Opinion ID: 1697730
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: When the Seizure of Baptiste Occurred

Text: The point at which the seizure of Baptiste occurred is important in determining whether the Terry stop in this case violated the Fourth Amendment because, as noted in J.L., the reasonableness of the officers' suspicion must be measured by the information that the officers knew before conducting the stop-and-frisk. See 529 U.S. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375; see also Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177, 185, 124 S.Ct. 2451, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004) (noting that a Terry stop must be justified at its inception). In the absence of a formal arrest, whether a person has been seized will be adjudged in accordance with the reasonable person standard initially articulated by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (plurality opinion). There, the Court stated: We adhere to the view that a person is seized only when, by means of physical force or a show of authority, his freedom of movement is restrained.... We conclude that a person has been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment 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. Examples of circumstances that might indicate a seizure, even where the person did not attempt to leave, would be the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer's request might be compelled. In the absence of some such evidence, otherwise inoffensive contact between a member of the public and the police cannot, as a matter of law, amount to a seizure of that person. Id. at 553-55, 100 S.Ct. 1870 (plurality opinion) (citations and footnote omitted) (emphasis supplied). In the instant case, it is clear that Officer Williams drew her weapon and ordered Baptisteat gunpointto lie on the ground based only on her observation that Baptiste was a black male wearing a white T-shirt and blue-jean shorts. The State asserts that Baptiste was not seized at that time because he refused to fully comply with her orders. We reject this contention and conclude that, based on the totality of the circumstances, Baptiste was seized when Officer Williams stopped him at gunpoint. Cf. Terry, 392 U.S. at 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868 ([W]henever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has `seized' that person.). It strains logic to assert that a reasonable person would feel free to leave when an officer arrives in a police vehicle, steps out of the vehicle, and points a weapon directly at that person while ordering that person to lie on the ground. Accordingly, the issue we must decide is whether reasonable suspicion existed to justify the seizure of Baptiste at the time that Officer Williams drew her weapon and ordered Baptiste to the ground.