Opinion ID: 1867862
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Can Hodari D. and Mendenhall Coexist?

Text: ¶ 32 Mendenhall defined a seizure as occurring only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870. In Mendenhall Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents investigating narcotics trafficking in the Detroit Metropolitan Airport approached Mendenhall after she disembarked from a Los Angeles flight because Mendenhall's actions fit the profile of a drug courier. Id. at 547, 100 S.Ct. 1870. The agents identified themselves and asked to see Mendenhall's identification and airline ticket; they discovered that the two bore different names. Id. at 547-48, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Upon returning both documents to Mendenhall, the agents asked her to accompany them to the DEA office, which she did. Id. at 548, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Upon reaching the DEA office, the agents also asked for and received Mendenhall's consent to search her handbag and her person. Id. at 548-49, 100 S.Ct. 1870. In the course of the search, the agents found heroin. Id. at 549, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Before trial, Mendenhall moved to suppress the heroin, claiming she had been seized when the DEA agents first approached her and that they lacked reasonable suspicion at the inception of the stop. ¶ 33 Justice Stewart concluded  although a majority of the Court did not join him  that the agent's approach and Mendenhall's cooperation did not constitute a seizure, because a person is seized only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave, and that given the conduct of the DEA agents, a reasonable person would have felt free to walk away. Id. at 554-55, 100 S.Ct. 1870; see id. at 560 n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 1870 (Powell, J., concurring). [11] ¶ 34 Subsequently, a majority of the Court adopted Justice Stewart's Mendenhall test for seizure. See INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984); Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975; Bostick, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382. These cases make clear that either physical force or a show of authority sufficient to give rise to a belief in a reasonable person that he was not free to leave, is necessary for a seizure. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382; Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975; Delgado, 466 U.S. at 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758. ¶ 35 In Delgado and Bostick, as in Mendenhall, the individuals did not flee in response to an official show of authority. In Delgado the plaintiffs answered questions by INS agents at their workplace. Delgado, 466 U.S. at 220-21, 104 S.Ct. 1758. The Court concluded that none of the plaintiffs had been seized because, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would not have believed that he or she was not free to continue working or to move about the factory. Id. In Bostick the defendant, a passenger on a bus, challenged the search of his luggage as nonconsensual, claiming that police presence on the bus created a coercive atmosphere that induced consent. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 435, 111 S.Ct. 2382. The Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court's holding that suppression of cocaine produced by the search was appropriate, and it remanded the case to state court for a determination of whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Id. at 436, 111 S.Ct. 2382. In both cases, the Court applied the Mendenhall test for seizure because the individuals cooperated. ¶ 36 The Court also applied the Mendenhall test in Chesternut where the defendant ran when he saw a police car and was observed discarding controlled substances as he ran. The Court concluded that the police had not made a sufficient show of authority because, although a police car slowly followed Chesternut, the police did not activate a siren or flashers, did not order Chesternut to stop, did not display any weapons, and did not maneuver the police car in any way to limit the defendant's movement. Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 575, 108 S.Ct. 1975. Absent a show of authority, there was nothing for Chesternut to submit to, and no possibility of seizure. ¶ 37 Mendenhall is the appropriate test for situations where the question is whether a person submitted to a police show of authority because, under all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave. If a reasonable person would have felt free to leave but the person at issue nonetheless remained in police presence, perhaps because of a desire to be cooperative, there is no seizure. As this court noted in Williams, most citizens will respond to a police request, and the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response. Williams, 255 Wis.2d 1, ¶ 23, 646 N.W.2d 834 (quoting Delgado, 466 U.S. at 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758). ¶ 38 Hodari D., which was foreshadowed by Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Chesternut, supplements the Mendenhall test to address situations where a person flees in response to a police show of authority. See Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547. In Hodari D. police officers in an unmarked squad car rounded a corner in a high-crime neighborhood and came upon a group of youths who immediately dispersed at the sight of the car. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 622-23, 111 S.Ct. 1547. One of the officers chased Hodari on foot. Id. at 623, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Shortly before the officer caught the suspect, Hodari threw away a rock of crack cocaine. Id. Hodari argued he was seized once he saw the officer pursuing him and that the evidence of the cocaine should be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal seizure. Id. The Court disagreed, concluding that although the officer's pursuit constituted a show of authority and although the officer lacked reasonable suspicion when he initiated the pursuit, Hodari was not seized until the officer tackled him, because Hodari did not submit to the show of authority. Id. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Hence, Hodari abandoned the cocaine before he was seized, and it was admissible. Id. ¶ 39 Because Mendenhall and its progeny did not confront the situation where a person refuses to yield to a show of authority, the Hodari D. court found the Mendenhall test insufficient: [The Mendenhall test] says that a person has been seized only if, not that he has been seized whenever; it states a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for seizureor, more precisely, for seizure effected through a show of authority. Mendenhall establishes that the test for existence of a show of authority is an objective one: not whether the citizen perceived that he was being ordered to restrict his movement, but whether the officer's words and actions would have conveyed that to a reasonable person. Application of this objective test was the basis for our decision in . . . Chesternut . . . where we concluded that the police cruiser's slow following of the defendant did not convey the message that he was not free to disregard the police and go about his business. We did not address in Chesternut, however, the question whether, if the Mendenhall test was met  if the message that the defendant was not free to leave had been conveyeda Fourth Amendment seizure would have occurred. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547. The Mendenhall test applies when the subject of police attention is either subdued by force or submits to a show of authority. Where, however, a person flees in response to a show of authority, Hodari D. governs when the seizure occurs. Deciding when a seizure occurs is important because the moment of a seizure limits what facts a court may consider in determining the existence of reasonable suspicion for that seizure. ¶ 40 The Hodari D. test does not supersede the Mendenhall test, it supplements the Mendenhall test. United States v. Drayton confirms this. [12] Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 201-02, 122 S.Ct. 2105, 153 L.Ed.2d 242 (2002). Decided more than ten years after Hodari D., Drayton retains a Mendenhall -inspired test for seizure, adapted to a police-citizen encounter on a bus. Under Drayton, a person is seized if a reasonable person would not feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Id. at 202, 122 S.Ct. 2105 (quoting Bostick, 501 U.S. at 436, 111 S.Ct. 2382). Unlike Hodari D., the defendant in Drayton did not flee or attempt to flee from the officers. In a similar vein, this court cited both Mendenhall and Hodari D. in Williams. Thus, the Mendenhall and Hodari D. tests are compatible and can coexist. The applicable test depends upon the facts. [13]