Court Opinion

ID: 9469073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:31:23.619289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:12.140006
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case presents two crucial questions. First, when was the defendant Black seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; and, second, at that point, did the police know “specific and articulable facts” sufficient to give rise to a reasonable belief that Black had committed a crime? Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879-1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). I believe that the majority has incorrectly analyzed both issues.
I make two preliminary observations. First, I note that the Supreme Court has never definitely articulated the concept of a Fourth Amendment seizure. The majority here adopts Justice Stewart’s Mendenhall -test that a person has been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). Only two Justices in Mendenhall explicitly accepted that test. An overly-restrictive definition of a seizure isolates police-citizen contacts from constitutional safeguards by removing them from judicial scrutiny. It, therefore, eliminates the only effective deterrent to police misconduct. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1875, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Nonetheless, even accepting the Mendenhall standard, I believe that the majority incorrectly analyzes the seizure issue.
Second, the majority is incorrect in using the “clearly erroneous” standard of review. The majority employs this standard of review because it believes that whether the encounter between the police and Black amounted to a seizure is a factual matter. Majority opinion at 135-136. The factual findings, however, are not in dispute. The only issue is whether these facts constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure. This is a *139question of law and the standard of review, therefore, is not clearly erroneous. United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U.S. 29, 44, 80 S.Ct. 503, 511, 4 L.Ed.2d 505 (1960); Murphy v. Turner, 426 F.2d 422, 423 (10th Cir. 1970); 2 Fed.Proc., L.Ed. § 3:652. The court’s use of the incorrect standard of review contributes crucially to its erroneous result. The majority admits that it is a close question whether the initial contact between the police and Black was a seizure. Majority opinion at 136-137. The majority defers to the district court’s legal conclusion because it finds no clear error in the factual findings. But the issue is a legal one and so the deference is inappropriate.
I
The majority holds that the initial encounter between the police and Black was neither an arrest nor an investigative stop. The police’s conduct, therefore, is completely outside the reach of the Fourth Amendment and is not open to judicial scrutiny. I believe that a realistic analysis of the facts of this case cannot support this position.
Black left the plane, walked to the flight information screen, and then walked to another gate and sat down to wait for his connecting flight. After five minutes he got up to go to the washroom. Two people stopped him, identified themselves as Chicago police officers, and said that they want ed to ask him some questions. I believe that a reasonable person would not think that under these circumstances he could freely ignore the police and walk away. Police encounters that involve investigative questioning that focuses on the person being stopped are inherently coercive. Police are authority figures. A person naturally feels compelled to stay put when the police stop him and say that they want to ask him some questions that involve him. The situation would have been quite different if the police were not investigating Black or were simply engaged in ordinary conversation. Here it is undisputed that the police stopped Black specifically to investigate him. I think it is clear that Bléck wag, seized under the Fourth Amendment. See Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2640, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); United States v. Palmer, 603 F.2d 1286, 1288 (8th Cir. 1979).
The majority contends that Black was an intelligent and well educated person and would not be coerced in this situation. I agree that a defendant’s) lack of education or inability to speak English requires special sensitivity. It does not follow, as the majority seems to conclude, that college graduates are fair game for police interrogation without Fourth Amendment protections. The majority also notes that the incident took place in a well-lighted and spacious public concourse with other travelers present. I do not find this fact at all persuasive. O’Hare International Airport is neither a hospitable nor a comfortable environment. Being stopped there by police hardly diminishes the coercive atmosphere; if anything, it increases it.
The majority admits that prior to the initial encounter the police lacked justification for an investigative stop. Majority opinion at 137. Because I believe that the initial encounter was a seizure, the search that followed was illegal and its fruit should be suppressed.
II
Even if the initial Contact were not a-seizure, I still cannot accept the result. The majority admits that at a certain point the police’s encounter with Black became a seizure; they never say, however, exactly when this seizure occurred. They do contend that, whenever it occurred, it was justified. I disagree.
The majority’s unwillingness to state exactly when the seizure occurred produces its incorrect result. A court must determine when a seizure occurred because it is at that point that the court must evaluate the police officer’s knowledge to see whether the seizure was justified. Because the majority never directly answers the seizure question, it errs on the issue of justification.
I think that it is beyond doubt that Black was seized when the police officers took his driver’s license and airline ticket. I find *140entirely fanciful the majority’s statement that whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave under these circumstances is “extremely close.” How could Black reasonably feel free to leave when the police had in their possession his airline ticket and his driver’s license? Where was he to go? How was he to get there? He could not get on a plane, and he could not rent a car. He had just arrived from another city. He was alone in a large international airport, and the police had taken his travel documents. The issue is not at all close. When the officers took Black’s travel documents, he was seized under the Fourth Amendment. See Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2640, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); United States v. Palmer, 603 F.2d 1286, 1288 (8th Cir. 1979).
The crucial question, therefore, is whether at that point the police had knowledge of specific and articulable facts that gave rise to a reasonable belief that Black had committed a crime. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2640, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881-82, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2580, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. at 1868, 1879-1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). What specific and articulable facts did the police know? Did these facts meet the standard for investigative stops?
The majority states that the police knew that: (1) Black was the first passenger off a plane that had arrived from Ft. Lauder-dale, (2) Black exited the plane speedily, and (3) Black appeared disoriented and nervous. These facts fail to meet the standard for investigative stops. It is a logical truth that every plane from Ft. Lauderdale will have a first person leave it. This fact lacks specificity and carries no weight. (“The demand for specificity ... is the central teaching of this court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” 392 U.S. at 21, n.18, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, n.18.) The judgment of Black’s psychological state is entirely subjective. A reviewing court must, of course, give due consideration to inferences an experienced agent reasonably draws from his observations. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52 n.2, 99 S.Ct 2637, 2641 n.2, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). Nonetheless, the mere fact that an officer is experienced does not turn his suspicions into specific and articulable facts. Suspicions justify continued surveillance; they do not justify stopping and seizing citizens. United States v. Buenaventura-Ariza, 615 F.2d 29, 36 (2d Cir. 1980); United States v. Price, 599 F.2d 494, 500 n.7 (2d Cir. 1979).
Indeed, the majority admits that the foregoing facts would not justify the seizure of Black. It asserts, however, that the police knew three additional facts that justified the seizure. Majority opinion at 137. This assertion is incorrect because the police obtained the knowledge of these facts after Black was seized. This illustrates the critical importance of determining exactly when the seizure took place. The police officer’s knowledge must be evaluated at that point. Knowledge acquired after a seizure has occurred cannot be used a posteriori to justify it. See Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 96, 85 S.Ct. 223, 228, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964). Cf. Bumper v. State of North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548 n.10, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 1791 n.10, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968) (search not justified by what it turns up).
In Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 100 S.Ct. 2752, 65 L.Ed.2d 890 (1980), the defendant arrived at the Atlanta airport early in the morning from Ft. Lauderdale (the same city from which Black arrived in Chicago). He left the plane alone. He appeared nervous and to be concealing that he was traveling with a companion. His only luggage was a shoulder bag. He looked backwards several times in the direction of the second man. The police approached him, identified themselves as agents, and asked to see his airline tickets and identification. The Court held, as a matter of law, that the agents could not have reasonably suspected the defendant of criminal activity on the basis of these observations. 448 U.S. at 441, 100 S.Ct. at 2754. I believe that Reid is dispositive of our case. As a matter of law, the police lacked knowledge of specific and articulable facts about Black that justified a reasonable belief that he had committed a crime. *141The agent’s beliefs were mere suspicions and “too slender a reed to support the seizure in this case.” Id.
Cases from other circuits support this analysis. In United States v. Buenaventura-Ariza, 615 F.2d 29 (2d Cir. 1980), the defendants arrived from a source city, appeared nervous, and travelled separately in the airport although they had talked to each other when deplaning. The court held that the facts “strike us as wholly insufficient to constitute ‘specific and articulable’ facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that they were involved in drug trafficking.” 615 F.2d at 36. The court noted that, “There must be other objective facts which when viewed in conjunction with nervous behavior and arrival from a source city raise the complex of conduct to a level justifying reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Id. (emphasis added). In United States v. Jefferson, 650 F.2d 854 (6th Cir. 1981), the defendant arrived from a source city, walked quickly through the terminal, appeared extremely nervous, matched a tip from an informant, and did not claim his luggage until he was picked up by someone. The court held that these facts did not justify an investigative stop. 650 F.2d at 856-57. See also Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47,99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); United States v. McCaleb, 552 F.2d 717 (6th Cir. 1977).
When the officers stopped Black, questioned him, and took his travel documents, he was seized. At that point the police lacked knowledge of specific and articulable facts that justified the seizure. Because the seizure was illegal, the fruits of the search that followed should be suppressed.
I dissent.