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

Heading: The De Facto Arrest

Text: Even a search or seizure carried out pursuant to a proper exception to the warrant requirement is illegal when the search or seizure exceeds the reasonable intrusion necessary under the circumstances. Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 216, 99 S.Ct. at 2258-59. A detention that exceeds a reasonable scope will result in the seizure being deemed an arrest. Hayes v. Florida, supra, 470 U.S. at 816, 105 S.Ct. at 1647 (adhering to the view that certain investigative seizures are sufficiently like arrests to invoke the traditional rule that arrests may constitutionally be made only on probable cause); Keeter, supra, 635 A.2d at 904 (holding that evidence must be suppressed because it resulted from a seizure [that] amounted to an arrest); see United States v. Gayden, 492 A.2d 868, 872-74 (D.C.1985); see also Offutt, supra, 534 A.2d at 938 (citing Davis v. United States, 498 A.2d 242, 245 (D.C.1985); United States v. White, 208 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 294-95, 648 F.2d 29, 34-35, cert. denied, 454 U.S. 924, 102 S.Ct. 424, 70 L.Ed.2d 233 (1981)); Thompkins v. United States, 251 A.2d 636, 638-39 (D.C.1969). Notwithstanding that Womack's seizure bore all the objective indicia of an arrest, the majority relies on the fact that the police would have let Womack go if the identification procedure had not borne fruitin other words, that the police were effecting a temporary detention, designed to last only until a preliminary investigation either generate[d] probable cause or result[ed] in the release of the suspect. In re M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d at 1126, quoted ante at 610. One problem with the logic of this approach to justifying initial seizuresthat the police would have released Womack if probable cause did not developis that it justifies police procedure based on its result. It is a logic that has been explicitly held by the Supreme Court to be incompatible with the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595, 68 S.Ct. 222, 228-29, 92 L.Ed. 210 (1948); Brown v. United States, 590 A.2d 1008, 1013 (D.C.1991); Bailey v. United States, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 354, 389 F.2d 305 (1967); see also Michigan v. Summers, supra, 452 U.S. at 696-97, 101 S.Ct. at 2590-91 (citing Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 212, 99 S.Ct. at 2256-57); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 16-17, 68 S.Ct. 367, 370-71, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1947); M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d at 1127 n. 2 (conceding the clear impropriety of seizing persons for purposes of interrogation in the hopes that something incriminating will be elicited). A second problem is that it renders the officers' subjective intent determinative of the issue whether a detention constitutes an arrest. The intrusive behavior of the police in this case is not made constitutionally permissible because the intent of the police was not to arrest, but merely to dispel or confirm their suspicion that Womack was a rapist. As the Court emphasized in Michigan v. Summers, supra , a case which permitted the detention of the occupant of a house pending the execution on the premises of a valid search warrant, of prime importance in permitting the temporary detention in that case was the fact that [a] neutral and detached magistrate, rather than a law-enforcement officer whose goal was to develop evidence and apprehend suspects, had found probable cause to believe that the law was being violated in that house. 452 U.S. at 701, 101 S.Ct. at 2593. It is uncontroverted that the distinction between arrests and Terry stops does not depend on the subjective intent of the officers. Keeter, supra, 635 A.2d at 906 (reversing conviction as supported by evidence derived from unconstitutional seizure even where police had articulable suspicion and repeatedly told suspect that he was not under arrest) (citing Gayden, supra, 492 A.2d at 872); Thompkins, supra, 251 A.2d at 638 (It is true that the point at which an arrest occurs is not controlled simply by when the arresting officer announces it.) (citations omitted); see Davis v. Mississippi, supra, 394 U.S. at 726, 89 S.Ct. at 1397 (rejecting the claim that seizures for investigatory purposes differ in their needed justification from seizures at the accusatory stage); but see Majority Opinion at 610 & note 11 (relying on police officer's subjective estimate that Womack was not placed under arrest until Womack had been identified). Womack's seizure, viewed from the perspective of any reasonable person in his circumstances, was likely indistinguishable from an arrest: awakened at the direction of the police, he was handcuffed immediately and forced outside and onto the street, with not an apparent chance to get dressed. The Supreme Court has always maintained that the very premise of the permissible Terry stop is that it is  so substantially less intrusive than arrests that the general rule requiring probable cause to make Fourth Amendment `seizures' reasonable could be replaced by a balancing test. Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 210, 99 S.Ct. at 2255 (emphasis added). A good indicator of whether a seizure was an arrest or a Terry stop must at least in part be whether the officers constrained themselves in the level of intrusion effected before probable cause developed. In re M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d at 1128 (In short, handcuffing the detainee, like length of detention, place of detention, and other considerations, is simply one factor, among many, that the trial judge must consider in weighing whether a detention for investigation crossed the line into the realm of arrest.). In this case there is no evidence on the record that suggests that the police did anything different than or restrained themselves from doing anything that they normally would have done in the course of an arrest. The majority relies heavily on In re M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d 1123. For reasons I have sought to identify in this discussion, In re M.E.B. presented circumstances so different on critical points from those presented here that its application to the present analysis is of questionable value, if it is of any. In In re M.E.B., the police learned from a radio transmission that an individual matching the appellant's description was suspected of a homicide that had occurred just over one hour earlier. Id. at 1124. Police stopped the appellant and his companion on the street, at a location consistent with the direction reportedly taken by the shooter when he left the scene. Id. at 1134. The police frisked the suspects, then handcuffed them in order to transport them ten to fifteen blocks for an identification procedure. Id. at 1125. Given the fact that there were only two officers detaining the two suspects, the location on a public street, and the officer's articulation of subjective fear that the homicide suspects would have an advantage traveling in the back of a police car which provided no protection for the officers, the court upheld the use of handcuffs. Id. at 1127. In that case, the record was replete with facts justifying this intrusion; in fact, the court explicitly relied in part upon the fact that the officers frisked the appellant before handcuffing him. Id. Similar reasoning applied in United States v. Bautista, supra . The court relied on the officer's testimony in that case to identify the many facts which justified the use of handcuffs: At that time a robbery of the bank had been committed and I believed that they were possibly the suspects and also because I observed tracks on their arms related to use of narcotics and also it was for officer safety as a precaution. I knew I was going to go to the front door of a residence to verify their story and I'd be leaving my fellow officer partner, John Gaspar, alone with the suspects. And because the suspects appeared extremely nervous and suspects Bautista kept pacing back and forth and looking, turning his head back and forth as if he was thinking about running. Id. at 1288. The court credited the testimony of the officer and found that the handcuffing of the suspects was not unreasonable. Id. at 1289. The two suspects were to be left with one officer, the suspects would be in the back of the car, and they appeared to be nervous; thus, the government's facts justified the intrusion. Id. The officers' description of the circumstances surrounding the arrest was also central to the decision in Reynolds v. Florida, 592 So.2d 1082 (Fla. 1992). In that case, the court justified the use of handcuffs based upon the time of day (night), the location (a neighborhood known for a high incidence of cocaine trafficking and use), the officers' specific experience with drug-related arrests ([a]n officer testified that she had been hurt in such a situation) and finally, on the underlying nature of the crime (cocaine distribution). Id. at 1085-86. Most importantly, the court specifically found that the use of handcuffs was proper when the facts demonstrated a reason to believe that the suspect was actually armed and dangerous. Id. at 1086. In the present case, at least three officers were present when Womack was handcuffed. Although the law justifies Terry stops by reference to a concern that the suspect be currently armed, [17] no police officer frisked Womack before he was removed from his home to the front yard, where additional officers were waiting in police cars. No officer articulated fear for his safety or thought that Womack might run. See Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 234-35, 105 S.Ct. at 683-84 (relying on officers' testimony that the suspect had been at large and was believed to be currently armed). There are no facts on the record in this case from which it could be inferred that the police even considered whether handcuffs were a necessary precaution in effecting this investigatory detention.