Court Opinion

ID: 9795339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:26:30.732914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:29:35.677243
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(dissenting):
4 19 If football is a game of inches, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence can be a matter of seconds. The majority acknowledges as much with its recognition that "[al level one encounter becomes a level two stop when 'a reasonable person, in view of all the cireum-stances, would believe he or she is not free to leave. This is true even if the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention brief?" Lead opinion 1 10 (quoting Salt Lake City v. Ray, 2000 UT App 55, ¶ 11, 998 P.2d 274). The majority also recognizes, as it must given Ray, that " 'when a person's identification or other important papers are taken by a law enforcement officer, a reasonable person would not feel free to leave."" Lead opinion 111 (quoting Ray, 2000 UT App 55 at 114, 998 P.2d 274). This is exactly the position Adams was in for the minute or so that Officer Patrick held his identification card.
T20 While I agree with Ray that running a warrants check "will not per se escalate [an] encounter into a level two stop," Ray, 2000 UT App 55 at { 13 n. 2, 998 P.2d 274, holding an individual's identification card longer than is necessary to obtain the information needed to run a warrants check will. See, eg., Unit*1139ed States v. Johnson, 326 F.3d 1018, 1022 (8th Cir.2003) (stating suspect was seized when, inter alia, police officers "took possession of his personal property-here, his driver's license"), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 962, 124 S.Ct. 425, 157 LEd2d 304 (2003); United States v. Lambert, 46 F.3d 1064, 1068 (10th Cir.1995) ("[When law enforcement officials retain an individual's driver's lHeense in the course of questioning him, that individual, as a general rule, will not reasonably feel free to terminate the encounter."); State v. Painter, 296 Or. 422, 676 P.2d 309, 311 (1984) (holding seizure occurred when police officer retained driver's license while making radio warrants check); State v. Daniel, 12 S.W.3d 420, 427 (Tenn.2000) (emphasizing that "one cireum-stance [in the case before it] reflect[ed] a distinct departure from the typical consensual encounter-[the] ... retention of [the defendant's] identification to run a computer warrants check[,]" which "effectively immobilized" the defendant and was thus "a seizure"). See also People v. Jackson, 39 P.3d 1174, 1189 (Colo.2002) ("The need for identification is pervasive in today's society, and a reasonable person would not consider abandoning his identification a practical option.").
1 21 The flaw in the majority's logic is that it assumes a warrants check cannot be run unless the officer retains physical possession of the identification card while the warrants check is in process. Thus, the majority is able to say that "Patrick held onto the identification for the duration of the warrants check, which took approximately thirty to sixty seconds[,]" Lead opinion 14, and conclude that this is the very situation contemplated in Ray, "'where an officer views the identification, obtains the desired information, and promptly returns it[.]'" Lead opinion (quoting Ray, 2000 UT App 55 at 113 n. 2, 998 P.2d 274). See also Lead opinion 13 (claiming the officer in this case "did not hold onto the identification any longer than was necessary"). The majority apparently takes the view that "the desired information" referred to in Ray is the information learned as a result of the warrants check rather than the minimal information needed to initiate one.
'I 22 I disagree. I believe that the "desired information" to be gleaned from "view[ing] the identification," Ray, 2000 UT App 55 at 113 n. 2, 998 P.2d 274, is simply the name and date of birth of the individual on whom the warrants check is to be run. After that information has been mentally noted, or even read to dispatch in the case of a long name with unusual spelling, the identification can be "promptly return[ed]," id., ie., returned within 4 or 5 seconds, while the officer awaits the result of the warrants check on his own time, as it were. The immediate return of the identification card to the individual, even as the officer continues to await word from dispatch, unambiguously signals the individual that he is free to go and is under no obligation to wait with the officer to learn the result of the warrants check. CJ. United States v. Soto-Lopez, 995 F.2d 694, 698 (7th Cir.1993) (holding no seizure occurred when law enforcement officers "returned the [plane] ticket and identification immediately after looking at them").
123 By holding Adams's identification throughout the pendency of the warrants check rather than immediately returning it to him, Officer Patrick held it for 25 to 55 seconds longer than was necessary. During that time, Adams would not have felt free to leave, escalating the encounter to a level two seizure, albeit one of brief duration, for which there simply was no legal justification, i.e., no articulable suspicion of criminality. Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court's determination that the encounter did not escalate to a level two seizure until the backpack was searched, hold that an unwarranted level two seizure occurred when the officer retained Adams's identification card while awaiting the outcome of the already initiated warrants check, and proceed to consider whether that illegality was exploited in securing Adams's consent to the search of his backpack.