Court Opinion

ID: 9786835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:03:32.798694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:49.173758
License: Public Domain

Judge JONES
specially concurring.
While I concur with the opinion in all respects, I write regarding the type of police-citizen encounter concerned here. I write specially because I believe the type of encounter must be ascertained before the court may conclude whether a seizure has occurred.
Based on the supreme court's reasoning in People v. H.J., I believe that when an officer stops a vehicle's driver for a suspected traffic violation and does not have a reasonable suspicion that a passenger is engaged in criminal activity at the time of the stop, the stop of the passenger is not an arrest, investigatory stop, or consensual interview. Rather, in my view, this type of stop constitutes a fourth category of police-citizen encounter recognized but not described as such by the court in HJ.. Such a stop is a hybrid between an investigatory stop and a consensual interview. People v. H.J., supra, 931 P.2d at 1181 (recognizing that detaining passenger in a stopped vehicle is merely coincidental with detention of driver). This fourth category arises when detention of a vehicle passenger is incidental to a valid investigatory stop of the vehicle's driver.
I recognize this as a fourth category of police-citizen encounter because detention of a passenger in a vehicle stopped for traffic violations without reasonable suspicion that the passenger is engaged in criminal activity does not fit into any of the other three categories. It is not an arrest because in this situation, no one contends that the police have probable cause to believe a defendant has engaged in eriminal activity. Similarly, it is not an investigatory stop with respect to the passenger because nobody asserts that the police have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity by the passenger. -It is also not a consensual interview because, as discussed in the majority's opinion, a reasonable passenger will not likely feel free to leave.
Because this fourth category is a hybrid, Fourth Amendment protections will not always be implicated when such an incidental *844stop occurs. Whether the Fourth Amendment is implicated depends on the conduct of the officer and/or the passenger. If a passenger's furtive movements or behavior leads an officer to suspect that the passenger is engaged in criminal activity, the stop of the passenger becomes an investigatory stop and thus implicates the Fourth Amendment. If, however, the officer does not request the passenger's identification, the passenger has not been "seized," and the incidental stop will not implicate the Fourth Amendment. Other circumstances, such as merely requesting a passenger's name and date of birth, may or may not constitute a stop incidental to an investigatory stop implicating the Fourth Amendment, depending on the totality of the cireumstances.
Thus, I conclude that under the cireum-stances presented here, the encounter with defendant constituted a stop incidental to the investigatory stop of the driver and also amounted to a seizure subject to Fourth Amendment protections.