Opinion ID: 795446
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the seizure become an arrest?

Text: 48 When police actions go beyond checking out the suspicious circumstances that led to the original [ Terry ] stop, the detention becomes an arrest that must be supported by probable cause. United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 607 (6th Cir.1994). Courts consider the length of the detention, the manner in which it is conducted, and the degree of force used in determining whether an investigative stop is reasonably related to the basis for the original intrusion. Houston, 174 F.3d at 814. See also United States v. Perez, 440 F.3d 363, 372 (6th Cir.2006) (The investigative means used should also be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer's suspicions in a short period of time.) 49 Here, the Smoaks were instructed over a squad-car loudspeaker to exit their vehicle, and guns were aimed at them while they walked backwards away from it. They were then handcuffed while on their knees, and their pleas for the officers to shut the station wagon's doors were ignored. Once the Smoaks were in handcuffs, and after their dog was shot to death, the Smoaks were placed in separate squad cars and questioned. After the officers learned that no robberies had been reported, the Smoaks still had to ask multiple times over the course of nine minutes for the officers to remove their handcuffs. See Houston, 174 F.3d at 815 (holding that a detention that wrongfully extended some twenty minutes beyond the time that the officers surmised that no shooting had occurred was reasonable only because the officers still reasonably suspected Houston and Perkins in a serious and violent crime). 50 Although the use of guns, handcuffs, and detention in a police cruiser do not automatically transform a Terry stop into an arrest, these displays of force must be warranted by the circumstances. Houston, 174 F.3d at 815. In Houston, the court held that the officers reasonably drew and aimed their weapons at the occupants of a car because the officers possessed reliable information that the suspects had been involved in the shooting of a police officer. Id. This information, according to the court, gave the officers a reasonabl[e] fear that [the] suspects were armed and dangerous. Id. at 814. 51 In the present case, the THP troopers possessed nothing more than a bare inference that the Smoaks had been involved in a robbery, and weaker still was any inference that they had been involved in an armed robbery. The troopers' information was further limited because the dispatchers did not promptly relay to them all the relevant data at hand. Even if Andrews, Bush, and Phann initially had a reasonable basis to believe that the Smoaks were armed and dangerous, these fears should have been dispelled much more quickly, and, in fact, were dispelled nine minutes before the Smoaks were released from their handcuffs. The use of guns pointed at the Smoaks, the refusal to comply with the Smoaks' pleas to shut the vehicle doors due to the dogs inside, and the prolonged detention in separate police cruisers indicate that Andrews, Bush, and Phann did not use the least intrusive means necessary to conduct a preliminary investigation of a possible robbery. See Oliveira v. Mayer, 23 F.3d 642, 647 (2d Cir.1994) (holding that the seizure of suspected thieves constituted an arrest due to (1) the numerous oppressive elements of the encounter between the police and the plaintiffs, (2) the limited evidence that there was a crime, and (3) the absence of any indication that plaintiffs were armed or dangerous). 52 Accepting the Smoaks' version of events as true, the manner in which this investigatory stop was conducted—even acknowledging that Andrews, Bush, and Phann believed that a possible robbery had been committed—far exceeded the reasonable suspicion of an objective THP trooper. The Smoaks had obediently complied with the THP troopers' orders while the Cookeville police officers aimed loaded guns at the Smoaks' heads, and the troopers had refused to afford them even the courtesy of ensuring the safety of their two pets. In balancing the THP troopers' suspicion—based on an unsupported dispatch alerting the troopers to a possible robbery—against the intrusiveness of the seizure, we conclude that the seizure of the Smoaks violated their Fourth Amendment rights because it became an arrest without probable cause. 53 The Smoaks have not, however, met their burden of demonstrating that the THP troopers on the scene should have known that the unreasonable seizure was in violation of the Smoaks' constitutional rights. See Silberstein v. City of Dayton, 440 F.3d 306, 311 (6th Cir.2006) (Once the qualified immunity defense is raised, the burden is on the plaintiff to demonstrate that the officials are not entitled to qualified immunity.). Caselaw from this circuit has endorsed the use of guns and handcuffs during a felony stop, even if only as part of an investigatory seizure. Houston, 174 F.3d at 815. Although the use of guns and handcuffs in the present case was unreasonably intrusive, prior decisions had not made this clear. 54 We are also faced with the question of whether the approximately nine minutes that the Smoaks spent in handcuffs after the THP troopers were informed that no robberies had occurred is enough to deny the troopers qualified immunity. The law is clear that [o]nce the purposes of the initial traffic stop [are] completed, there is no doubt that the officer [can] not further detain the vehicle or its occupants unless something that occurred during the traffic stop generated the reasonable suspicion to justify a further detention. United States v. Mesa, 62 F.3d 159, 162 (6th Cir.1995). As a result, the traffic stop morphed into an arrest. But the THP troopers were still in the process of sorting out the disconnect between why they had pulled over the Smoaks in the first place and the new information received from the dispatchers. The Smoaks were also justifiably agitated and upset over the loss of their dog, and the troopers wanted to diffuse the situation. In this confusing factual scenario, we believe that the few extra minutes that the troopers took to release the Smoaks was not so unreasonable as to deny them the protection of qualified immunity. 55 The circumstances in the present case, in our opinion, are analogous to the situation presented in Feathers v. Aey, 319 F.3d 843, 849 (6th Cir.2003). In Feathers, this court ruled that although a seizure violated the Fourth Amendment because police officers stopped a suspect based on a dispatcher's inaccurate report, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 851. Qualified immunity was granted because the individual defendants had a sufficient factual basis for thinking that they were acting consistently with Terry.  Id. Similarly, Andrews, Bush, and Phann relied on weak inferences and incomplete BOLOs discussing a possible robbery in determining to conduct a high risk felony stop. But Bush even checked with the Nashville division of the THP to confirm that it wanted him to stop the Smoaks' vehicle. Based on Feathers, we conclude that the THP troopers have a good-faith defense relating to the felony stop. Id. (citations and quotation marks omitted). This conduct, in other words, which in hindsight must be viewed as an unreasonable seizure under the totality of the circumstances, was not so clear to the THP troopers on the scene as to deny them qualified immunity on this basis. Andrews, Bush, and Phann are therefore entitled to qualified immunity on the Smoaks' claim of unreasonable seizure.