Opinion ID: 221604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Griffin's Suppression Motion

Text: Griffin argues that the crack cocaine found in the parking lot along the route of the police chase was the fruit of an unconstitutional seizure and the admission of this evidence at trial likely contributed to his convictions, entitling him to a new trial. We review the district court's denial of Griffin's motion to suppress under a split standard of review; the court's factual findings are reviewed for clear error and its legal conclusions are reviewed de novo. United States v. Slone, 636 F.3d 845, 848 (7th Cir.2011). The government's concessions in this case helpfully narrow our inquiry. [W]hen police conduct an unreasonable search or seizure, the exclusionary rule usually vindicates the Fourth Amendment's protections by kicking out the unlawfully obtained evidence, id., and here the government does not claim that any exception to the exclusionary rule applies. As a general matter, a warrantless search or seizure is unreasonable unless supported by probable cause, id., or in the case of an investigatory stop of a vehicle, unless articulable facts support a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, United States v. Drake, 456 F.3d 771, 774 (7th Cir.2006). The government simplified matters somewhat by conceding at oral argument that when the officers first activated their emergency lights, they did not have facts supporting a reasonable suspicion to justify stopping Griffin. As such, if by activating their emergency lights the officers seized Griffin, then the drugs that he discarded during the ensuing low-speed chase should have been suppressed as the product of an unconstitutional seizure. See Slone, 636 F.3d at 848. If, on the other hand, the seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes did not occur until Griffin pulled over, then the district court's denial of suppression was correct; the evidence would not be the fruit of an unconstitutional seizure because Griffin discarded it prior to being seized. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991) (Because the defendant was not seized until he was tackled[, t]he cocaine abandoned while he was running was in this case not the fruit of a seizure, and his motion to exclude evidence of it was properly denied.). And by the time he pulled over, Griffin had committed a series of traffic and other offenses that gave the officers probable cause to arrest him. See, e.g., Carmichael v. Vill. of Palatine, Ill., 605 F.3d 451, 456 (7th Cir.2010) (As a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. (quotation marks omitted)). Thus, whether the district court properly denied Griffin's motion to suppress hinges entirely on when the seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes occurred. [A] person is `seized' only when, by means of physical force or a show of authority, his freedom of movement is restrained. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 553, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). While an officer's application of physical force always constitutes a seizure, a show of authority alone is insufficient; an officer's show of authority becomes a seizure only if the person at whom it is directed actually submits to that authority. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 626, 111 S.Ct. 1547. In other words, there are two kinds of seizures: those effected through physical force and those effected through a show of authority and submission to the assertion of authority. Id. (emphasis omitted). Here, the officers did not use physical force to induce Griffin to stop. Activating their emergency lights, however, unquestionably qualified as a show of authority, see Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 597-98, 109 S.Ct. 1378, 103 L.Ed.2d 628 (1989), and it is undisputed that Griffin eventually submitted to their show of authority. The factual wrinkle in this case is that Griffin attempted to evade the officers before eventually submitting, and it was in the interim time period that he discarded the crack cocaine. In many cases there is no need to resolve ambiguity about when a suspect is seized after an officer's initial show of authority because the suspect's submission closely follows, or the police resort to physical force when the suspect does not yield, or reasonable suspicion supports the initial show of authority. See, e.g., Gentry v. Sevier, 597 F.3d 838, 843-45 (7th Cir.2010) (finding that an officer seized the plaintiff by telling him to put his hands over his head, which the plaintiff did, without identifying precisely at what point the seizure occurred); United States v. Robinson, 537 F.3d 798, 801 n. 2 (7th Cir.2008) (explaining that because the officers had reasonable suspicion at the time of the show of authority, the court did not need to decide precisely when Robinson was `seized' for purposes of the Fourth Amendment); Tom v. Voida, 963 F.2d 952, 957 (7th Cir.1992) (holding that a plaintiff who failed to yield to a show of authority was not seized until the pursuing police officer physically touched him). Here, however, the admissibility of the discarded drugs turns on when the seizure occurred, so the question cannot be avoided. Griffin argues that if a suspect eventually yields to a show of authority by the police, the seizure begins for constitutional purposes upon the initial show of authority and continues until the suspect submits. He maintains, in other words, that a seizure does not necessarily occur at a discrete point in time but is better conceived of as a continuing event; on this view, the entire period of time between an officer's show of authority and the subject's submission to it constitutes the seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. Applying this conceptualization here, Griffin contends that the seizure began when the officers activated their emergency lights and was completed when he submitted; the whole course of conduct counts as a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. This argument is in direct conflict with Hodari D., in which the Supreme Court clarified that a `seizure is a single act, and not a continuous fact.' 499 U.S. at 625, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (quoting Thompson v. Whitman, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 457, 471, 21 L.Ed. 897 (1874)); see also Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 462 (7th Cir.2003) ([A]t the time of the [Fourth A]mendment's drafting, the word `seizure' was defined as a temporally limited act.... (citing OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (2d ed.1989))). Hodari D. rejected the proposition that once a suspect has been seized through the application of physical force, there is a continuing arrest during the period of fugitivity if the citizen br[eaks] away and ... then cast[s] away the [drugs]. 499 U.S. at 625, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Griffin's seizure-as-a-continuum theory is, therefore, unfounded. On this point our decision in United States v. Bradley, 196 F.3d 762 (7th Cir. 1999), contains dicta that requires some clarification. In Bradley a police officer activated his unmarked squad's emergency lights to stop a car that had rolled through a stop sign, but the driver did not pull over. Id. at 765. The officer then drew his service revolver and fired a warning shot in the air. When the driver still did not pull over, the officer fired a shot into the car. Id. The bullet lodged in the driver's seat, which finally induced the driver to stop. Id. at 765-66. In upholding the officer's conviction for use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, see id. at 767-71, we held that the gunshot into [the] station wagon constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, id. at 768. Our holding in Bradley follows directly from Hodari D.  the gunshot plainly constituted a seizure effected by the officer's use of physical force. See Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 625, 111 S.Ct. 1547 ([A]n arrest is effected by the slightest application of physical force....). However, Bradley also problematically (and unnecessarily) suggested that a Fourth Amendment seizure of a fleeing suspect is not ... an isolated moment but can span the time between the use of force and the time the suspect stops attempting to escape. 196 F.3d at 768. [1] We quoted from a Third Circuit opinion stating that `a seizure can be a process, a kind of continuum, and is not necessarily a discrete moment of initial restraint.' Id. at 767 (quoting United States v. Johnstone, 107 F.3d 200, 206 (3d Cir.1997)). This language cannot be squared with Hodari D.'s emphatic statement that a `seizure is a single act, and not a continuous fact.' 499 U.S. at 625, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (quoting Thompson, 85 U.S. at 471). Accordingly, Bradley is properly understood to stand for the proposition that a gunshot fired into a fleeing car is a forcible seizure; it should not be read as support for the proposition that a seizure is a continuum that can span the time between a show of authority and a surrender, as Griffin suggests. Here, the officers did not use force, and without his seizure-as-a-continuum theory, Griffin is left with two discrete points at which the seizure could have been effected: when the police initially activated their emergency lights or when he yielded to their show of authority. Griffin concedes that under Hodari D. a seizure cannot occur unless a suspect submits; he denies, however, that a seizure cannot occur until the suspect submits. The reasoning of Hodari D. forecloses this argument, which is really just a variation on the continuum theme. Hodari D. held that submission to a show of authority is a necessary element of a seizure; the Court explained that while a suspect is still fleeing (as Griffin was when he discarded the drugs), he is not seized. See 499 U.S. at 626, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (The word `seizure' ... does not remotely apply ... to the prospect of a policeman yelling `Stop, in the name of the law!' at a fleeing form that continues to flee.). If a suspect is not seized during the entire time he is being pursued by police, then the seizure does not occur until he submits to the show of authority or the pursuing officer resorts to force to stop the suspect's flight. The Court made the forcible-seizure part of this reasoning explicit, explaining that when Hodari ignored an initial show of authority and the pursuing officer had to use force, the seizure did not occur until he was tackled. Id. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547. That is, a seizure by physical force following a show of authority occurs when force is applied; it does not relate back to the initial show of authority. Similarly, a seizure by submission following a show of authority occurs when the suspect submits and does not relate back to the initial show of authority. [2] Contrary to Griffin's argument, a seizure by show of authority does not occur unless and until the suspect submits. This conclusion is consistent with several of our cases applying Hodari D. In Kernats v. O'Sullivan, 35 F.3d 1171 (7th Cir.1994), we noted that [u]nder [the Hodari D. ] test, a fleeing suspect  even one who is confronted with an obvious show of authority  is not seized until his freedom of movement has been terminated by an intentional application of physical force or by the suspect's submission to the asserted authority. Id. at 1178 n. 4. We repeated this language again a few years later in United States v. $32,400.00, in U.S. Currency, 82 F.3d 135, 139 (7th Cir.1996). Simply put, a seizure effected by a show of authority occurs when the suspect submits. Griffin discarded the drugs during the low-speed police chase before he submitted to the officers' show of authority  that is, before he was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes. Accordingly, the drug evidence found in the parking lot was not the fruit of an unconstitutional seizure, and the district court properly denied Griffin's motion to suppress. See Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547.