Court Opinion

ID: 9779466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:51:27.445045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.569777
License: Public Domain

DEVANY, Justice,
concurring.
I write to express my concerns about the majority’s conclusion that “the officers’ questioning of appellant did not amount to a detention” and that she was free to leave at any time before the officers discovered the arrest warrant.
From the testimony of the officers, one could not possibly conclude that appellant was free to walk away during the interrogation. The majority tells us that police officers are as free as anyone else to ask questions of their fellow citizens. That statement *55is true and case law supports it, but that only describes the limit of the police officers’ freedom. For example, if someone other than a police officer were to stop a woman at 9:45 p.m. in a high crime area, the reasonable expectation would be that she would not answer any questions and try to walk away. When police officers with badges and guns stop two women simply walking along a public street at night and ask for their names and identification, they are not free to leave. To characterize such a stop by police officers as anything less than requiring the citizen to remain until the officers complete their interrogation is but a pretense and ignores reality-
In this case, the officers were patrolling a high crime area known for drugs and prostitution. One of the officers testified that they “wanted to check the women out.” Since appellant did not appear to be in any trouble, the purpose of the stop must have been to seek appellant’s identity, which is precisely what happened. Appellant did not give her true name. That could have ended the matter. The officers persisted in further identification until the interrogation caused one of the women to break down and cry. The result was the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant for appellant.
Because the officers discovered appellant possessed heroin after her arrest on a valid arrest warrant, I concur with the final result of the majority opinion. My main concern is that the majority opinion sends the wrong message in leading the public to believe that, when a police officer calls a citizen over to a patrol car without an articulable suspicion of a crime, the citizen can ignore the officer and refuse to answer any questions and is free to leave, and, presumably, may take whatever action is necessary to effect such right of departure. This is a dangerous message. To send such a message in an appellate opinion may cause the public to believe that a person may walk away from such a situation with impunity.
The majority should acknowledge the superior right of the police to detain a person under the circumstances of this case. It is but a farce, and a dangerous one at that, to excuse the police officers’ persistent interrogation of an ostensibly innocent citizen until her identity is established, by opining later that she was free to leave at all times during persistent efforts to establish her identity.