Opinion ID: 2052636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Departure from the Warrant Requirement

Text: The motions court in this case found that the officers handcuffing Womack had neither a warrant nor probable cause to believe Womack had committed an offense at the time that they handcuffed him. Therefore, the motions court was required to find, and we are required to agree, that the police's seizure of Womack met a recognized exception to the requirement of a warrant. There are a few jealously and carefully drawn exceptions to the warrant requirement that the government may rely on in justifying a warrantless seizure. Sanders, supra, 442 U.S. at 759-60, 99 S.Ct. at 2590-91 (citing Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 1257, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514 (1958)). One commonly-recognized exception to the warrant requirement is a felony arrest in a public place on probable cause. The Constitution itself suggests, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, that such an arrest is permissible. U.S. CONST. amend. IV (noting that a person may not be seized, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause); United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976) (holding that an officer could arrest a suspect in a public place based upon probable cause even without exigent circumstances); see Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) (demonstrating that police may arrest a suspect based upon probable cause, while an arrest based only on reasonable suspicion is illegal). The Supreme Court has not been similarly tolerant of seizures of suspects occurring in the suspect's home. See, e.g., Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 477-78, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2044, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (reaffirming that searches and seizures in a man's house without warrant are per se unreasonable); United States v. Harris, 629 A.2d 481, 486 (D.C.1993). This approach has historical roots; the overriding respect for the sanctity of the home ... has been embedded in our tradition since the origins of the Republic. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 601, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1388, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). This frequently-noted special constitutional protection confirms that in no setting is the protected zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home. Id. at 589, 100 S.Ct. at 1381-82. [7] The Supreme Court has thus recognized that unlike an arrest in a public place, a warrantless entry into a home to effect the arrest of a suspect  even one whom the police have probable cause to believe committed a felony  is presumptively illegal. [8] See New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 17, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 1642-43, 109 L.Ed.2d 13 (1990). The only recognized exceptions to this rule are those based on exigent circumstances, including to render emergency aid if an officer reasonably believes such aid is necessary. See Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967); United States v. Booth, 455 A.2d 1351 (D.C.1983). Notably, because the cases announcing these principles are based on the special protection from police intrusion afforded an individual at home, they do not address the implications of a valid consent to the entry of the police. Robertson v. United States, 429 A.2d 192, 193-94 (D.C.1981) (distinguishing Payton, supra, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, and Dorman v. United States, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 435 F.2d 385 (1970) on the ground that both cases involved nonconsensual entry into the home). This case presents not an absence of valid consent to enter the home, but an absence of probable cause to seize Womack when he came down the stairs of his home to meet the officers. See Robertson, supra, 429 A.2d at 194 (holding that consensual entry into the home to effect a warrantless arrest is constitutional where there is probable cause). The majority seeks its support for Womack's seizure mainly in cases relying on Terry. A Terry stop and frisk constitutes one of the most-recognized exceptions to the probable cause requirement when a seizure is effected in a public place. Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. at 1879. At the outset, I question whether a Terry analysis is properly applied here, because there is no indication that the concerns which led the Supreme Court to validate the stop and frisk police investigative procedure used in Terry and its progeny apply to the kind of police-initiated actions that led to the search and seizure of Womack in his home in this case. That hesitation is not essential to my conclusion that Womack was unconstitutionally seized, however, because even applying Terry analysis, the government has failed to meet its burden of justifying its seizure of Womack, as discussed in Section C below.
The facts of the Terry case are both significant and generally known. [9] The Court held in Terry that a brief investigative stop is less intrusive than a traditional arrest, and that therefore, an officer needs proportionally less justification to effect such a stop. Id. at 26, 88 S.Ct. at 1882-83. The Court thus interpreted the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment to permit brief, on-the-street, relatively unintrusive investigatory detentions based upon officers' observations of ongoing or prospective crime. The Court did not in Terry, and has not to date, substituted mere reasonableness for the constitutional probable cause requirement for an arrest. See Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 697, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 2591, 69 L.Ed.2d 340 (1981) (Indeed, any `exception' that could cover a seizure as intrusive as [one that `was in important respects indistinguishable from a traditional arrest'] would threaten to swallow the general rule that Fourth Amendment seizures are `reasonable' only if based on probable cause.) (quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 213, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2257, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979)); see also Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 214, 99 S.Ct. at 2257 (For all but those narrowly defined intrusions, the requisite `balancing' has been performed in centuries of precedent and is embodied in the principle that seizures are `reasonable' only if supported by probable cause.). In this case, because the officers could not validly place Womack under arrest when they encountered him in his home, the government needs to rely on the following legal inference: that officers who have consent to be on the premises of a private home, like officers who encounter a suspect outside, can effect a seizure by meeting some exception to the probable cause requirement. In other words, the government impliedly argues in this case that police officers with consent to be on private premises have the same right to restrain the liberty of a suspect they encounter there as they would if that suspect were in a public place. This court has never resolved the question framed in this way, and it may or may not be a legally correct position. [10] Nevertheless, in order for the government to rely on this legal assumption, as it does, it must be agreed that the facts presented to the trial court meet stringent factual criteria outweighing the presumption that a person in his home enjoys heightened constitutional protection. The government must use the least intrusive means reasonable in light of the facts before the officers. As the Court explained in Royer, supra : The scope of the intrusion permitted will vary to some extent with the particular facts and circumstances of each case. This much, however, is clear: an investigative detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop. [11] Similarly, the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer's suspicion in a short period of time. It is the State's burden to demonstrate that the seizure it seeks to justify on the basis of a reasonable suspicion was sufficiently limited in scope and duration to satisfy the conditions of an investigative seizure. 460 U.S. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1325-26 (internal citations omitted). In subsequent cases the Supreme Court has not, as the majority suggests, ante at ___, rejected the requirement that the police employ the least intrusive means in the context of an investigatory detention. [12] Compare Royer, supra, 460 U.S. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1325-26 with the earlier case, relied upon by the majority, of United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 556-57 n. 12, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3082 n. 12, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976) (rejecting, in the context of compulsory stops at border check-points designed to stem illegal immigration, a defendant's claim that other means, such as prohibiting employers from hiring illegal immigrants, would also accomplish the same legislative goal without implicating the Fourth Amendment). Rather, the Court has further explained that the Fourth Amendment's yardstick of reasonableness also should be employed in evaluating whether the police used the least intrusive means as perceived by them. The question is not simply whether some other alternative was available, but whether the police acted unreasonably in failing to recognize or to pursue it. United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 687, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 1576, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985). Courts that justify compulsory detentions in public places by analogy to Terry, see, e.g., Royer, supra, 460 U.S. at 510, 103 S.Ct. at 1330-31 (Brennan, J., concurring) (describing investigatory detention as a  Terry -type `investigative stop'); United States v. Alston, 832 F.Supp. 1, 3 (D.D.C.1993) (characterizing police stop of car  Terry -like), follow the rationale of Terry, which explicitly relies upon the inherent exigencies of on-the-street encounters. Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 12, 88 S.Ct. at 1875 (stating that we approach the issues in this case mindful of the limitations of the judicial function in controlling the myriad daily situations in which policemen and citizens confront each other on the street  and that [n]o judicial opinion can comprehend the protean variety of the street encounter ) (emphasis added); Bridges v. United States, 392 A.2d 1053, 1055-56 (D.C.1978) (noting that Terry validated limited detention for `on-the-scene' investigation); see also Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 210, 99 S.Ct. at 2255 (stating that  Terry ... involved a limited on-the-street frisk for weapons); Harris v. United States, 382 A.2d 1016, 1018-19 (D.C.1978) (discussing the nature of street encounters); Cooper v. United States, 368 A.2d 554, 556-57 (D.C.1977) (observing Terry 's change in the law relating to street encounters and street detentions). Courts regularly recognize that the function of the police would be undermined, and our confidence in their protection compromised, if officers were not able to conduct adequate investigation where criminal activity is actively indicated. See, e.g., Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145-46, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1922-23, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972) (stating that conducting a Terry stop may be the essence of good police work); In re M.M., 407 A.2d 698, 700 (D.C.1979) ([W]e are not persuaded that this officer should have simply shrugged his shoulders and allowed appellees to proceed on their way.); Davis v. United States, 284 A.2d 459, 460 (D.C.1971); see also King v. United States, 550 A.2d 348, 357 (D.C.1988); Harris v. United States, supra, 382 A.2d at 1019; Cooper, supra, 368 A.2d at 557. The danger to the police, and society's interest in the diligent investigation of a suspected crime, provide the foundation for permitting officers to stop individuals to investigate suspected offenses where the officers, for any number of reasons, might not get a second chance. Adams v. Williams, supra, 407 U.S. at 145-46, 92 S.Ct. at 1922-23; Offutt v. United States, 534 A.2d 936, 938 n. 2 (D.C.1987) (citing Lawson v. United States, 360 A.2d 38 (D.C.1976) (seeking to avoid lost opportunities for investigation), additional citations omitted); see also Sharpe, supra, 470 U.S. at 682-88, 105 S.Ct. at 1573-77; United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 226, 105 S.Ct. 675, 678-79, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985) (observing that police may constitutionally apprehend moving vehicles if the officers possess a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity). Cases upholding Terry -like seizures invariably rely on the possibility that the suspect might flee in concluding that police conduct in restraining the suspect was reasonable. See, e.g., United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 704, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2643, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (noting the need for Terry seizures of suspected drug couriers [b]ecause of the inherently transient nature of the activity at airports; affirming reversal of conviction on ground that seizure was unreasonably broad); Adams v. Williams, supra, 407 U.S. at 145-46, 92 S.Ct. at 1922-23; Brown v. United States, 546 A.2d 390, 392-393 (D.C. 1988) (noting that the stopped suspects were attempting to drive off at an excessive speed, consistent with actions typically taken by individuals seeking to secrete themselves while leaving a crime scene); United States v. Bennett, 514 A.2d 414, 414 (D.C.1986) (noting that suspects bolted when police arrived); Tobias v. United States, 375 A.2d 491, 492 (D.C.1977) (noting that suspect ran after police officer identified himself); Hinton v. United States, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 391, 424 F.2d 876, 879 (1969) (noting that suspect bolted after a police search of his companion revealed contraband); see also Powell v. United States, 649 A.2d 1082, 1085 (D.C.1994) (per curiam) (opinion of Sullivan, J.) (reversing conviction where evidence of attempted flight inadequate to help justify Terry stop). One point to bear in mind in assessing whether Terry fairly justifies Womack's seizure is that this case does not present a true Terry stop. The officers in the instant case were investigating a completed crime, rather than observing ongoing criminal activity or trying to prevent a crime still in the planning stage. See In re T.T.C., 583 A.2d 986, 989 (D.C.1990) (The Terry exception to the probable cause requirement is limited to circumstances `where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot.') (quoting Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884) (emphasis omitted). Although the Supreme Court has noted that police may detain a fleeing suspect in a Terry -like stop when the individual is suspected of a completed crime, in so holding, the Court suggested that the burden on the government to justify the detention would likely increase in the absence of the Terry interest in thwarting ongoing crime. Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 228-29, 105 S.Ct. at 680-81; see also New York v. Spencer, 84 N.Y.2d 749, 622 N.Y.S.2d 483, 646 N.E.2d 785 (1995). The Supreme Court has also suggested that where officers are investigating a past crime, detention for the purpose of obtaining evidence that is not likely to be destroyed in timesuch as fingerprint samples (or, by obvious analogy, an identification by the complainant)is rarely justifiable. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 727, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 1397-98, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969); see also Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 229, 105 S.Ct. at 680-81 (specifically declining to decide undecided question whether Terry stops to investigate all past crimes, however serious, are permitted). The Fourth Amendment balances the level of intrusion in a police encounter against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion. Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 228, 105 S.Ct. at 680; Harris v. United States, supra, 382 A.2d at 1018. Thus, if the governmental interest is less exigent when officers are investigating a completed crime, then the permissible intrusion during a Terry -like stop for a completed crime is more limited than that for an ongoing crime. Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 228, 105 S.Ct. at 680; see also Spencer, supra, 622 N.Y.S.2d at 486-87, 646 N.E.2d at 788-89; State v. Hubbard, 861 P.2d 1053, 1054-55 (Utah App.1993) (concluding that investigation of a completed crime did not present the exigencies inherent in investigating ongoing or prospective crime; without additional articulated exigencies, stop of defendant's car was illegal). It would thus appear that the reasonable scope of a Terry -like investigatory detentionin its level of intrusionmust be more narrow when facts and exigencies similar to those in the Terry case are not present. Although the confluence of such exigencies in the home is not impossible to imagine, their presence in the home is surely the rare exception and not the rule. [13] Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811, 817 n. 3, 105 S.Ct. 1643, 1647 n. 3, 84 L.Ed.2d 705 (1985) (noting the absence of asserted exigent circumstances necessitating warrantless removal of suspect from his home in reversing conviction on Fourth Amendment grounds). In fact, in the few cases in which a suspect was detained in his home or in a private place for investigation, the location of the seizure has been evidence that the officers exceeded the scope of a Terry stop. [14] Heretofore, this court had never identified the reasonable scope of an investigatory detention which takes place in a suspect's home. The government did not cite any case, from any jurisdiction, upholding under Terry an investigatory detention which took place within a suspect's home. Indeed, when asked at oral argument, the government indicated that it did not know of a case on point. [15] The majority's independent research uncovered two cases, cited ante at note 20, in which the government sought to justify a detention in a private home under Terry. [16] These cases do not support the majority's conclusion in this case. In Hill v. United States, 664 A.2d 347, 354 (D.C.1995), we appear to have assumed the very proposition I claim is correct: that what may constitute a proper Terry detention out on the street may well be illegal if it occurs in the home. Hill held that where an individual is the object of reasonable suspicion, and is found at the home of another party where the suspect had no privacy interest, the legality of any detention or search of the appellant's person would `be judged within the context of a confrontation between citizen and law enforcement authority in a public place,' i.e., by the Terry standard, because it did not take place in his home. Id. (citing United States v. McNeal, 955 F.2d 1067, 1074-76 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 505 U.S. 1223, 112 S.Ct. 3039, 120 L.Ed.2d 908 (1992)). The court clearly implied in its holding that if the suspect had had a privacy interest in the premises, the detention could not properly be judged under Terry standards. See also McNeal, supra, 955 F.2d at 1077 (upholding as the equivalent of a Terry stop in a public place a limited protective search for concealed weapons on a suspect in an apartment in which the suspect had no expectation of privacy or possessory interest, explicitly because the officers testified to facts tending to show that the suspect was armed and presently dangerous) (quotations omitted). The majority also cites United States v. Brooks, 2 F.3d 838, 841-42 (8th Cir.1993), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1117, 127 L.Ed.2d 427 (1994), which upheld a limited patdown in a suspect's home after the police, who (like the officers in this case) were on the premises by consent, had developed reason to believe that the person with whom they were dealing had committed an armed robbery and, from a noticeable bulge in his pocket which was later described as bearing the outline of a gun, continued to be armed. Id. at 841. Although the Eighth Circuit in Brooks does appear to have applied Terry standards to an in-home search, it strictly scrutinized the police's conduct in light of the police's articulated justificationapplying the very fact-based scrutiny I believe is lacking here. The factual differences between the situation in Brooks and the situation before us are striking and, in my view, determinative in terms of the legality of the police's actions. First, Brooks involved a patdown; not the use of handcuffs. As discussed infra, the level of intrusiveness involved in handcuffing is so associated with arrests that it requires particular justification in a temporary detention. See Hood v. United States, 661 A.2d 1081, 1084-85 (D.C.1995) (noting that a Terry search can only be as broad as the specific exigencies that justify it). Second, even though the crime that had been committed was, as here, a violent one, the court in Brooks deemed it critical that the officers had reasonable, particularized suspicion that the suspect [was still] armed. Id. at 842. This suspicion was supported by the officers' testimony regarding the bulge in the suspect's pocket. In the instant case, there was no particularized suspicion articulated by the officers that Womack was armed when he got out from his bed and came down the stairs to meet them, as evidenced in part by the fact that they did not frisk him. See Hood, supra, 661 A.2d at 1084 (requiring that police provide objective justification for concluding that [the suspect] might be armed and dangerous at the time ) (emphasis added). One compelling consideration in regard to when Terry can justify in-home seizures is that the Terry Courtand almost all courts following the Terry rationale in upholding police conductclearly intended that a Terry stop be in fact a stop, a characterization that could not fairly describe the actions of police encountering a person in his home who, until the arrival of the police, had apparently been asleep in his bed. See Keeter v. United States, 635 A.2d 903, 904 (D.C.1993). For example, cases that justify compulsory placement in a complainant's view for a show-up identification procedure have always concerned stops of suspects on the street. See, e.g., In re M.E.B., 638 A.2d 1123 (D.C.1994); King, supra, 550 A.2d at 357; In re M.M., supra, 407 A.2d 698. In short, the Fourth Amendment balancing of governmental and privacy interests struck in Terry requires that the scope of the detention in this case be narrow because it took place in Womack's home for the purpose of investigating a completed crime.
Universally, courts have recognized that the use of handcuffs substantially increases the intrusiveness of a Terry stop and must be independently justified. See United States v. Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d 1046, 1052 (10th Cir.1994) ([T]he use of ... handcuffs ... is a far greater level of intrusion.); United States v. Del Vizo, 918 F.2d 821, 824-25 (9th Cir.1990) (finding that armed officers, by ordering suspect to the ground and handcuffing him, exceeded the scope of Terry stop and arrested defendant where defendant was compliant and only suspected of drug-trafficking); United States v. Delgadillo-Velasquez, 856 F.2d 1292, 1295-96 (9th Cir.1988) (holding that the use of handcuffs was not justified under the circumstances); cf. Crawford v. United States, 369 A.2d 595, 599 (D.C.1977) (reaffirming that detention must be properly limited); Oliveira v. Mayer, 23 F.3d 642, 645-46 (2nd Cir.1994), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 721, 130 L.Ed.2d 627 (1995) (in a § 1983 action for unlawful arrest, handcuffing of suspect amounted to arrest because degree of force was unwarranted due to nature of underlying crime and number of officers present on the scene). Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and common sense, do not view the use of handcuffs as an intrusion de minimis. United States v. Bautista, 684 F.2d 1286, 1289 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1211, 103 S.Ct. 1206, 75 L.Ed.2d 447 (1983) (handcuffing substantially aggravates the intrusiveness of an otherwise routine investigatory detention and is not part of a typical Terry stop). This court has never allowed handcuffing as a routine incident to a Terry stop. To be manacled, especially in one's home and in front of one's family, is a humiliating experience, and surely one that carries the stigma of guilt. See Washington v. Wheeler, 108 Wash.2d 230, 737 P.2d 1005, 1019 (1987). Thus, although the use of handcuffs is not legally restricted only to arrests, this court has carefully scrutinized the government's proffered justification when the police use handcuffs during an investigative detention. See, e.g., In re M.E.B., supra, 638 A.2d at 1127-28 (finding that facts supported the officers' fear of suspects necessitating use of handcuffs); Allison v. United States, 623 A.2d 590 (D.C.1993) (sustaining use of handcuffs without probable cause where the government established that the suspect attempted to escape); Prophet v. United States, 602 A.2d 1087, 1089-90 (D.C.1992) (assuming, without holding, that handcuffing turned an otherwise valid Terry stop into an arrest, but concluding that the arrest was supported by probable cause). Thus, where handcuffs have been used, and the government seeks to distinguish an investigatory detention from an arrest, a heavy burden of justification for that use lies properly with the government. See Royer, supra, 460 U.S. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1325-26 (requiring that the government demonstrate that it used the least intrusive means in effecting an investigative detention).