Opinion ID: 1867862
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: When Was Young Seized?

Text: ¶ 26 Under Hodari D. and Kelsey, an uncomplied-with show of authority cannot constitute a seizure. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547; Kelsey, 243 Wis.2d 422, ¶ 33, 626 N.W.2d 777. Thus, if Hodari D. applies, Charles Young was not seized when Alfredson illuminated his car with the spotlight; he was not seized either time Alfredson ordered him to return to the car; and he was not seized when Alfredson began to chase him. If any or all of these actions constituted a show of authority, they did not effect a seizure because Young did not comply with any of them. Hodari D. compels the conclusion that Young was not seized until Alfredson physically apprehended him on the porch of the house. Under Hodari D. there seems to be no question that the circuit court correctly denied Young's motion to suppress the marijuana, so long as the State could show reasonable suspicion at some point prior to the seizure. ¶ 27 Young, however, argues that we should reject Hodari D. and interpret Article I, Section 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution to afford greater protections to individual liberty interests than does the Fourth Amendment. In support of his position, Young argues that the defect in Hodari D. is that it threatens an individual's privacy rights and liberty interests by unduly restricting the scope of the Fourth Amendment. More specifically, Young argues Hodari D. (1) isolates from scrutiny the initial stages in police-citizen encounters; (2) shifts the focus of the Fourth Amendment from police conduct to the citizen's response to police conduct; and (3) fails to recognize that pursuit and attempted arrest substantially interfere with personal liberty and should therefore be subject to the Fourth Amendment. ¶ 28 Young maintains that a better test of when a seizure occurs is the objective Mendenhall standard; that is, a seizure occurs when, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave. See Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Applying Mendenhall, Young contends he was seized the moment Alfredson pulled up behind his car, turned on the flashers, and illuminated Young's car with the spotlight, because at that moment no reasonable person would have felt free to disregard the police presence. ¶ 29 The State insists that Alfredson did not seize Young until he physically apprehended Young. Predictably, the State urges us to reaffirm our commitment to Hodari D. and interpret the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution coextensively. In response to Young's criticism of Hodari D., the State argues that the better policy is to require submission to a show of authority before Fourth Amendment protections apply. This procedure gives officers advance knowledge of what actions are constitutional, because officers have to assume people will obey and that the exclusionary rule will apply if the police exceed their authority. Encouraging people to comply with police orders also minimizes the risks of police pursuit. In sum, the State argues Article I, Section 11 should be interpreted to follow the Fourth Amendment as interpreted in Hodari D. ¶ 30 Typically, this court interprets Article I, Section 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution in tandem with the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court. Griffith, 236 Wis.2d 48, ¶ 24 n. 10, 613 N.W.2d 72. Of course, we do not always follow the Supreme Court's lead, [9] and the Court does not require us to do so when we supplement the United States Constitution's protections with protections under our own constitution. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1041, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983) (It is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by us in interpreting their state constitutions.). [10] We embrace the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court when we perceive soundness in Supreme Court analysis and value in uniform rules. We follow that course in this case. ¶ 31 In deciding whether to adopt the Hodari D. or Mendenhall framework for seizure analysis under the Wisconsin Constitution, we believe it is necessary to consider how these cases relate to one another, as well as the public policy reasons for and against following Hodari D.
¶ 32 Mendenhall defined a seizure as occurring only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870. In Mendenhall Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents investigating narcotics trafficking in the Detroit Metropolitan Airport approached Mendenhall after she disembarked from a Los Angeles flight because Mendenhall's actions fit the profile of a drug courier. Id. at 547, 100 S.Ct. 1870. The agents identified themselves and asked to see Mendenhall's identification and airline ticket; they discovered that the two bore different names. Id. at 547-48, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Upon returning both documents to Mendenhall, the agents asked her to accompany them to the DEA office, which she did. Id. at 548, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Upon reaching the DEA office, the agents also asked for and received Mendenhall's consent to search her handbag and her person. Id. at 548-49, 100 S.Ct. 1870. In the course of the search, the agents found heroin. Id. at 549, 100 S.Ct. 1870. Before trial, Mendenhall moved to suppress the heroin, claiming she had been seized when the DEA agents first approached her and that they lacked reasonable suspicion at the inception of the stop. ¶ 33 Justice Stewart concluded  although a majority of the Court did not join him  that the agent's approach and Mendenhall's cooperation did not constitute a seizure, because a person is seized only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave, and that given the conduct of the DEA agents, a reasonable person would have felt free to walk away. Id. at 554-55, 100 S.Ct. 1870; see id. at 560 n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 1870 (Powell, J., concurring). [11] ¶ 34 Subsequently, a majority of the Court adopted Justice Stewart's Mendenhall test for seizure. See INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984); Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975; Bostick, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382. These cases make clear that either physical force or a show of authority sufficient to give rise to a belief in a reasonable person that he was not free to leave, is necessary for a seizure. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382; Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975; Delgado, 466 U.S. at 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758. ¶ 35 In Delgado and Bostick, as in Mendenhall, the individuals did not flee in response to an official show of authority. In Delgado the plaintiffs answered questions by INS agents at their workplace. Delgado, 466 U.S. at 220-21, 104 S.Ct. 1758. The Court concluded that none of the plaintiffs had been seized because, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would not have believed that he or she was not free to continue working or to move about the factory. Id. In Bostick the defendant, a passenger on a bus, challenged the search of his luggage as nonconsensual, claiming that police presence on the bus created a coercive atmosphere that induced consent. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 435, 111 S.Ct. 2382. The Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court's holding that suppression of cocaine produced by the search was appropriate, and it remanded the case to state court for a determination of whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Id. at 436, 111 S.Ct. 2382. In both cases, the Court applied the Mendenhall test for seizure because the individuals cooperated. ¶ 36 The Court also applied the Mendenhall test in Chesternut where the defendant ran when he saw a police car and was observed discarding controlled substances as he ran. The Court concluded that the police had not made a sufficient show of authority because, although a police car slowly followed Chesternut, the police did not activate a siren or flashers, did not order Chesternut to stop, did not display any weapons, and did not maneuver the police car in any way to limit the defendant's movement. Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 575, 108 S.Ct. 1975. Absent a show of authority, there was nothing for Chesternut to submit to, and no possibility of seizure. ¶ 37 Mendenhall is the appropriate test for situations where the question is whether a person submitted to a police show of authority because, under all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave. If a reasonable person would have felt free to leave but the person at issue nonetheless remained in police presence, perhaps because of a desire to be cooperative, there is no seizure. As this court noted in Williams, most citizens will respond to a police request, and the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response. Williams, 255 Wis.2d 1, ¶ 23, 646 N.W.2d 834 (quoting Delgado, 466 U.S. at 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758). ¶ 38 Hodari D., which was foreshadowed by Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Chesternut, supplements the Mendenhall test to address situations where a person flees in response to a police show of authority. See Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547. In Hodari D. police officers in an unmarked squad car rounded a corner in a high-crime neighborhood and came upon a group of youths who immediately dispersed at the sight of the car. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 622-23, 111 S.Ct. 1547. One of the officers chased Hodari on foot. Id. at 623, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Shortly before the officer caught the suspect, Hodari threw away a rock of crack cocaine. Id. Hodari argued he was seized once he saw the officer pursuing him and that the evidence of the cocaine should be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal seizure. Id. The Court disagreed, concluding that although the officer's pursuit constituted a show of authority and although the officer lacked reasonable suspicion when he initiated the pursuit, Hodari was not seized until the officer tackled him, because Hodari did not submit to the show of authority. Id. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Hence, Hodari abandoned the cocaine before he was seized, and it was admissible. Id. ¶ 39 Because Mendenhall and its progeny did not confront the situation where a person refuses to yield to a show of authority, the Hodari D. court found the Mendenhall test insufficient: [The Mendenhall test] says that 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. Application of this objective test was the basis for our decision in . . . Chesternut . . . where we concluded that the police cruiser's slow following of the defendant did not convey the message that he was not free to disregard the police and go about his business. We did not address in Chesternut, however, the question whether, if the Mendenhall test was met  if the message that the defendant was not free to leave had been conveyeda Fourth Amendment seizure would have occurred. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547. The Mendenhall test applies when the subject of police attention is either subdued by force or submits to a show of authority. Where, however, a person flees in response to a show of authority, Hodari D. governs when the seizure occurs. Deciding when a seizure occurs is important because the moment of a seizure limits what facts a court may consider in determining the existence of reasonable suspicion for that seizure. ¶ 40 The Hodari D. test does not supersede the Mendenhall test, it supplements the Mendenhall test. United States v. Drayton confirms this. [12] Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 201-02, 122 S.Ct. 2105, 153 L.Ed.2d 242 (2002). Decided more than ten years after Hodari D., Drayton retains a Mendenhall -inspired test for seizure, adapted to a police-citizen encounter on a bus. Under Drayton, a person is seized if a reasonable person would not feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Id. at 202, 122 S.Ct. 2105 (quoting Bostick, 501 U.S. at 436, 111 S.Ct. 2382). Unlike Hodari D., the defendant in Drayton did not flee or attempt to flee from the officers. In a similar vein, this court cited both Mendenhall and Hodari D. in Williams. Thus, the Mendenhall and Hodari D. tests are compatible and can coexist. The applicable test depends upon the facts. [13]
¶ 41 Justice Scalia, the author of Hodari D., gives two policy reasons in support of the Hodari D. test for seizure. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 627, 111 S.Ct. 1547. First, by postponing the moment at which the protection of the exclusionary rule becomes available to an individual who flees from the police until there has been a seizure, Hodari D. encourages compliance with police orders, thereby obviating the need for police pursuits that pose risks to the public. Id. Instead of employing self-help remedies like flight, citizens should seek relief from unlawful police interference in the courts through use of the exclusionary rule and, if need be, civil rights suits. ¶ 42 Second, although Hodari D. restricts the reach of the Fourth Amendment, Justice Scalia contends that it will have no adverse effect upon the privacy rights and liberty interests of the citizenry. See id. One purpose of the Fourth Amendment and its exclusionary rule is to deter illegal government activity. State v. Knapp, 2005 WI 127, ¶ 22, 285 Wis.2d 86, 700 N.W.2d 899 ( Knapp II ). Unlawful orders will not be deterred . . . by sanctioning through the exclusionary rule those [unlawful orders] that are not obeyed. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 627, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Police officers shout Stop! or Get back in that car right now, expecting to be obeyed; the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule is still realized if it applies only to successful seizures resulting from these orders. Id. In short, because the majority of people confronted with a direct command will obey the command, police officers must understand that the exclusionary rule will constrain their conduct in these situations. ¶ 43 Perhaps the most powerful criticism of Hodari D. can be found in Justice Stevens' dissent. Much of the scholarly criticism of Hodari D. simply amplifies the points he makes. [14] First, Justice Stevens chastises the majority for adopting too literal a construction of the term seizure because it limits the application and protective function of the Fourth Amendment to the common law conception of arrest, which required physical contact. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 631-33, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Instead, Justice Stevens argues that because an attempted arrest also infringes upon an individual's privacy and liberty, the Fourth Amendment should apply to unlawful attempted arrests. Id. at 631-32, 637, 111 S.Ct. 1547. ¶ 44 Second, Justice Stevens criticizes the majority decision as inconsistent with the Court's precedent in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (holding that the Fourth Amendment protects against seizures of oral statements obtained by electronic surveillance), and Terry (holding that the Fourth Amendment extends to investigatory stops that fall short of a common-law arrest), both of which allegedly interpreted the Fourth Amendment expansively to afford greater protection to liberty interests and privacy rights. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 633-37, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (Stevens, J., dissenting). ¶ 45 Third, Justice Stevens criticizes the majority for shifting the analysis of whether a seizure occurs from an objective analysis of how a reasonable person would interpret the police officer's conduct to the individual's reaction to that conduct. Id. at 641, 643, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Thus, police officers can create reasonable suspicion or even probable cause where there was none by coercively infringing upon the individual's right to be let alone, and waiting for an arguably suspicious reaction. [15] Id. at 645-46 & n. 18, 111 S.Ct. 1547. ¶ 46 Adding to these arguments about individual liberty, Justice Stevens maintains that the majority's decision abandons a standard that permits police officers to determine in advance whether the conduct contemplated will implicate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 643-44, 111 S.Ct. 1547. Because of these shortcomings, Justice Stevens would reject the Hodari D. test, and instead require a court to evaluate the constitutionality of police conduct based on the conditions at the time the officer took action, when liberty is first restrained and privacy first infringed. Id. at 645, 111 S.Ct. 1547. ¶ 47 Although we recognize the strength of these critiques, we remain unconvinced that Hodari D. should be discarded. We acknowledge the potential that police officers may rely upon Hodari D. to manufacture reasonable suspicion by attempting to seize individuals in expectation that they will flee. This is not such a case. There is no indication in the record that Officer Alfredson was attempting to induce flight or other suspicious conduct. On the facts here, the concerns prompting the criticism of Hodari D. appear unwarranted. ¶ 48 We disagree that adhering to Hodari D. will leave police officers unable to determine in advance whether contemplated conduct will implicate the Fourth Amendment. Contra Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 643-44, 111 S.Ct. 1547 (Stevens, J., dissenting). As Hodari D. and other decisions suggest, most people will acquiesce with a police show of authority, in which case the Fourth Amendment applies and the exclusionary rule will exclude any evidence obtained in the absence of reasonable suspicion. See id. at 627, 111 S.Ct. 1547; Drayton, 536 U.S. at 205, 122 S.Ct. 2105. Consequently, before initiating an investigatory stop, police officers must presume that the target of the stop will comply and the protections of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule will have full effect. ¶ 49 The exclusionary rule is the primary means by which Fourth Amendment rights are protected. Its primary purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 656, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); Knapp II, 285 Wis.2d 86, ¶ 22, 700 N.W.2d 899. The exclusionary rule is not absolute. Id., ¶ 23. The benefits of any increased deterrence must be weighed against the substantial social costs exacted. Id., ¶ 22. The exclusionary rule applies only in contexts `where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.' Id., ¶ 23 (quoting Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 363, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998)). Because a police officer cannot know in advance that a suspect will flee or not comply with a show of authority, and because a police officer must presume that people will comply with orders and thus the officer must adhere to the Fourth Amendment to prevent the exclusion of evidence, we fail to see how rejecting Hodari D. will further deter Fourth Amendment violations. The benefits of extending the exclusionary rule to situations before seizure, when a person does not comply with a police order, appear to be negligible. ¶ 50 Under Hodari D. the protection afforded by the exclusionary rule remains unless the person confronted by a show of authority chooses to abandon its protective embrace by opting for self-help flight. Under Hodari D. courts have created an incentive for people to obey police orders without creating an incentive for police to violate the Fourth Amendment. Under Hodari D. courts remain the final arbiter of whether police conduct violates the Fourth Amendment, not the citizen on the street. ¶ 51 There is one additional policy consideration for following the Hodari D. test: stare decisis. Less than five years ago this court elected to follow Hodari D. Kelsey C.R., 243 Wis.2d 422, ¶¶ 30-33, 626 N.W.2d 777. Absent special justification, [16] such as a showing that our earlier adoption of Hodari D. has resulted in the widespread erosion of liberty interests, we decline to overrule Kelsey C.R. ¶ 52 Given that Young fled in response to a show of authority, Hodari D. supplies the proper analysis to evaluate when Young was seized. Applying Hodari D., we conclude Young was not seized until Alfredson physically apprehended him on the porch because Young did not submit to any show of authority prior to that moment.