Opinion ID: 352420
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Lack of Documentary Identification

Text: 82 This brings us to the episode on the sidewalk, and to Officer Franck's unfruitful call upon appellant for documented personal identification. My colleagues and I are as one in the view that prior to that call the officer did not have sufficient ground to impose any kind of restriction on appellant. 129 What we disagree over is the significance, in the totality of the circumstances, of appellant's inability to produce the required documentation. 130 What now follows is my assessment of that branch of the case. 83 When the subject of identification arose, Officer Franck was under the erroneous impression that appellant had attempted to cash a check in the bank. So, his admitted lack of identifying documents (r)ight away . . . struck (the officer as) funny; 131 (w)hy, he asked himself, does a man go to a bank to cash a check without some sort of identification(?) 132 But the officer's underlying supposition was promptly dispelled. Appellant explained that his purpose had been to withdraw funds from a savings account, and handed the blue withdrawal slip to the officer as proof. 133 The officer examined the slip, recognized it as the one he had seen in the bank and realized just what it was. 134 Thus the theory that until then had so firmly welded the officer's attention on appellant a check-cashing mission in the bank suddenly evaporated. 84 Nonetheless, Officer Franck, in his own words, proceeded to ask (appellant) why he didn't have any identification when he was in the bank. 135 He then was told that appellant had mistakenly written his checking account number on the slip. 136 Still, to the officer, everything was funny: 85 I know my checking account number, and I know my savings account number in my bank. I know they are not alike. 86 I started asking questions. The questions were general questions, but everything was funny. 87 I asked him I said, Mr. Witherspoon, would you mind coming back inside the bank with me, and we will talk to the manager, and if everything is okay, you can go. 137 88 This I read as a statement that the situation seemed funny to Officer Franck because appellant apparently could not distinguish between checking and savings account numbers, an approach, I submit, that succumbs to Terry's requirement of objective unreasonableness. 138 It simply defies experience as well as logic to argue that one is likely to be a criminal just because he cannot remember or differentiate between his bank account numbers. Officer Franck was, however, to voice another concern: 89 I never saw him present any I.D. at the teller's window. When I asked him for I.D. outside (the bank), he stated that he didn't have any. That was another thing that got me to wondering why a man would go into a bank without I.D. 90 I have been in a bank, and they won't accept my badge and I.D. card. I have to have a driver's license, too. 139 And the court echoes much the same theme: 91 (I)t is unusual for an individual to attempt to withdraw money from a personal savings account without being prepared to display some evidence that he owns or controls the account a savings passbook or bank account identification card, if not additional identification as well and, in light of what he had observed in the bank, Officer Franck could reasonably have suspected, when the only identification appellant was able to produce was the disputed transaction slip itself, that he had attempted to withdraw money from someone else's account. 140 92 Both the officer and my colleagues, I think, presume entirely too much. By far the most reasonable deduction from Officer Franck's in-bank observations and appellant's lack of identification was that a bank customer had forgotten to bring along data, including identification, needed to consummate his mission; that he had tried to improvise by recalling his account number; and that, having been informed by the teller that his memory was faulty, he had given up and started home. 93 Everyday experience teaches that we often fall short in even the most elementary precautions for any number of commonplace events. We get caught in showers without umbrellas or raincoats; we get involved in vehicular collisions with seat belts unfastened; and we lock ourselves out of our homes. Of a piece with these mental slips are not infrequent aberrations in documental preparations for the transactions we contemplate. We arrive at supermarkets without our wallets, at shopping centers without our credit cards, and at performances without our pre-purchased tickets; we even drive our cars blissfully unaware that we have neglected to bring along our operator's permits and registration cards. Who among us, including those who pride themselves for care and forethought, has not at some time or another undergone such a lapse? I daresay that appellant, for all Officer Franck knew, could have been but one of a countless number who, for any of many reasons, has arrived at a bank teller's window for a savings withdrawal without any kind of identification whatsoever. 94 So long as man remains as fallible as he is in almost every endeavor imaginable, I cannot accept the episode in suit as the extraordinary event my colleagues believe it was. Much less can I conceive of it as an objective portent of crime in a Nation that does not or, until today's decision, did not require its citizens to carry identification. 141 To an unbiased observer knowing no more than Officer Franck, the simple lack of a passbook, bank card or other documentation of personal identity or account-ownership is all too easily attributable to carelessness, absent-mindedness or sheer ignorance of the mechanics of withdrawal. 142 Moreover, appellant's inability to produce evidence of that sort is too bland a circumstance to connote criminality objectively. If, as my colleagues gratuitously assume, savings withdrawals at the National Bank of Washington are conditioned upon presentation of a particular type of such document, 143 an inability to do so expectably would result merely in the bank's refusal to permit the sought-after withdrawal. 144 That consequence hardly comports with the sophistication normally associated with criminals who prey on banks. 95 The Terry standards defining permissible stops based on ostensible criminality from observed facts bear repeating. Before a stop may be imposed, the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure, viewed objectively, 145 must be such as would  'warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief( )' that the action taken was appropriate(.) 146 Obviously, any inference of criminality becomes weaker as, in terms of ordinary experience, the possibility of innocent explanation looms larger. And even when the circumstances call for some amount of investigation, the stop and inquiry must be 'reasonably related in scope to the justification for their initiation.'  147 That one converses with a succession of addicts does not reasonably give rise to an inference that he is engaged in narcotics traffic. 148 That one apparently of Mexican ancestry occupies an automobile near the Mexican border does not warrant an inference that he is an alien illegally in the country. 149 That one circles a residential area with an eye for the presence of policemen does not logically generate an inference that he is a would-be burglar. 150 In none of these instances did the circumstances respectively appearing justify an investigative stop. 151 I say that the mere fact that one who applies for a savings withdrawal without the necessary credentials on his person is not so singular as to imply fairly and objectively an effort to defraud the bank, or to support a detention for further inquiry in that regard. 152 96 In my view, then, appellant's Fourth Amendment right . . . to be secure in (his) person( ) . . . against unreasonable . . . seizure( ) 153 was infringed when Officer Franck escorted him back into the bank. In so concluding, and despite my difficulties with the officer's course of reasoning, I intend no impugnation of his sincerity. His testimonial performance symbolizes, for me at least, the dedicated policeman endeavoring conscientiously to do his job as best he can, but constitutionally speaking that is beside the point. If subjective good faith alone were the test, protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be 'secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects' only in the discretion of the police. 154