Court Opinion

ID: 9755472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:39:06.773115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:07.771408
License: Public Domain

J IM HANNAH, Justice, concurring. I agree with the result in this case but write to highlight my concerns about the factual underpinnings of the decision and to note that had this case been decided under our state constitution, I would have reached a different result. We have recognized that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated when police approach the common entryways of residences, including the rear of a home, for legitimate purposes, including questioning a suspect. See Miller v. State, 342 Ark. 213, 27 S.W.3d 427 (2000) (citing United States v. Anderson, 552 F.2d 1296 (8th Cir. 1977)). Once there, however, the Supreme Court applies the second of two tests to determine whether a person has been “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This second approach applies when the police approach an individual in a confined space such as a bus, a motel room, or a home. In such a situation, it no longer “makes sense to inquire whether a reasonable person would feel free to continue walking” as is the concern under the first approach to this question. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 435 (1991). Because a person on a bus or in an otherwise confining space “has no desire to leave” and would wish to remain even if police were not present, “the degree to which a reasonable person would feel that he or she could leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter.” Id. at 435-36. When a person’s “freedom of movement [is] restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i.e., by his being a passenger on a bus . . ., the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ request or otherwise terminate the encounter.” Id. at 436; Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 576 (1988) (seizure occurred if “respondent could reasonably have believed that he was not free to disregard the police presence and go about his business”). Like the person seated on the bus in Bostick, a person staying in a motel room or at home has no desire to leave and would remain whether police were present. A person, therefore, is “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment if a reasonable person would not have felt free to decline. The test, as with the “free to leave” formulation, is an objective one and requires a contextual approach. United States v. Rodriguez, 69 F.3d 136, 141 (7th Cir.1995); United States v. Notorianni, 729 F.2d 520, 522 (7th Cir. 1984). The determination of whether an encounter is a seizure is made on the basis of the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the encounter. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437; Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 572-73. In making the assessment as to whether a seizure occurred, the circumstances must, of course, be assessed in terms of the values protected by the Fourth Amendment. It is under these parameters that the facts of this case must be reviewed. Here, Mr. Scott was clearly at his home at the time of the “knock and talk” conducted by the police. Therefore, this court’s analysis must focus on whether a reasonable person in Scott’s position “would feel free to decline the officers’ request or otherwise terminate the encounter.” Bostick, 501 U.S. at 436. This inquiry, then, is conducted within the confines of the facts of the case, and those facts generally depend on a judgment of the credibility of the witnesses. While we defer to the trial court on such credibility decisions, see Laime v. State, 347 Ark. 142, 60 S.W.3d 464 (2001), I take this opportunity to highlight facts that cause me great concern here. First, according to the police officers’s testimony and the police report, the officers arrived at Mr. Scott’s home at 2:35 p.m., and two officers approached the front door while the third stood to the side of the house in view of the front door. Immediately upon engaging Mr. Scott in conversation, the police indicated that they had information that he was making methamphetamine at his house, and they wanted his consent to search. With the officers’s beginning their questioning with such an accusation, would a reasonable person believe that he was free to disregard the police presence and go about his business? I suspect not. After this, the police officers’s facts become sketchy at best. One officer testified that Mr. Scott agreed to sign a consent form, and the pair of officers stepped inside the house and presented the consent form that they had with them. The second officer at the door testified that they did not have a consent form available, so he had to return to the car and find one. Regardless, the facts indicate that fifteen minutes passed between the initial encounter and Mr. Scott’s signing the consent form. So what happened during those fifteen minutes? Because the officers’s stories are contradictory, this places the entire fifteen minutes into question, and tends to question whether verbal consent was immediately given. Certainly, Mr. Scott testified that he originally denied the officers’s requests for consent to search, but that after they spoke with him for several minutes telling him that they would not confiscate all of his property if he signed the consent form, Mr. Scott signed the form for fear that they would take all of his belongings. This, of course, would explain the passage of a quarter of an hour before written consent was provided for the search. Furthermore, with such a passage of time, the inquiry regarding whether Mr. Scott, again, felt free to disregard the police presence and go about his business is countered with the fact that he felt compelled to stand at his front door for a quarter of an hour discussing the situation with the police before granting written consent to search. As noted, however, the trial court chose to believe the officers here, and we defer to that credibility determination, despite the fact that these officers admittedly went to Mr. Scott’s home without any evidence that would constitute even reasonable suspicion to get a search warrant, and admittedly doing so “in hopes of getting a consent to search.” I submit, however, that had this search and seizure been challenged under Article 2, section 15, of the Arkansas Constitution, the outcome may have been different. Here, the court decided this case according to the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and is bound by federal decisions regarding the search. However, we may interpret our constitution obviously without restrictions from other jurisdictions. And, pursuant to our constitution, I would be inclined in this case to find that the police officers here had no business spending fifteen minutes attempting to gain consent to search. Rather, while Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.2 would allow the initial approach by the officers under the facts here, once the defendant denies any involvement in the alleged crime for which the police have no evidence even to support a reasonable suspicion, contact should cease. The very presence of armed police officers on one’s doorstep and at the side of the house, coupled with the bald accusation of drug manufacturing, would cause a reasonable person to feel compelled to continue speaking with those officers rather than feel free to disregard the police presence and close the door. As such, the initial encounter, prior to any signed consent to search, is questionable in this case. Furthermore, that we perhaps would offer more protection to a defendant in this type of situation under our constitution is evidenced in part by Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure 2.2 and 2.3 requiring at least that police officers may not assert that compliance with their requests is required, and at the greatest that they must advise a defendant of his right to refuse compliance with the request for information. Certainly, under Rule 2.3 “Warning to persons asked to appear at a police station,” a law enforcement officer must “take such steps as are reasonable to make clear that there is no legal obligation to comply with such a request.” Rule 2.2 “Authority to request cooperation,” also requires that “no law enforcement officer shall indicate that a person is legally obligated to furnish information or to otherwise cooperate if no such legal obligation exists.” The commentary to these rules indicates that some notice that compliance is not required should be given to the person being questioned. This is particularly important under Rule 2.2 where multiple officers, armed with weapons, spouting accusatory questions, and circling the house, may approach a person’s home to assert allegations for which they have no actual proof. At least two other states have interpreted their state constitutions to require police officers conducting a “knock and talk” to inform a person that he may refuse consent, revoke consent, or limit the scope of consent, see State v. Ferrier, 960 P.2d 927 (Wash. 1998), or to at least get a “knowledgeable waiver” from the person indicating that he was informed that he has a right to refuse to give consent, and must be cognizant of his rights in the premises, see Graves v. State, 708 So.2d 858 (Miss. 1997). These decisions were based on the search and seizure provisions in Washington’s and Mississippi’s constitutions. These provision are substantially similar to both the Fourth Amendment and to Article 2, section 15, of the Arkansas Constitution, and contain no specific directive requiring officers to inform defendants of the right to refuse consent. While I am cognizant of the fact that we have stated that we interpret Article 2, section 15, as the Supreme Court interprets the Fourth Amendment, see Rainey v. Hartness, 339 Ark. 293, 5 S.W.3d 410 (1999), this new breed of search and seizure law, the “knock and talk,” warrants our departure from federal examples where the citizens of Arkansas face yet another attack limiting the protection of their homes against unlawful intrusion. THORNTON, J., joins in this concurrence.