Opinion ID: 656594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consent During the Search

Text: 33 Metra also argues that the plaintiffs consented to the search when the plaintiffs freely cooperated with the search after being politely asked if they would mind getting out of their vehicles and whether they would mind opening the doors and trunks. Metra emphasizes that the plaintiffs were never told that they must be searched or admonished that they were not free to leave, and insists that none of the plaintiffs objected to the search or otherwise indicated that they felt compelled to undergo the search. 34 The plaintiffs do not contest that they cooperated with the Metra officers in conducting the search. They argue, however, that the cooperation was the product of an unlawful seizure, and thus invalid to support consent. According to the plaintiffs, they were unlawfully seized when their vehicles were detained attempting to leave the parking lot. 35 The plaintiffs are correct that their purported consent is vitiated if it was the product of an unlawful seizure. Consent obtained after an illegal seizure is invalid unless it can be shown that the consent was in fact sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful seizure. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 416, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963); United States v. Recalde, 761 F.2d 1448, 1457-58 (10th Cir.1985). The purported consent is free of the unlawful taint if there is a break in the causal connection between the illegality and the consent given. Recalde, 761 F.2d at 1458 (citing Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 217-18, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2259-60, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979)). When statements and conduct evidencing consent to a search are given contemporaneously with the illegal seizure, with no break in the causal chain, the actions of the person seized are not free from the taint of unlawful detention and are thus insufficient to show consent. See Florida v. Bostick, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2386, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 507-08, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1329, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224, 230 (4th Cir.1990). 36 The record here does not indicate that, if there was an unlawful seizure, the plaintiffs' conduct was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawfulness. Indeed, the plaintiffs' conduct which Metra relies upon to establish consent appears to have occurred contemporaneously with the alleged seizure. 37 We thus turn to whether there was an unlawful seizure. The determination whether an encounter between the police and a citizen is a seizure is, like the issue of consent, a highly factual one. United States v. Teslim, 869 F.2d 316, 321 (7th Cir.1989). Therefore, we can affirm the grant of summary judgment only if the record establishes, as a matter of law, that the plaintiffs were not unlawfully seized. 7 38
39 It goes without saying that not all encounters between the police and citizens implicate the Fourth Amendment. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). As is true of searches, the legality of a seizure is a question of reasonableness. Essentially, there are three different categories of police-citizen encounters, each entailing its own standard for assessing whether the encounter was objectively reasonable. In United States v. Johnson, we delineated the categories as follows: 40 The first category is an arrest, for which the Fourth Amendment requires that police have probable cause to believe that a person has committed or is committing a crime. The second category is an investigatory stop, which is limited to a brief, non-intrusive detention. This is also a Fourth Amendment seizure, but the officer need only have specific and articulable facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed or is committing a crime. The third category involves no restraint on the citizen's liberty, and is characterized by an officer seeking the citizen's voluntary cooperation through noncoercive questioning. This is not a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 41 910 F.2d 1506, 1508 (7th Cir.1990) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1051, 111 S.Ct. 764, 112 L.Ed.2d 783 (1991). Metra maintains that the encounter between the police and the plaintiffs did not amount to a seizure but was limited to asking for consent to undergo the search. Because the plaintiffs do not contend that the encounter with the Metra police was an arrest, the issue is whether the situation amounted to an investigatory stop (which Metra would have to justify to sustain its lawfulness) or whether it amounted to simple questioning (which Metra was free to undertake without suspicion or cause). 42 A person is seized if, taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the police conduct would 'have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.'  Bostick, --- U.S. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 2387 (quoting Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1979, 100 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988)). Factors relevant to this determination, include, but are not limited to, the following: the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer's request might be compelled. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554-55, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1876-77, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (Opinion of Stewart, J.). 43 In response to Metra's contention that the plaintiffs were not restricted and could have left the lot if they so chose, the district court held that there was no evidence that the plaintiffs were seized because the plaintiffs testified that the gate was not locked and that they were never told that they could not leave. We believe, however, that the record contains sufficient evidence to present a genuine issue whether the plaintiffs were seized prior to cooperating with the search. Initially, we note the similarities of the stop before us to a checkpoint or roadblock stop, in which nearly every vehicle crossing a particular point in the road is stopped by police for questioning and/or visual inspection. The Supreme Court indicated in Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 2485, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), that a  'seizure' occurs when a vehicle is stopped at a checkpoint. See also Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 546 n. 1, 96 S.Ct. at 3077 n. 1 (whether the vehicles are stopped or allowed to roll through the checkpoint held irrelevant because all motorists passing through the checkpoint are so slowed as to have been 'seized' ). We also note that in cases involving vehicle stops, courts have not distinguished between a seizure of the person and a seizure of the vehicle, but have presumed that the seizure of the vehicle, in effect, seized the person because a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave without the vehicle. See id.; United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 694, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) (The Fourth Amendment applies to seizures of the person, including brief investigatory stops such as the stop of the vehicle here.); United States v. Pavelski, 789 F.2d 485, 488-89 (7th Cir.) (reasonable person would not have felt free to leave when it was doubtful that appellants could have maneuvered their car out of the parking lot when it was bounded on three sides by patrol cars), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 917, 107 S.Ct. 322, 93 L.Ed.2d 295 (1986); cf. Royer, 460 U.S. at 501, 103 S.Ct. at 1325 (person seized when, among other things, the state retained airline ticket and driver's license). Although there may be subtle distinctions between this stop and a checkpoint stop, such as the degree to which one may feel restrained to leave, the similarity between them strongly suggests that the current encounter was a seizure. 44 The location of the search, the police conduct during the search and the subjective beliefs of the named plaintiffs as to their ability to escape the search, moreover, buttress the conclusion that there is a factual dispute whether the plaintiffs were seized. First, the location and surroundings of the search were rather restrictive. The parking lot in which the search took place is surrounded by a fence. The plaintiffs also testified that the exit gates were half-closed and that the Metra officers stood in front of the vehicles' path to stop cars as they approached the gate. 45 As to the conduct of the officers, the record establishes that there were several officers at the scene, some of whom were in uniform. The record also indicates that the officers asked the plaintiffs, Do you mind stepping out of your car, or as Petrizzo put it, the guy that searched our car just asked us to get out. Petrizzo also testified that an officer said he was going to search the car and open the trunk, while Suchor testified that after he was asked to leave his car, another officer immediately entered the passenger side and proceeded to search the vehicle. McGann testified that, after he reminded his supervisor that he had to leave early, the supervisor responded by moving him to the front of the line. And when McGann asked an officer why he was being searched, the officer replied that they were Just looking. These statements and actions by the Metra police could suggest to a reasonable person that the officers were not engaging in an effort to obtain consent, but rather were stopping the plaintiffs to conduct a search which the plaintiffs were not free to refuse. It may have been a polite seizure, but it had many earmarks of a seizure nonetheless. Moreover, even if the police statements were to be viewed as mere requests to search the plaintiffs' vehicles, the cold record does not indicate the tone of the requests, which, given the language of the statements, may indicate to the trier of fact that compliance was compelled. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. at 1876. 46 Finally, the record indicates that the named plaintiffs may not have felt free to forgo the search and leave the parking lot. Although the subjective beliefs of the persons allegedly seized are not dispositive of the issue whether a reasonable person in the circumstances would have felt free to leave, they are nonetheless relevant. E.g. United States v. Withers, 972 F.2d 837, 842 (7th Cir.1992). The plaintiffs were not informed that they were free to leave and forgo the search. Petrizzo testified that if he had known he could have left without being searched, he would have done so. Suchor stated that the officers wouldn't let you leave, because [w]hen they stop in front of you, you're [n]ot going to run over a person. And McGann testified that he interpreted his supervisor's statement that he would be next to mean that he could not leave until his car was searched. Given this record, we conclude that there is a genuine issue of fact whether the plaintiffs were seized. 47
48 The fact that the plaintiffs may have been seized of course does not necessarily mean that the plaintiffs' subsequent consent was invalid. Only if the seizure was unlawful would it work to taint the subsequent consent and, separately and independently, support the plaintiffs' claim that they were illegally seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. For an investigatory stop to be a lawful seizure, the government must have specific and articulable facts sufficient to raise a reasonable suspicion that an individual committed or is committing a crime. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879; Teslim, 869 F.2d at 322. If the seizure is deemed a checkpoint or roadblock stop, on the other hand, the government is not required to have an individualized suspicion with respect to each person searched, so long as the need for the stop was great, the intrusion--measured by the duration of the search and the intensity of the investigation--was minimal and the discretion of the official was relatively circumscribed. Sitz, 496 U.S. at 451-54, 110 S.Ct. at 2485-87; Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50-51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2640-41, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 556-59, 96 S.Ct. at 3082-83; see generally 3 LaFave, supra at § 9.5. 49 As we indicated earlier, however, Metra has disavowed any reliance on the objective reasonableness of its conduct absent consent. 8 Relying entirely on the plaintiffs' alleged consent and upon the argument that the police encounter was limited to asking for consent to search, Metra has failed to articulate the purpose of its actions. Consequently, because there is a genuine issue of fact whether the plaintiffs were unlawfully seized, Metra has not shown as a matter of law that the plaintiffs, by cooperating with the searching officers, consented to the search. Summary judgment on the plaintiffs' illegal search and seizure claims was therefore inappropriate.