Opinion ID: 1956866
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The March 4 Encounter

Text: Appellant Marshall maintains that he became the victim of a false arrest once the officers refused to release him after they had confirmed that his back pocket did not contain a concealed weapon. He argues that the officers' continued insistence that he reveal his birth date, as well as their taking him to the police station for questioning, exceeded the bounds of proper procedures and thus constituted a civil wrong. The trial court found no actual arrest, concluded that the police officers' conduct, as portrayed by Mr. Marshall's own testimony, was proper, and decided that Mr. Marshall voluntarily accompanied the officers to the station. The court completely discredited Mr. Marshall's assertion that he did not willingly accompany the police. Thus, in effect, the court concluded that the detention initially was reasonable, that the actual restriction of freedom lasted only until the police transport was called (or arrived), that this detention lasted a reasonable period of time, and, finally, that Mr. Marshall's voluntary acts negated any claim of detention from that point forward. [3] In the absence of defense evidence, we cannot affirm the trial court's finding and consequent dismissal, despite the broad scope of a trial court's discretion under Rule 41. Mr. Marshall produced evidence of detention lasting significantly beyond the point at which the police were disabused of the suspicion that he had a gun. Confinement, no matter how brief, suffices to establish a prima facie case of false arrest. The District admits that the police confined Mr. Marshall for the first period of detention; i.e., between their discovery of papers (not a gun) in his pocket and the calling or arrival of police transport. Moreover, in weighing all the evidence, the court could not properly have found that the District had established a law enforcement defense covering this period of detention, based on good faith and reasonable belief, Wade, supra at 863; for absent defense evidence, the trial court could not have ascertained the partially subjective, id., good faith of the officers. With regard to Mr. Marshall's second period of detention, i.e., between the calling or arrival of the transport and his release at the police station, we cannot endorse the trial court's conclusion that he voluntarily accompanied the police. [4] In one of its admissions, the District conceded that the officers did not inform Mr. Marshall of his right not to accompany them to the station; the District contended, rather, that as an ex-officer he should have known he did not have to do so because he was not under arrest. This admission that Mr. Marshall did not overtly volunteer to go along, when coupled with his claim of coercion, constituted uncontradicted evidence of detention. In summary, even with the wide discretion granted under Rule 41(b), the trial court cannot properly have evaluated plaintiff's evidence and credibility, including the District's admissions, in a way that justified dismissal of the claim based on the March 4 incident.