Court Opinion

ID: 9547362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:46:25.899084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:39.460337
License: Public Domain

SINGLETON, Judge,
concurring.
I join fully in the court’s opinion. A person’s speedy trial rights do not accrue until he is formally charged or formally arrested. Criminal Rule 45(c)(1). I believe a few additional remarks are necessary, however, to clarify the relationship between a fourth amendment seizure which is invalid because it exceeds the bounds of an investigatory stop and is not supported by probable cause and the commencement of a defendant’s speedy trial rights under Criminal Rule 45. In Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), the Supreme Court applied the general rule that, subject to a few carefully circumscribed exceptions, a fourth amendment seizure without probable cause is invalid. A custodial stop based upon a reasonable suspicion is one exception to the rule. The Supreme Court was very careful not to describe all seizures that did not qualify as custodial stops as arrests. In Howard v. State, 664 P.2d 603, 608 (Alaska App.1983), we did divide all fourth amendment seizures into arrests and stops, but nothing in the opinion required us to do so. In retrospect it would have been more accurate, and more in keeping with Supreme Court precedents, to say merely that all fourth amendment seizures must be supported by probable cause unless they quali*664fy as custodial stops, and that an otherwise valid custodial stop may become invalid under the fourth amendment if it is unduly prolonged or involves unnecessary restraint.
Once it is clear that Lindsay was seized for fourth amendment purposes and did not voluntarily accompany the police to the station, it is clear that the seizure in terms of duration and restraint could not be characterized as a custodial stop. Consequently, probable cause was necessary to validate the seizure. Since it is conceded that probable cause was lacking, the seizure was invalid and its fruits must be suppressed. It is unnecessary to characterize what happened to Lindsay as an arrest for any purposes. Consequently, Lindsay’s experience did not trigger commencement of his speedy trial rights under Criminal Rule 45.