Court Opinion

ID: 9632287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:08:36.462401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:35:52.545211
License: Public Domain

GOLDEN, Justice,
dissenting, in which URBIGKIT, J. (Retired), joins.
I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the initial stop of appellant is a mere “first tier encounter” or “contact” with police. By categorizing police action in this manner, the majority fails to recognize the Fourth Amendment protections inherent in a Terry stop conducted without reasonable articulable suspicion.
On the night of May 11, 1991, at approximately 11:20 p.m., Floyd Esquibel phoned the Cheyenne police to report a prowler. Mr. Esquibel did not personally observe the prowler but had been notified by a neighbor that someone had been prowling around his car that night. According to Mr. Esquibel, the neighbor described the suspect as a teenager, of average size, possibly a male. When Officer Lusher arrived on the scene, Mr. Esquibel gave a description of the prowler to which the officer testified as follows:
Q. And did Mr. Esquibel give you a description of the car prowler?
A. Other than he thought he was male and dark, dark clothing. That was it. He didn’t have any real description. Q. But he wasn’t certain whether he was male or whether the person was male or female, is that correct?
A. My memory of it was that he mentioned that it was a male, but he just didn’t — it was too dark to see anything other than that, basically.
Q. In other words, he didn’t tell you what the prowler was wearing, what— whether he was tall, short, medium, whether he had curly hair, straight hair, or—
A. No.
*701Q. What race he was?
A. The figure was just described male and basically a dark figure.
(Emphasis added). We note that at the time of this incident, appellant was twenty-nine years old. Further, there is no evidence in the record to indicate whether Mr. Esquibel’s neighbor, the eyewitness, was ever questioned by the police.
While Officer Lusher was present, Mr. Esquibel checked his car and “couldn’t determine if anything was missing.” Officer Raybuck, who came later on the scene, testified that when asked whether anything was missing from his car, Mr. Esquibel stated to “the best of his knowledge, no.”
Mr. Esquibel indicated to Officer Lusher that the suspect had gone south from the location of the Esquibel residence on 31st Street and Cribbon. Officer Lusher then left the Esquibel residence and drove approximately a block and a half to two blocks south and then a block and a half east before he came upon appellant. Officer Lusher testified that he pulled up behind appellant in his vehicle and called to him, his intention being to get appellant to stop. Officer Lusher’s observations of appellant before stopping him were as follows:
Q. When you first saw the defendant while you were still in your car, what did you notice about him?
A. That he was dressed in dark clothing
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Q. Could you describe his clothing?
A. As I got a little closer, I could see it was a jean jacket, blue jeans.
Q. Did you notice anything else about him at this time while you were in your car?
A. While I was in my car, I noticed that he had a — one of those black metal mag lights sticking out of his right pocket.
* * * * * *
Q. He wasn’t trying to avoid you or anything of that nature, was he?
A. No. He was walking down the street, and I stopped him.
(Emphasis added).
Officer Lusher testified that appellant was stopped on suspicion that he was the prowler. The officer made this determination by considering the following factors:
The fact that I didn’t see anybody else in the area, the fact that he had a flashlight in his back pocket, was dressed in dark clothing, he was out at that time of night.
Only after Officer Lusher called to appellant to stop did he notice that appellant’s “forehead was covered in sweat, he appeared nervous.” Officer Lusher also testified that he did not observe any weapons on appellant before the stop but that only after the stop did he notice that appellant had “something stuck up his left sleeve jacket of his coat, he had some type of handle on it.” Officer Raybuck arrived in a patrol car in less than five minutes. There is no testimony in the record to indicate whether the police, officers were armed.
The initial stop of appellant before the search presents the threshold question:
Was there “reasonable suspicion” to stop appellant, based on the description given to the patrolling officer that the suspect was a teenager, of average size, possibly a male in dark clothing?
The scope of a permissible investigative stop and frisk was first discussed by the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). In Terry, a police officer with thirty-nine years of experience observed, during daylight hours, two suspects as they took turns walking back and forth in front of a store front window roughly twenty-four times, pausing to stare into the window and then converse together on the street corner. Terry, 392 U.S. at 23, 88 S.Ct. at 1881, 20 L.Ed.2d at 907. The police officer deduced that the men were casing the store for an eventual robbery and stopped the men, frisking them for weapons. The Court analyzed the reasonableness of the seizure by balancing the governmental interest justifying intrusion with *702the “constitutionally protected interests of the private citizen.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d at 905. The Court stated that the officer “must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Id. The Court concluded that “[t]his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Id.
The Court has reaffirmed that “if police have a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts, that a person they encounter was involved in or is wanted in connection with a completed felony, then a Terry stop may be made to investigate that suspicion.” United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229, 105 S.Ct. 675, 680, 83 L.Ed.2d 604, 612 (1985). It is clear from the opinions following Terry that the Supreme Court has not varied from this basic requirement. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 700-01, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 77 L.Ed.2d 110, 116 (1983); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 236-37 (1983); Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 699 and n. 7, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 2592 and n. 7, 69 L.Ed.2d 340, 347 and n. 7 (1981).
In determining what constitutes a “seizure” and thus implicates Fourth Amendment rights, the Supreme Court has stated
a person is “seized” only when, by means of physical force or a show of authority, his freedom of movement is restrained. * * * The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is not to eliminate all contact between the police and the citizenry, but “to prevent arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals.”
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We conclude 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. Examples of circumstances that might indicate a seizure, even where the person did not attempt to leave, would be the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer’s request might be compelled. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 553, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, 509 (1980) (footnote and citations omitted).
In a recent case, the Court clarified the “only if” language employed in Mendenhall by noting it to be “a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for seizure * * * effected through a ‘show of authority.’ ” California v. Hodari, D., 499 U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1551, 113 L.Ed.2d 690, 698 (1991). The Court went on to say:
Mendenhall establishes that the test for existence of a “show of authority” is an objective one: not whether the citizen perceived that he was being ordered to restrict his movement, but whether the officer’s words and actions would have conveyed that to á reasonable person.
Hodari, 499 U.S. at-, 111 S.Ct. at 1551, 113 L.Ed.2d at 698. And since “policemen do not command ‘Stop!’ expecting to be ignored,” the citizen must comply with this order before a “stop” carrying the Men-denhall indicia will be considered a seizure. Hodari, 499 U.S. at-, 111 S.Ct. at 1551, 113 L.Ed.2d at 698.

Wyoming Cases:

The sufficiency of probable cause for a search was first discussed by this court in State v. Kelly, 38 Wyo. 455, 268 P. 571 (1928). The search of an automobile for intoxicating liquor was upheld, based initially on a tip from a Hot Springs County deputy sheriff which gave a physical description of the vehicle’s passengers (a fat, heavy-set man and a small man) and a partial description of the vehicle. Kelly, 38 Wyo. at 457, 268 P. at 571. The description *703of the passengers and vehicle was confirmed by a Washakie County sheriff, along with his observations that the men appeared to be agitated and the rear of the vehicle contained small kegs. Kelly, 38 Wyo. at 457, 268 P. at 571. Chief Justice Blume stated for the court:
We might not have been satisfied in the instant case to uphold the trial court, if the probable cause had rested solely upon the information given by the Deputy Sheriff to the Sheriff in this case, but that information was strengthened by reason of the other suspicious circumstances in the case, warranting the court, we think, in its holding. Kelly, 38 Wyo. at 460, 268 P. at 572 (emphasis added).
In a case involving an improper arrest, we cited Terry, noting that “[temporary detention for limited investigatory purposes, as well as a full blown arrest, is protected by the Fourth Amendment” and inferred that the “test of any governmental invasion of a citizen’s personal security is its reasonableness in the light of all the surrounding circumstances.” Rodarte v. City of Riverton, 552 P.2d 1245, 1251, n. 2 (Wyo.1976).
This court first discussed a permissible stop and frisk in Parkhurst v. State, 628 P.2d 1369 (Wyo.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 899, 102 S.Ct. 402, 70 L.Ed.2d 216. In that case, two suspects were stopped in their vehicle shortly after a murder had taken place. At the time of the stop, the police knew the identity of the assailants from the victim, a description of the suspects’ car, and the direction and road they were travelling. The vehicle was described as a 1968 blue or green Ford Fairlane, but the car stopped by the police was a mid-60’s blue Dodge. The driver was asked to produce his license which identified him as one of the assailants and was then asked to step out of the car, as was his brother who was also identified. The court concluded that “the police officers’ conduct in making an investigative detention was reasonable since the record discloses ample grounds for their suspicions concerning appellants.” Parkhurst, 628 P.2d at 1376.
In Cook v. State, 631 P.2d 5 (Wyo.1981), the suspect was stopped under the following scenario: it was after 1:00 a.m. and an armed robbery had just taken place; a van carrying the defendant was stopped within one-half mile of the robbery as it was coming from a private area where it had no business being; and the van’s passenger was noted to have hair length matching the description of the robber given by an eyewitness to the robbery. These “specific and articulable facts” coupled with “reasonable inferences by an experienced police officer, furnished ample grounds for finding a reasonable and objective basis for an investigatory stop of the van.” Cook, 631 P.2d at 8.
In Lopez v. State, 643 P.2d 682 (Wyo.1982), this court reiterated the test developed in United States v. Cortez:
The idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion contains two elements, each of which must be present before a stop is permissible. First, the assessment must be based upon all of the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports, if such are available * * *. From these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions — inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.
The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same — and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement.
The second element contained in the idea that assessment of the whole picture *704must yield a particularized suspicion is the concept that the process just described must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing. Lopez, 643 P.2d at 683-84 (quoting Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 629 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 923, 102 S.Ct. 1281, 71 L.Ed.2d 464).
This court said that probable cause need not exist before an investigatory stop is made but that based upon the totality of the circumstances, “the detaining officer must have a particular and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” Lopez, 643 P.2d at 683 (citation omitted). In Lopez, the suspect was described as “a small, thin Mexican male wearing an orange T-shirt and some sort of wishbone design on the T-shirt” and driving towards Sheridan in a “tannish-colored older car, with no license plates and a Casper dealer's tag on the rear end.” Lopez, 643 P.2d at 683. The court upheld the stop of Lopez based on this particularized description of the vehicle and suspect from an eyewitness.
In a case involving a stop of a suspected drunk driver, this court discussed opinions in other jurisdictions that held reports from citizen informants as presumptively reliable if they “also contain enough objective facts to justify pursuit and detention.” Olson v. State, 698 P.2d 107, 110 (Wyo.1985). This court, however, determined that it need not reach the issue of whether the truck drivers’ reports of the drunk driver’s erratic driving was sufficient in itself because the police officer who then followed the suspect observed him exceed the speed limit, weave slightly and hug the exit ramp. Olson, 698 P.2d at 111.

Other Jurisdictions:

Recent cases from other jurisdictions have applied the specific articulable suspicion standard to instances where a suspect exhibits a certain known manner of behavior or dress known as a “profile.” In State v. Jones, 114 N.M. 147, 835 P.2d 863 (App. 1992), the defendant, who was wearing gang apparel, was stopped and frisked while in the company of a known gang member and narcotics distributor in an area known for gang activity. The court held that absent any furtive mannerisms, gait or dress, there were no articulable facts that set defendant apart from innocent gang members in that location and the police action was found to be unwarranted.
A Maryland court recently found a search incident to a permissible stop to be invalid absent reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. In Derricott v. State, 327 Md. 582, 611 A.2d 592 (1992), the defendant was stopped for speeding and then based upon the facts that he was a young black male wearing gold jewelry, driving a sports car with a beeper and carrying papers with telephone numbers written on them, was subjected to a pat-down and search of his car, revealing drugs. The court held that even though the defendant may have matched a “drug courier profile” this was not enough to warrant a search or seizure and that “[wjithout more, the attributes that the State claims were suspicious about Derricott’s appearance simply are not enough to establish the requisite level of reasonable suspicion that Derricott was engaged in criminal activity.” Derricott, 611 A.2d at 598. Derricott had not engaged in any suspicious behavior or acted in an unusual manner.
In a recent Massachusetts case, the police received a bulletin over the police radio informing them that a stabbing had taken place and describing the suspect as “a black male with a black ¾ length goose known as Angelo of the Humboldt group.” Commonwealth v. Cheek, 413 Mass. 492, 597 N.E.2d 1029, 1030 (1992). Defendant was stopped wearing a ¾ length goose down jacket “ ‘in proximity’ to where the stabbing occurred,” known to be a high crime area. Cheek, 597 N.E.2d at 1031. In determining that the defendant was wrong*705fully stopped, the court found that the radio description was not sufficient to “single him out from any other black male in the area,” defendant had not been fleeing the scene and evidence did not exist to show he was engaged in any criminal or suspicious activity. Cheek, 597 N.E.2d at 1031. The court held that to “permit police investigative stops under the sparse facts present in this case would be to encourage unduly intrusive police practices.” Cheek, 597 N.E.2d at 1032.
The Tenth Circuit has recently held that where the suspect’s nervousness was the only suspicious factor, such nervousness raised the degree of suspicion only minimally. United States v. Hall, 978 F.2d 616, 621 (10th Cir.1992). As defendant’s nervousness was apparent only after being confronted by police officers, the court held it to be of little significance because the officers had “no prior contact with the [defendant with which to compare her behavior, thereby making defendant’s nervous appearance to the officers merely a hunch.” Hall, 978 F.2d at 621. The court recognized that it is “common knowledge that most citizens * * * whether innocent or guilty, when confronted by a law enforcement officer who asks them potentially incriminating questions are likely to exhibit some signs of nervousness.” Hall, n. 4.
A Washington state court of appeals reviewed a case involving the stop of a suspect believed to be selling drugs based on a tip from a juvenile that the individual was “dressed in black and * * * was riding a motorcycle.” State v. Hart, 66 Wash.App. 1, 830 P.2d 696, 697 (1992). The informant then pointed to the suspect as he approached and told the police officer, “That’s him.” Hart, 830 P.2d at 698. That court applied a two-prong test reformulated in State v. Sieler, 95 Wash.2d 43, 621 P.2d 1272 (1980) to determine whether reasonable suspicion existed to support the investigative stop of the suspect. The court reasoned that:
An informant’s tip possesses sufficient “indicia of reliability” where (1) the informant is reliable and (2) the informant’s tip contains enough objective facts to justify the pursuit and detention of the suspect or the noninnocuous details of the tip have been corroborated by the police thus suggesting that the information was obtained in a reliable fashion. Hart, 830 P.2d at 700 (citations omitted).
The court determined the informant was reliable in that he himself was being detained for a traffic violation and was not anonymous, thus the first prong of the test was met. In analyzing the first alternative of the second prong of the test, the court concluded that the informant’s tip lackéd any objective facts to justify detention. This determination was made from the following facts: the informant had no basis for assuming that the suspect was selling drugs, only that the informant was looking to purchase drugs and was told that the suspect was in the area; the informant did not know where the suspect lived and had never been approached by the suspect to purchase drugs. The court reasoned, that based on this lack of any objective facts, the police officer could not evaluate whether the suspect was indeed selling drugs or whether the informant had “misconstrued innocent conduct.” Hart, 830 P.2d at 701. Finally, the officer did not observe any “ ‘noninnocuous’ conduct which tended to demonstrate that the informant’s information was obtained in a reliable fashion.” Id. Nor did the suspect’s presence in a known drug traffic area “by itself give rise to a reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity.” Id. Moreover, the officer’s observations of the suspect which conformed to the informant’s description did not provide corroboration under the second prong.
In a recent situation where the defendant was followed at night, by two uniformed, armed policemen and ordered to “stop, halt right there” as he entered a dark apartment building and could go nowhere else, the Court applied Hodari, stating that
*706even when a “reasonable person” would have believed that he was not “free to leave” pursuant to an officer’s injunction to stop, a defendant may not rely on such a “show of authority” to exclude evidence if he failed to submit to the officer’s assertion of authority. Thus, pursuant to the Court’s judgment in Hodari D., we must determine (1) whether [the officer] used a “show of authority” to seize the appellant and (2) whether the appellant submitted to the assertion of authority.
United States v. Wood, 981 F.2d 536, 539 (D.C.Cir.1992). The test to determine whether a “show of authority” was made is “objective, and looks at the totality of the circumstances” including, among the other Mendenhall factors of consideration, the time and place of the encounter. Wood, 981 F.2d at 539.
Finally, the Tenth Circuit has stated:
Whether a particular encounter constitutes a consensual encounter or an investigative detention involving fourth amendment protections depends on whether a reasonable person under the circumstances would believe she was not free to leave and/or disregard the official’s request for information. United States v. Werking, 915 F.2d 1404, 1408 (10th Cir.1990) (citations omitted).
ANALYSIS
To analyze whether appellant’s Fourth Amendment rights have been violated by an impermissible stop and frisk, we must first consider whether appellant was stopped or “seized.”
Writing for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Brorby found the defendant to be “seized” for Fourth Amendment purposes when he yielded momentarily to a uniformed police officer’s request to “hold up.” United States v. Morgan, 936 F.2d 1561 (10th Cir.1991). The officer had previously followed the defendant for several blocks in a marked police car with its red light flashing. Morgan, 936 F.2d at 1567. This apparent show of authority was sufficient to implicate a Terry stop.
Applying the Mendenhall guidelines, the Connecticut Supreme Court in a recent decision determined appellant, who was stopped with a companion at 1:00 a.m. by an armed officer where no other persons were present, to be seized for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Connecticut v. Oquendo, 223 Conn. 635, 613 A.2d 1300 (1992). The court determined that a reasonable person would not have believed he was free to leave.
In the instant case, Officer Lusher, while driving a patrol car, approached appellant late at night and called to him to stop. Appellant stopped at the officer’s command. No one else was in the vicinity and a second officer, also in a patrol ear, arrived in less than five minutes following Officer Lusher’s stop of appellant. Whether the officers were armed or not is not known from the record. However, a reasonable person could deduce that he was not free to leave that situation and, as such, appellant was “seized.”
Previous Wyoming cases can be distinguished from the facts presented here. Beginning with Kelly, this court has required that a search be supported by “other suspicious circumstances” in addition to the descriptive information given by an informant. Such circumstances are lacking in this case. In Parkhurst, the police knew the identity of the assailants from the victim, while in this case the identity of the prowler or whether a crime had been committed was not known. In Cook, an eyewitness to the robbery gave a physical description of the suspect, including his hair length, and the van when stopped was leaving a private area where it had no business being, indicating furtive behavior. In Lopez, an eyewitness gave a specific physical description of the suspect and his *707vehicle. Unlike Cook and Lopez, the only eyewitness to the prowling incident could give only a vague, general description of the suspect and apparently never spoke to the police. At the time Collins was apprehended, whether a crime had taken place could not be verified, even by the supposed victim, Mr. Esquibel.
The only authority from this court cited by the majority is Olson. In that case, though initiated by reports from citizen informants, the police officer personally observed erratic driving sufficient to permit a stop for drunken driving. The majority cites this opinion to support an “investigatory stop.” However, in our discussion in Olson we quote from Cortez:
An investigatory stop must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity. * * 11 [T]he totality of the circumstances — the whole picture — must be taken into account. Based upon that whole picture the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.
Olson, 698 P.2d at 110 (quoting Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417, 101 S.Ct. at 695, 66 L.Ed.2d at 628) (emphasis added). Determining that the officer had “reasonable and articulate suspicion based upon a totality of the circumstances” to stop the Olson vehicle, this court noted the independent corroboration of illegal activity from the officer’s observations as well as the “generally noncon-clusory” factual observations of the informers. Olson, 698 P.2d at 111.
In analyzing cases from other jurisdictions, it appears that certain descriptive profiles of gang members or drug couriers are not sufficient to justify a stop without the suspect exhibiting furtive behavior. Jones and Derricott. And even if the description is more specific, if it cannot distinguish the suspect from others in the area, it is not enough. Cheek.
Applying the test in Hart to the facts in the present case, we note Mr. Esquibel stated that his neighbor phoned him saying someone was prowling around his car and he did not recall if she said that someone had been in the car or not. Mr. Esquibel did not personally see the suspect, but remembers the description of the suspect given by his neighbor as a teenager, possibly a male; he did not remember specifically what description he gave to the officers; and Officer Lusher testified that Esquibel told him the suspect was a male with dark clothing. Mr. Esquibel could not determine, or did not notice, if anything was missing from his car and did not tell the officers that the umbrella was missing.
Considering first the reliability of the informant, it appears that the police never talked to the eyewitness, Mr. Esquibel’s neighbor. There is conflicting testimony of what the officers remember as the description given by Mr. Esquibel and what he remembers his neighbor telling him. Under the first prong of the test in Hart, it is questionable as to whether Mr. Esquibel can be considered a reliable informant; he was not an eyewitness and could never confirm that anything had been taken from his vehicle. The description of the suspect, either a male in dark clothing or a male teenager of average size, did not provide specific information by which to identify the suspect, and appellant at the time was not a teenager, but twenty-nine years old. The description, plus the lack of evidence to support a theft, does not provide “objective facts to justify the pursuit and detention of the suspect.” Hart, 830 P.2d at 700. Officer Lusher did not observe any “noninnocuous behavior” of appellant before the stop to corroborate the informant’s tip. The apparent nervousness exhibited by appellant after being stopped cannot be considered in evaluating whether specific articu-lable suspicion existed before the stop, and using appellant’s nervousness to support the seizure must be treated with caution. Hall.
*708As in Wood, the specifics surrounding the stop of appellant do not comprise elements of a “benign police/citizen encounter.” We know that late at night, a uniformed policeman, driving a police car, ordered appellant to stop. Soon after this seizure a second uniformed officer, also in a police car, appeared on the scene. There is no question that both prongs of the Hodari test were met: appellant did not resist but rather submitted to the officers’ show of authority.
Kelly Collins was stopped by the police based only on the description that a teenager or possibly a male in dark clothing had been sighted in connection with a possible car break-in. It is difficult to see how that description can be determined to be particular and articulable under this court’s previous application of Terry and Cortez. Appellant was not furtive in his behavior, and no additional information existed to give rise to a belief that he was engaged in criminal activity. It was not until after appellant was stopped that the officer noted Collins was sweating and nervous and saw the umbrella handle sticking out of his coat sleeve.
Appellant was stopped in violation of his constitutional rights against unwarranted search and seizure and the evidence acquired as a result of the stop should have been suppressed. The majority today elects to close its eyes to the line of cases from this court requiring “reasonable” and “articulable suspicion” by choosing to call an investigatory stop, a “first tier encounter” or “contact” with a citizen. Majority opinion at 695. Disregarding the Fourth Amendment rights infringed by an unjustifiable stop, the majority is content to engage in semantics, calling what is really a “detention” or “seizure” an “encounter” or “contact” as if that would somehow make the erosion of these constitutional rights more palatable.
Despite the terms the majority may concoct to justify appellant’s detention, the reality remains that appellant was stopped not because he “did anything to arouse individualized suspicion but because he was there * * *.” United States v. Rideau, 969 F.2d 1572, 1580 (5th Cir.1992) (Smith, J., dissenting, in which Politz, Goldberg, Duhe, and Wiener, JJ., joined). What occurred to appellant is “akin to a general warrant.” Rideau, 969 F.2d at 1580. Though the majority finds it relatively simple to ignore, I am cognizant that
indiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of “general warrants” were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1378, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, 649 (1980) (footnote omitted).
I respectfully dissent.