ignore the police