Opinion ID: 203983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dubose Was Seized

Text: A person is seized when the police restrain that person's liberty. Holloway, 499 F.3d at 117. The Supreme Court has distinguished two kinds of restraint: physical or a verbal show of authority that would compel a reasonable person to comply. California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 626, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991). Physical force alone is a seizure. Id. at 624-25, 111 S.Ct. 1547. But when an officer makes a show of authority instead, the person is not seized until the person submits to the show of authority by complying with the officer's instruction. Id.; Holloway, 499 F.3d at 117. Once the person complies, his liberty has been restrained and he is seized under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Sealey, 30 F.3d 7, 9 (1st Cir.1994). When Officer Canuto first approached Dubose, he said, Excuse me, sir, can I talk to you for a second? (Appx. at 10, 52, 95.) Initially, Dubose ignored him and kept walking, but after Officer Canuto repeated the question in an increasingly loud voice, Dubose, with his hand in his sweatshirt pocket, stopped and turned to face Officer Canuto. Office Canuto several times ordered Dubose to take his hand out of his pocket because the officer feared Dubose might have a gun. Dubose initially refused to comply, but after several such commands by Officer Canuto, eventually he complied. We need not get excessively embroiled in whether the seizure occurred when Dubose stopped walking and turned to face Officer Canuto or whether it occurred a few seconds later when he removed his hand from his sweatshirt in response to Officer Canuto's command. Only a few seconds elapsed during this interaction which is best analyzed as a single ongoing encounter that should be viewed holistically, rather than bifurcated into artificially small increments. We have no difficulty concluding that by the time Dubose had complied with Officer Canuto's demand that he stop and remove his hand from his sweatshirt pocket, there had been a seizure.