Opinion ID: 2978926
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Investigatory Terry stops

Text: In evaluating an investigatory Terry stop, this court engages “in a two-part analysis of the reasonableness of the stop.” Caruthers, 458 F.3d at 464 (quoting United States v. Davis, 430 F.3d 345, 354 (6th Cir. 2005)). “We first ask whether there was a proper basis for the stop” and, if the stop was proper, “then we must determine whether the degree of intrusion . . . was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand.” Id. (quotations omitted). An investigatory stop of an individual by a law enforcement officer is proper so long as there is a reasonable basis for the stop. Terry, 392 U.S. at 22-24. An officer can stop and briefly detain a person when the “officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that [a] person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.” United States v. Atchley, 474 F.3d 840, 847 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 8 221, 227 (1985)) (emphasis in original); see also United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (“[T]he police can stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even if the officer lacks probable cause.”). However, to justify a Terry stop, an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch’” is not sufficient. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27 (citation omitted). Instead, the officer must be “able to articulate some minimal level of objective justification for making the stop,” Waldon, 206 F.3d at 604 (quotations omitted), based upon “specific reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his experience,” United States v. Foster, 376 F.3d 577, 585 (6th Cir. 2004) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27) (also noting that a “pattern of suspicious behavior need only be recognizable by one ‘versed in the field of law enforcement’” (citations omitted)). This determination is made in light of the totality of the circumstances. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273; see also Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 8 (“The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common-sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as fact-finders are permitted to do the same–and so are law enforcement officers” (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418 (1981).). This process serves to balance the individual’s interest in personal security with the government’s interest in preventing ongoing or future criminal activity, solving past crimes, and bringing offenders to justice. Hensley, 469 U.S. at 228-29. In the second part of the Terry stop analysis, this court determines whether the degree of intrusion, “was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand, which is judged by examining the reasonableness of the officials’ conduct given their suspicions and the surrounding circumstances.” Caruthers, 458 F.3d at 464, 468 (quotations omitted) (noting that this court asks (1) whether the stop “was [] sufficiently limited in time, and (2) were the investigative means used the least intrusive means reasonably available”). The scope of the investigative stop depends on “the circumstances that originally justified the stop,” United States v Martin, 289 F.3d 392, 396 (6th Cir. 2002), No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 9 and it is appropriate to consider whether the law enforcement officers, “diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant,” Foster, 376 F.3d at 585 (quoting United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686 (1985)). B. Initial interactions not a violation of the Fourth Amendment Initially, Smith was not seized before Officer Putnick told him to stop. Although the entire encounter took under two minutes, United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194 (2002), which is very analogous to this case, clearly supports a finding that the officers’ initial interactions with Smith were consensual and, consequently, did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In Drayton, the Supreme Court considered when a reasonable person would consider an encounter with the police to be consensual. The Court considered a situation where three police officers dressed in plain clothes (but carrying weapons and visible badges) boarded a bus while the driver checked paperwork in the terminal. Id. at 197. One officer knelt in the driver’s seat facing the rear of the bus, and the other two officers went to the rear. Id. One officer remained at the rear of the bus, while the other worked his way toward the front, speaking with individual passengers as he went. Id. at 198. When he got to respondents Drayton and Brown, who were sitting side by side, the officer approached them from the rear, leaned over Drayton’s shoulder, briefly held up his badge, and “[w]ith his face 12-to-18 inches away from Drayton’s . . . spoke in a voice just loud enough for respondents to hear.” Id. He told them: “I’m Investigator Lang with the Tallahassee Police Department. We’re conducting bus interdiction [sic], attempting to deter drugs and illegal weapons being transported on the bus. Do you have any bags on the bus.” Id. (citation omitted) (emphasis in original). He asked for, and received, consent to search a green bag above the respondents; but his search did not reveal any contraband. Drayton, 536 U.S. at 199. Then he asked for, and received, consent from Brown to search his person. Id. He reached across Drayton to search Brown, and found contraband on Brown. Id. After handcuffing Brown, and having another officer escort him off the bus, the officer asked for, and received, consent to search Drayton. Id. He found additional contraband on No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 10 Drayton. Id. The Court found that this encounter between the officers and both respondents was consensual. Id. at 203-206, 208. As Drayton shows, officers can ask questions without reasonable suspicion. Drayton, 536 U.S. at 197-99. Furthermore, they can position themselves immediately beside and in front of a suspect and even reach across a suspect, provided they leave a way out. Id. at 197-99, 201-02. Thus, the fact that uniformed police officers here were asking Smith questions while surrounding him on both sides, in close physical proximity, with another officer at some distance in front of him, did not make the encounter non-consensual. Indeed, the fact that three officers rushed into the building as Smith opened the door may have given Smith some cause for alarm. However, it is more significant that the officers did not initially seek to arrest or stop Smith as they entered the building. They did not block Smith in; instead, they merely tried to move around and past him. This would have indicated to a reasonable person that the officers were not trying stop him and that, unless he engaged in activity that generated a reasonable, articulable suspicion, he was free to leave. Certainly, the officers were not required to allow Smith out of the building before attempting to respond to an emergency 911 call; however, their need to enter the building quickly did not mean that a reasonable person would feel that he could not leave or that their initial encounter was non-consensual. Furthermore, even if we assumed that a reasonable person would not feel free to leave, Smith still was not seized. In United States v. Jones, we considered a situation in which a suspect did not immediately submit to the officers’ show of authority. 562 F.3d at 774. In Jones, police officers blocked a car in with their vehicles, after which Jones, a passenger, jumped out of the vehicle and started walking away from the officers. Id. We noted that, despite that fact that “generally, when a police officer pulls over a vehicle during a traffic stop, the officer seizes everyone in the vehicle, not just the driver . . . there is no seizure without actual submission . . . [w]ithout actual submission, ‘there is at most an attempted seizure.’” Id. (quoting Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 254). Jones did not “passively acquiesce,” “remain seated,” or “submit to the show of authority” but instead No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 11 “opened the car door and ‘jumped out’ as though he wanted to run.” Id. The court held that, “[b]ecause Jones’s initial response to the officers’ arrival cannot be construed as submission to authority, there is no need to invoke the Brendlin reasonable person test to determine when the seizure occurred.”3 Id.; see also United States v. McCauley, 548 F.3d 440, 443-44 (6th Cir. 2008). Instead, Jones’s failure to submit to the officers’ show of authority meant that there was no seizure. In this case, the officers did not use physical force to restrain Smith until they grabbed him when he reached into his jacket (after Officer Putnick told Smith to stop). Prior to that point, there is no evidence of any physical contact, and any physical contact would have been unintentional and a byproduct of the hallway’s small parameters and the officers’ efforts to enter quickly in response to the 911 emergency call (the officers did not physically block Smith in). Furthermore, even assuming that the officers made a show of authority when they surrounded Smith in the hallway in close physical proximity as they attempted to enter the building, Smith did not passively acquiesce or submit to their show of authority but, instead, tried throughout the encounter to push past the officers. Continuing efforts to push past the officers do not constitute submission to a show of authority. Consequently, there was no seizure at this point. C. Smith’s activity when Officer Putnick told him to stop justified a Terry stop Once Officer Putnick asked Smith to stop, a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave and the interaction turned into a Terry stop.4 Officer Putnick told Smith that he was not free to leave at some point after the initial encounter but immediately before Smith reached for his ID.5 At this point, as discussed above, the officers were 3 As discussed above, the reasonable person test asks whether, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. 4 Once he was told to stop, Smith stopped and thus submitted to the officers’ show of authority. (R. 30 Putnick 47.) 5 Officer Putnick told Smith, “as long as he wasn’t involved in any of the activity upstairs, that he would be free to leave, that we first had to go up and check that out” and “I’m just a little suspicious. I don’t know if you’re involved. As soon as we can determine that you’re not, you’ll be free to leave.” (R. 30 Putnick 19.) Moreover, Officer Hill’s comment that, “[w]e asked him to slow down” is either irrelevant or is No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 12 justified in making an investigatory Terry stop because the officers had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under the totality of the circumstances, which included: (1) the emergency 911 call; (2) Smith’s efforts, with his head down, to push past the officers and exit the building as the officers entered; (3) that these events took place in a high-crime area in (4) the very early hours of the morning; and (5) Smith’s vague responses to the officers’ questions. Smith contends that the 911 call is not a significant factor in considering the totality of the circumstances. Smith argues and the district court appears to have assumed that the emergency 911 call was a silent or hang-up 911 call.6 In examining the 911 call, this court has found that a 911 hang-up call “standing alone without follow-up calls by a dispatcher or other information, is most analogous to an anonymous tip.” United States v. Cohen, 481 F.3d 896, 899-900 (6th Cir. 2007) (noting that a silent 911 call may be made for numerous, non-criminal reasons and that “without any information from the caller, the silent 911 hang-up call was the equivalent of an anonymous 911 report that there might be an emergency, which might or might not include criminal activity, at or near the address from which the call was made”). Cohen noted that a “silent 911 hang-up call could be said to have suggested the possibility of, among other things, a limited ‘assertion of illegality’ but, absent any observed suspicious activity or other corroboration that criminal activity was afoot,” even that limited assertion could not be accepted. Id. at 900 (citation omitted). The police officer who testified in that case stated that a person had called 911, but that the person had hung up “right after they dialed 911” without providing any additional information. Id. at 897 n.1. Thus, Cohen indicates that a silent 911 call can provide some support for a reasonable suspicion of identical, for analytical purposes, to Officer Putnick’s command. (R. 58 Hill 28.) Officer Hill’s testimony may refer to Officer Putnick’s statements instructing Smith to stop. However, even if it referred to a different comment, it was phrased as a request, which left Smith at liberty to continue on his way. Furthermore, even it this comment did trigger an investigatory stop it, like Officer Putnick’s request, came after the police had received sufficient information to justify a Terry stop. Consequently, the same analysis applied to Office Putnick’s order to stop would apply to Officer Hill’s comment. 6 Officers Putnick and Weyda did not remember what type of 911 call it was. However, Officer Hill offered testimony that the dispatcher reported that it sounded as if a struggle was going on inside the apartment. No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 13 criminal activity but, by itself, cannot support a finding that the law enforcement officers had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Therefore, even if we found that this was a silent 911 call, it offered a limited “assertion of illegality” which, in conjunction with other factors, could provide the officers with reasonable suspicion. However, in this case, Officer Hill testified that some additional information was communicated with the 911 call: “I recall the dispatcher saying it sounded like it was a struggle inside of the apartment building because the line was still open.” (R. 58 Hill 31.) This information narrowed the inferences as to what caused the emergency 911 call, suggested criminal activity and, given the small number of apartments in the residential complex (i.e., there were 12 buzzer buttons or 12 listings for names) and the time of night, significantly increased the probability that Smith might have been involved in criminal activity. Furthermore, Smith’s refusal to move out of the way of the officers and his efforts to push through them as they tried to enter the building and as they moved around him, also supported a finding of reasonable suspicion. The Supreme Court has found that flight from law enforcement officers in a high crime area can justify a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000). Furthermore, this court has found that “nervous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in determining reasonable suspicion.” Caruthers, 458 F.3d at 466 (citing Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124) (finding that Caruthers’s action of “‘hurr[ying]’ away in a ‘semi-running’ manner” while not the same as “headlong flight” was still a relevant consideration in examining the reasonableness of an investigatory Terry stop). Moreover, “flight is not the only type of ‘nervous, evasive behavior.’ Furtive movements made in response to a police presence may also properly contribute to an officer’s suspicions.” Id. at 466-67 (noting that this factor must not be “invoked cavalierly” but finding that Caruthers’s “unusual posture” of “‘hunch[ing] down’ near a wall, ‘kind of leaning toward the ground’” supported a finding of reasonable suspicion). Here, the officers described Smith throughout the encounter as very agitated and unsettled. More importantly, Smith did not merely run from the officers; instead, he No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 14 stood in their way, with his head down, and attempted to push through them and past them. When they sought to enter the building, the police were not trying to investigate or intimidate Smith, they were not purposefully seeking to slow him down or to inhibit his movements; rather, they were seeking to respond as quickly as possible to a 911 emergency. In response, Smith did not get out of their way, or simply stand still; instead, and without any explanation, he attempted, with his head down, to push his way through and past the officers. Smith’s aggressive behavior, which inhibited the officers’ efforts to respond to a 911 emergency call, distinguishes this case from other Terry stop situations and contributes significantly to our finding that the officers had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Several other contextual considerations were also present, including that it was “late at night” and “a high-crime area.” Caruthers, 458 F.3d at 467-68. Even though “these factors may not, without more, give rise to reasonable suspicion . . . they are relevant to the reasonable suspicion calculus.” Id. at 467 (numerous citations omitted) (the incident in Caruthers took place at 1:20 a.m.). It was reasonable to conclude, based on Officer Putnick’s prior testimony regarding his extensive experience in this area (and with this apartment complex, in particular) that this was a high-crime area. Furthermore, 3:00 a.m., like 1:20 a.m. is, as Caruthers described it, “late at night.” While activity at such hours and in such an area, by itself, certainly could have an innocent explanation, in conjunction with the other factors, it supported a finding of reasonable suspicion. Finally, Smith’s evasive, non-responsive, and vague answers to the officers’ questions, which (in part) prompted Officer Putnick’s instruction to stop, also provided some additional basis for the officers’ reasonable suspicion. This court has noted that a suspect, “need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds.” United States v. Campbell, 486 F.3d 949, 954 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497 (1983)) (emphasis added). Thus, while a suspect’s refusal to answer or listen does not, by itself, justify a No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 15 reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, it can be a factor that, together with other factors, supports a finding of reasonable suspicion. Here, Officer Weyda could not remember any of Smith’s responses to the questions he was asked. But Officer Hill testified that Smith, “was kind of evasive in his answers” and that he thought that Smith’s responses were “vague.” (R. 58 Hill 28, 43-44.) Officer Putnick testified that he asked Smith, “How you [sic] doing, sir? Do you live here?” and that Smith “didn’t acknowledge me. He just kind of kept his head down and tried to keep walking. At that point when he didn’t acknowledge me, my suspicion raised a little bit and I asked him to stop.” (R. 30 Putnick 17-18.) Smith’s refusal to answer some of the questions posed to him, and his vague and evasive answers to other questions, provided further support for the officers’ reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity. The district court could properly conclude that (1) the emergency 911 call, (2) Smith’s efforts to push past the officers with his head down, (3) the time of night, and (4) the fact that it was a high crime area, when analyzed together as required by the Supreme Court, gave the officers a reasonable, articulable suspicion that Smith had been engaged in criminal activity. The officers’ reasonable suspicion was not merely based on an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch but, rather, on a common sense conclusion and specific reasonable inferences which the officers were entitled to draw from the facts in light of their experience. In short, when the only person present in the hallway of a residential complex keeps his head down and tries to push past officers while they are entering the complex in response to a 911 emergency call late at night, the district court may properly conclude that those officers have a reasonable suspicion that he has been engaged in criminal activity. Indeed, “[t]o have simply sent [Smith] on his way, without brief further questioning at the very least, would have been plainly unreasonable, even inept, police work.” Foster, 376 F.3d at 587 (citation omitted).7 Furthermore, (5) the fact that the dispatcher communicated that it sounded like a struggle 7 We also note that all of these factors were present before the officers had initially positioned themselves around Smith. No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 16 was going during the 911 emergency and (6) Smith’s evasive, non-responsive, and vague answers to the officers’ questions further support our conclusion. Moreover, the degree of intrusion was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand. Officer Putnick told Smith to stop until they could investigate what sort of emergency had necessitated the 911 call. Presumably, had Smith not – immediately thereafter – reached into his jacket, and triggered a greater search, this would have only taken a few minutes, after which Smith, if there was no further cause for suspicion, would have been free to leave. Consequently, in the brief time before Smith reached into his jacket, the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly and their actions did not violate the Fourth Amendment. D. Once Smith reached for his ID, the officers were justified in grabbing him and, upon seeing the gun, seizing it Almost immediately after the officers told Smith to stop, Smith suddenly reached into his jacket. At this point, the officers were justified in grabbing him and the weapon they observed in his waistband. An officer is permitted to conduct “a reasonable search for weapons for [his or her] protection . . . where he [or she] has reason to believe that he [or she] is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 27 (1968). In making this determination, “the officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Id. Here, Smith’s sudden reach into his jacket, in conjunction with the factors that justified the initial Terry stop and the fact that he was so close to the officers, gave the officers reason to believe that they were dealing with an armed and dangerous individual. Indeed, a reasonably prudent person in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger. Furthermore, as they moved to keep Smith from reaching into his jacket, Officer Putnick immediately saw a gun, which he seized. The officers’ response to Smith’s sudden hand movement into his jacket did not violate the Fourth Amendment. No. 08-4378 United States v. Smith Page 17