Court Opinion

ID: 9516248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:39:06.779879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:40.794361
License: Public Domain

SCHUMACHER, Judge
(dissenting)
I respectfully dissent. I believe the majority opinion misconstrues the issue and that, contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the facts amply justified the Terry frisk.
Generally, the lawfulness of a Terry frisk turns simply on whether the officer had a reasonable belief that the suspect was armed and dangerous. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 24, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1881, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Although it is possible that an officer could have a reasonable belief that a bicyclist acting nervous and looking ready to flee is armed and dangerous, I believe we need not reach that issue.
This is not a case where the lawfulness of the frisk rests simply on whether the suspect might be armed and dangerous. Rather, under State v. Varnado, 582 N.W.2d 886 (Minn.1998), assessing the legality of the frisk in this case requires a two-step process: (1) determining whether there was a reasonable basis for placing M.D.B. in the back of the squad car; and (2) deciding whether that act justified the precaution of a Terry frisk.
The supreme court in Vamado, quoting a 1971 decision, essentially decided the second issue:
“We are not to be understood as holding that the police have no right, for their own protection, to search a person before placing him in a squad car if there is a valid reason for requiring him to enter the vehicle and it is not merely an excuse for an otherwise improper search.”
Id. at 891 (quoting State v. Curtis, 290 Minn. 429, 437, 190 N.W.2d 631, 636 (1971)). The court in Vamado explicitly found there was no “reasonable basis for requiring Varnado to wait in the squad car.” Id. They did not hold, as the majority appears to assume, that there is never a reasonable basis to require any minor traffic violator to sit in the squad car.
Here, M.D.B. was so nervous and so plainly prone to flight that the officer had to confine him somehow merely to finish writing the citation. As there was no other officer present to assist, the only alternative was to place M.D.B. in the back of the squad ear. Placing M.D.B. in the squad car was not merely an excuse to frisk.
The majority concludes that risk of flight is not a factor indicating a suspect is armed and dangerous. This may very well be, although an officer could conclude, based on experience, that many suspects *219appeal eager to flee because they are (illegally) armed or in addition to being dangerous. Vamado does not hold that the only relevant consideration is the risk a suspect is armed and dangerous. Vamado plainly allows a frisk, for officer safety, if there is a “reasonable basis” for placing the suspect in the squad car. Id. The court’s own language closes the door to any other conclusion:
Nonetheless, we agree that officer safety is a paramount interest and that when an officer has a valid reasonable basis for placing a lawfully stopped citizen in a squad car, a frisk will often be appropriate without additional individual articu-lable suspicion.

Id.

This language cannot be ignored. The majority erroneously concludes that police here needed more than a reasonable basis to put M.D.B. in the squad car in order to frisk him. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court.