Opinion ID: 2052636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Seizure of Womack.

Text: We conclude that the foregoing authorities compel us to affirm the trial court's decision. This is not a case in which the police had decided, prior to Womack's identification by N.H., to take him into custody and charge him with a crime  the conventional scenario when police make an arrest. M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d at 1126. On the contrary, the police were effecting a temporary detention, designed to last only until a preliminary investigation [here, the show-up identification procedure] either generate[d] probable cause or result[ed] in the release of the suspect. Id. See also Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 506, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1329, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), in which the Court noted that if the officers had used a more expeditious investigative procedure consistent with Terry, rather than ushering Royer to an interrogation room for questioning, [a] negative result would have freed Royer in short order; [while discovery of contraband] would have resulted in his justifiable arrest on probable cause. Detective Cobel testified on direct examination that once Mr. Womack was identified, he was then placed under arrest. (Emphasis added). The motions judge evidently credited his testimony. [11] Putting to one side the legal issue presented by the handcuffing, the detention of Womack prior to N.H.'s identification of him constituted the classic  perhaps even paradigmatic  Terry seizure. Womack concedes, and the motions judge found, that the officers had articulable suspicion in the Terry sense. We conclude that the handcuffing of Womack did not change the result. The incremental intrusion on Womack's liberty effected by the handcuffs was minimal. Even if Womack had not been placed in handcuffs, he would not have been free to leave until after N.H. had had an opportunity to identify him. The time that elapsed from the moment that he was handcuffed until the identification procedure was completed was, at most, a few minutes. The sum total of the restraint on Womack's freedom now alleged to be excessive boils down to the complaint that, during a concededly lawful detention by the police, he was in handcuffs for a very short time. [12] Like the motions judge, we are not disposed to second-guess the officers who were on the scene with respect to a comparatively modest security measure which had only a brief and minimal effect on Womack's freedom of action. The authorities cited in Part II.B of this opinion require us to consider the issue from the perspective of a reasonably prudent officer who had just arrived on the scene. The officers in this case were on Womack's home turf. Womack was suspected of having committed violent and extremely serious crimes, including rape, kidnapping, and robbery, all while armed with a handgun. These offenses had been completed only a few hours earlier. The officers were not acquainted with Womack or with his family. They had no idea where his handgun might be, or whether there were other individuals on the scene who might endeavor to thwart his apprehension. The complaining witness was outside, and it would be necessary to take the suspect out on the porch so that an identification could be accomplished; it would obviously have been easier for him to attempt to escape from the porch than from inside the house. [13] All of these circumstances could lead a reasonably prudent police officer to believe that, in the interest of safety, the most reasonable course of action would be to handcuff Womack, at least until N.H. could determine whether he was the right man. It may be that, in the relative calm of his or her chambers, years after the fact, a judge might reasonably conclude that the risk that Womack would harm the officers or would flee was not very great. But especially in this area of the law, second-guessing of split-second decisions made by the officers on the scene is fraught with peril, and every effort must be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). On the night in question, Detective Cobel and his colleagues had no idea of what might happen when they entered the house, nor could they foresee what a man suspected of armed rape and kidnapping might try to do to avoid apprehension. From their perspective, even a modest risk would reasonably appear altogether unacceptable. To hold, as Womack demands, that the handcuffing in this case was unreasonable and unconstitutional would be to require police officers confronting potentially dangerous suspects in unfamiliar surroundings to jeopardize their own safety, and the safety of the public, in order to avoid only a very brief and minimal incremental restraint on the liberty of a suspect who has already been legitimately detained. Such a result would be entirely out of keeping with the command of proportionality which is central to our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Brown, supra, 590 A.2d at 1013.