Opinion ID: 2519647
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Seizure In This Case

Text: Heilman met his initial burden of showing that a seizure implicating the Fourth Amendment occurred, and the prosecution did not sustain its burden of proof to demonstrate a consensual encounter. The trial court found that Officer Kaminky approached the van in his marked patrol car at a higher than normal rate of speed and parked in a T-formation close to the van. Although he was carrying a weapon, he did not draw it. Upon encountering Heilman and his companions, the officer ordered the three persons to hold up their hands. After learning that the individuals did not need his assistance, Officer Kaminky began questioning Heilman about what he had thrown down and whether there were weapons or contraband in the vehicle. At the suppression hearing, the three occupants of the van testified that Officer Kaminky's tone was unfriendly and his questioning rapid-fire. In People v. Cascio , we found that an encounter between deputy officers and the occupants of a parked van was consensual. The officer's conduct was mild mannered; the officers' greeting to the defendants was friendly and casual. Cascio, 932 P.2d at 1387. In contrast, taking into account all of the circumstances, Officer Kaminky's conduct demonstrated that his contact with Heilman escalated into a seizure. The Seventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals found in United States v. Packer that police behavior similar to that in the present case constituted a seizure without reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Packer, 15 F.3d 654, 657 (7th Cir.1994). In Packer, the police responded to an anonymous tip regarding a suspicious vehicle that was parked in a bad neighborhood at about one in the morning. The officers parked their cars in front of and behind the defendant's car and shined a light into the car. As an officer approached the car, she asked the occupants to put their hands in the air where she could see them. In concluding that ordering the defendant to raise his hands constituted a display of authority, the court in Packer reasoned that [w]hile the officer's prudential procedures are of course fully justified by concerns for police safety, a reasonable person in Defendant's position would not feel that he was free to leave. Id. Although the prosecution seeks to justify Officer Kaminky's conduct on officer safety considerations, the trial court's findings support its legal conclusion that the officer was not seeking Heilman's cooperation and he was not free to leave. Reasonable persons would not feel free to disobey the order to raise their hands to plain view while a uniformed officer approached them with his weapon displayed on his hip, ordered them out of their vehicle, directed them to put their hands behind their heads, patted them down, and commenced to search the vehicle. [2] Here, the show your hands command was at least the equivalent of the hold tight instruction in Jackson, and the nature and tone of the questioning demonstrated that Officer Kaminkyafter learning that the persons in the van did not need his assistancehad commenced an investigation for criminal activity under circumstances demonstrating that the persons were not free to leave. A seizure occurred without facts justifying reasonable suspicion of a person having committed a crime. Cf. People v. Garcia, 11 P.3d 449, 453-54 (Colo.2000) (holding that police officers possessed reasonable suspicion where in the course of interviewing people at a crime scene, they saw drug paraphernalia at the defendant's feet). Officer Kaminky had not observed a traffic violation or any other circumstance indicating criminal activity. For reasonable suspicion to exist, the police must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868. In this case, the officer testified that he had observed a furtive gesture by Heilman. He based his suspicion of illegal activity solely on that observation. We have held that a furtive gesture is too ambiguous, standing alone, to constitute the basis for an investigatory stop. Outlaw, 17 P.3d at 157; Thomas, 660 P.2d at 1275. When an illegal seizure has occurred, it is the burden of the prosecution to show that statements or evidence gathered as a result were not the fruit of the prior illegality. People v. Rodriguez, 945 P.2d 1351, 1364 (Colo.1997). In Rodriguez, we held that: [E]vidence obtained by a purported consent that follows improper conduct by police must meet a two-fold test: (1) was the consent obtained through exploitation of the prior illegality; and (2) was the consent voluntary? Evidence obtained by a purported consent is admissible only if it is determined that the consent was both voluntary and not an exploitation of the prior illegality. Id. at 1364 (quotation marks omitted). A reviewing court must consider the temporal proximity of the arrest and the consent, the presence of intervening circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct in determining whether the consent was an exploitation of the prior illegality. Id., quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). The purported consent in this case flowed directly from the illegal seizure and was in close temporal and physical proximity to it. The prosecution did not carry its burden of proof to demonstrate that the purported consent was attenuated from the prior illegal conduct. See Rodriguez, 945 P.2d at 1364-65. The trial court properly suppressed the evidence. Id.