Opinion ID: 2052636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Role of the Reviewing Court

Text: It is elementary that a reviewing court is bound by the lower court's findings of fact, and should not engage in its own speculative fact-finding. Peay v. United States, 597 A.2d 1318, 1320 (D.C.1991) (en banc) (citing Nixon v. United States, 402 A.2d 816, 819 (D.C. 1979)). This court is bound to reverse decisions denying motions to suppress if the evidence presented does not adequately support the motions court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. Powell, supra, 649 A.2d at 1088-90. In this case, the motions court made no finding as to the necessity for handcuffs, and only ruled that Womack was arrested after the show-up identification. That failure alone should prompt this court at least to remand the case for additional findings regarding the basis of the police's alleged need to handcuff a suspect under the circumstances as they appeared to the officers. The majority does not identify any facts articulated by the police or found by the motions court as the basis for justifying the use of handcuffs. Without any support in the record, the majority assumes that the police officers were in a particularly dangerous situation because they were on Womack's home turf, were not acquainted with Womack or his family, and had no idea where his gun might be, or whether there were other individuals on the scene. See ante at 610-611. The majority further has decided to fill in the gaps in the government's presentation and the court's findings because, in the majority's opinion, the fact that the police were investigating a violent rape and burglary made it obvious that it would be dangerous to try to deal with Womack without handcuffs. See id. at 614. In so doing, the majority has exceeded its role, deducing facts that were never elicited in the trial court, and thus relieving the government of its legal burden. Our proper role is to review the facts of record and all reasonable inferences therefrom in favor of sustaining the trial court's ruling. It is not our role to boost the government's case. Rather, because the government knows that it bears the burden to meet an exception to the warrant requirement, and had a fair opportunity to do so in the trial court, [t]he fact that the government failed to present more evidence than it did only suggests to us that the government has exhausted the evidence favorable to its position. Stewart v. United States, 668 A.2d 857, 868 (D.C.1995). Ironically in light of Supreme Court precedent stressing that persons in the home deserve maximum Fourth Amendment protection, one major justification the majority advances for handcuffing Womack in this case is that the officers encountered him in his home. In this case, the officers chose the time and circumstances of the encounter; the number of officers at Womack's home and the number of squad cars that were present reflects this preparation. Compare Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 229, 234-36, 105 S.Ct. at 680-81, 683-84 (affirming conviction where suspect had been admittedly wanted for questioning for some time, and was fortuitously spotted driving through town with another known felon; court explicitly relied on the police's prior inability to locate the suspect) with Davis, supra, 394 U.S. at 727-28, 89 S.Ct. at 1398 (reversing conviction where police effected an alleged Terry stop of suspect to obtain fingerprint samples, which constituted a procedure that need not come unexpectedly or at an inconvenient time); see also Hensley, supra, 469 U.S. at 228-29, 105 S.Ct. at 680 (noting that officers making a stop to investigate past crimes may have a wider range of opportunity to choose the time and circumstances of the stop). Particularly where the officers have chosen to look for a suspect in his house, without first obtaining a warrant, this court should hesitate to allow the location of the so-called Terry stop in a home as a factual basis to demonstrate that the encounter was accompanied by Terry -like exigencies. If Terry is going to provide the justification for a seizure in the home, this court should requireas it always has under Terry identification of specific facts about the suspect's conduct and articulated concerns about the setting, which required the police to engage in the presumptively unlawful conduct. The fact that the seizure occurred in Womack's home in this case is a factor that undermines, rather than helps justify, the police's use of handcuffs under the circumstances presented in this case. Womack appears, from this record, to have been a remarkably sedentary suspect, returning home after an armed rape to go to bed. When called downstairs by his grandmother, Womack dutifully obeyed. The facts of this case stand in stark contrast to the half-mile vehicular pursuit of a suspect who had been seen hastily entering and leaving a convenience store that led the Supreme Court to employ the languagequoted out of context by the majority in this casethat [t]he calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgmentsin circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolvingabout the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1872, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) quoted ante at 607. This would be a far different case if the police officers had testified in the trial court to having experienced any tension or uncertainty, or to having actually thought about and determined that the amount of force they used on Womack was necessary. There is no indication in this record that the officers believed that the use of handcuffs was the least intrusive means reasonable under the circumstances. Further, I note that to the extent that the situation was, in fact, a rapidly evolving one, such circumstances are attributable neither to chance nor to Womack, who had been asleep, but are attributable to the police officers' having employed an investigative techniquedirect confrontation and seizure in the absence of probable cause, without recourse to further investigation or obtaining a warrantthat courts have traditionally deemed to be unconstitutional, or, to be constitutional, necessarily based on articulated factual justification. It is difficult to understand, in light of the number of officers and the circumstances of their encounter with Womack, why handcuffs would be considered necessary or reasonable. While officers conceivably might feel apprehensive confronting a suspect in his home, the government in this case can offer no explanation as to why, if that were so, the officers did not frisk Womack before handcuffing himexcept that it was clear that Womack was not armed. See In re M.E.B., 638 A.2d at 1127 (relying in part on the undisputed [fact] that the police followed their usual practice and frisked both appellant and [his accomplice] before they were handcuffed in upholding valid Terry stop); Powell, supra, 649 A.2d at 1088 (reversing conviction under Terry where despite trial court's finding that officers acted reasonably, if the officers feared for their safety, they certainly did not act in a manner suggesting apprehension of harm). Indeed, no facts in this record should lead police to believe that Womack might currently be armed. See Anderson, supra, 658 A.2d at 1038-40 (citing cases, including United States v. Barnes, 496 A.2d 1040 (D.C.1985); Peay, supra, 597 A.2d 1318; Duhart v. United States, 589 A.2d 895 (D.C.1991); and Curtis v. United States, 349 A.2d 469 (D.C.1975)); Crowder v. United States, 379 A.2d 1183, 1185 (D.C.1977). No officer alluded to having feared for his safety; the absence of such evidence traditionally has led this court to reverse trial court decisions not to suppress. Compare Powell, supra, 649 A.2d at 1084-85 (reversing conviction where officer had testified only that one fact relied on in effecting Terry stop was the suspect's turn into an alley, but trial court went further and characterized turn as unusual) with Barnes, supra, 496 A.2d at 1041 (validating Terry frisk where officer had factual reason to believe that suspect might be armed). In sum, with no indicia of danger to the officers, no attempt to flee, and no evidence or testimony supporting the use of handcuffs, the majority engages in precisely the type of after-the-fact armchair musing it criticizes: de novo fact-finding to justify its reasoning where the government has failed to prove its case. See, e.g., Majority Opinion at 611 (observing without support in the record that the officers feared that other persons on the scene might endeavor to thwart [Womack's] apprehension); but see Powell, supra, 649 A.2d at 1084-86 (reversing conviction where trial court's Terry consideration of furtive movements was not supported in the record). For example, the majority notes that it was reasonable for the police to handcuff Womack before taking him outside, because it would have been easier to escape from the porch. There is no evidence that the porch would have provided a better path to an escape allegedly contemplated by Womack; in fact, Womack was shoeless, and there were several police cars in front of the home. Stripped of the majority's unsupported post-hoc rationalizations, the one justification advanced by the majority that is supported by the record is that the officers were investigating a violent crime. Cf. Oliver, supra, 656 A.2d at 1167 n. 15. I cannot believe that the nature of the crime, without more, can validate an otherwise unlawful seizure. See Keeter, supra, 635 A.2d at 904 (reversing conviction on Fourth Amendment grounds where suspect was detained on reasonable suspicion that he had committed a homicide). Insofar as the underlying crime could possibly have led the officers to fear for their safety, the ensuing facts in the record should have substantially obviated the necessity for this intrusion. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 92-93, 100 S.Ct. 338, 342-43, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979) (finding that the actions of the suspect during the stop did not even justify a frisk for weapons); Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884 (stating that even a limited frisk for weapons is justified only when nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel [the officer's] reasonable fear for his own or others' safety). The officers testified that they were allowed into the house with little opposition from Womack's grandmother. The grandmother summoned Womack, who appeared in sleeping attire consisting only of shorts and a t-shirt. Before questioning Womack and without frisking him, the officers handcuffed him and removed him from his home. There is no evidence that before they handcuffed him, the police thought that Womack appeared nervous, mounted any resistance, or made any threats to the officers. Cf. Majority Opinion at 609 (correctly noting that [c]ourts have routinely held the use of handcuffs in the Terry context to be reasonable in situations where suspects attempted to resist police, made furtive gestures, ignored police commands, attempted to flee, or otherwise frustrated police inquiry) (citations omitted). It is difficult to conceive of any confrontation between an officer and a suspect of a violent crimerape, robbery, homicide, kidnappingwhere handcuffing would not be reasonable by the majority's rule. It is without question that police officers must be allowed to take steps necessary to protect themselves. However, the use of any intrusive measure must hinge upon more than the nature of the underlying crime. The bare assertion that the circumstances described in the majority opinion  could lead a reasonably prudent police officer to believe that ... the most reasonable course of action would be to handcuff Womack, does not establish the particular factual basis for the use of handcuffs in this case. I believe that the Terry standard, requiring the government to state particular facts necessitating the use of handcuffs, was not met in this case. As Justice Brennan stated in Royer, supra, [w]e must not allow our zeal for effective law enforcement to blind us to the peril to our free society that lies in disregard of the Fourth Amendment. 460 U.S. at 513, 103 S.Ct. at 1332 (Brennan, J., concurring) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, 403 U.S. at 455, 91 S.Ct. at 2032). Although I agree with the majority that the police need to be able to investigate violent crime, the Fourth Amendment requires that we balance the investigative means used by the police against protections provided by the Constitution to an individual whom the police do not have probable cause to arrest.