Opinion ID: 1275885
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hodari D. Test for Seizure

Text: The United States Supreme Court held in Hodari D. that a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment is a mixed objective/subjective test. In that case, an officer driving an unmarked patrol car in a high-crime area of Oakland, California, encountered four or five youths on the street. When the youths saw the patrol car approach, they apparently panicked and took flight. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 622-23, 111 S.Ct. at 1548. Suspicious, the police gave chase. One of the youths, Hodari, discarded what appeared to be a small rock moments before an officer tackled him. The officer recovered the rock, which was later identified as crack cocaine. Id. at 623, 111 S.Ct. at 1548. The juvenile court denied Hodari's motion to suppress the evidence. The California Court of Appeal reversed, holding Hodari had been seized when he saw the officer running toward him. The court found the seizure unreasonable, and suppressed the evidence as the fruit of the illegal seizure. Id. The United States Supreme Court addressed only the issue of whether a seizure of Hodari had occurred before or after the physical apprehension by the officer. If no seizure occurred before Hodari discarded the cocaine, that is, if no seizure occurred simply as a result of the officer's running toward Hodari, then Hodari simply abandoned the contraband, the police lawfully recovered it, and it was not the fruit of an illegal seizure. On the other hand, if the fact of the officer's running toward Hodari in and of itself constituted a seizure, then it was unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment because Hodari's behavior did not give the officers probable cause to detain him; all he had done was run from the approaching patrol car. The Supreme Court in Hodari D. formulated the question narrowly: can a seizure occur even though the subject does not yield? The Court held in the negative. Id. at 626, 111 S.Ct. at 1550. Citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the Court identified two ways in which a seizure may occur: a seizure occurs when the officer, by means of physical force or a show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of the citizen. In Hodari D., as in the present case, there was no application of physical force at the time both defendants assert the seizure occurred, so the threshold question in both cases is whether the actions of the officer constituted a show of authority that in some way restrained the liberty of the citizen. Hodari D. held there can also be no seizure until the citizen has yielded to the show of authority. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 626, 111 S.Ct. at 1550. Thus, if the suspect runs away, he or she has not yielded to authority, and there has been no seizure. If the suspect yields to the show of authority by standing his or her ground, then a seizure is deemed to have occurred. Hodari D. introduced a subjective element into the definition of a Fourth Amendment seizure: the action of the subject, either to disregard the show of authority or to yield to it, determines the seizure question. The Court based its analysis in some measure on Proverbs 28:1: The wicked flee when no man pursueth. In reaching its conclusion, the Court had to explain its earlier holding in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980), where the Court said: [A] person has been `seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. Under the Mendenhall formulation, the test is objective, not subjective. The Hodari D. Court concluded Mendenhall is not in conflict because Mendenhall says a person has been seized only if, not that he has been seized whenever; it states a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for seizureor, more precisely, for seizure effected through a show of authority. Mendenhall establishes that the test for existence of a show of authority is an objective one: not whether the citizen perceived that he was being ordered to restrict his movement, but whether the officer's words and actions would have conveyed that to a reasonable person. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 628, 111 S.Ct. at 1551. Thus, the Mendenhall test is only a first, necessary step in the determination of a seizure. Hodari D. added an additional prong to the test: not only must a reasonable person believe the show of authority requires him or her to yield, but the person involved must in fact yield to the show of authority in order for a seizure to exist. Only if both prongs are met does a seizure occur. See also Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 439, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2389, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) (court must determine whether police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to terminate the encounter). This analysis has been severely criticized. [4] The Hodari D. decision represents a revision of the United States Supreme Court's definition of seizure ... as well as a departure from that Court's precedent. Commonwealth v. Stoute, 422 Mass. 782, 665 N.E.2d 93, 96 (1996) (citation omitted). Hodari D. may permit the police to sanitize an unlawful, suspicionless `encounter' by construing the subject's non-cooperation as `suspicious' or `flight' and then claiming `probable cause' to arrest. State v. Quino, 74 Haw. 161, 840 P.2d 358, 366 (1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1031, 113 S.Ct. 1849, 123 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993) (Levinson, J., concurring). [5] Plainly, the Court's Hodari D. test shifted the Fourth Amendment focus in large measure from the reasonableness of police conduct to the person's subjective reaction to police conduct. Similarly, critics note Fourth Amendment protections should not depend on a citizen's subjective state of mind. Under Hodari D., the moment at which seizure occurs is governed by the citizen's reaction, rather than the officer's conduct. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 643, 111 S.Ct. at 1559 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Justice Stevens thought the Fourth Amendment would be better served by adherence to the rule that allowed the police to know in advance whether their contemplated conduct would implicate the Fourth Amendment, rather than depend on the citizen's reaction to that conduct. Id. at 643-44, 111 S.Ct. at 1559-60. Because Hodari D. raised the bar for those asserting a seizure, and substantially changed preexisting Supreme Court law, several states have rejected Hodari D., preferring to analyze seizure issues under their own constitutions. [6] In summary, Hodari D. is a departure from previous Supreme Court cases on the definition of seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Hodari D. added a subjective test to seizure law: absent physical force, no seizure occurs unless the citizen decides to yield to the show of authority.