Court Opinion

ID: 9460065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:39:56.603686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:27.545423
License: Public Domain

ON HEARING EN BANC
TRASK, Circuit Judge:
Robert Portsche Ward appeals from his conviction of knowing possession of a false Selective Service registration card, 50 U.S.C. App. § 462(b)(5). The conviction was based upon evidence obtained from the appellant by FBI agents after a vehicular stop and request for identification. The appellant’s pretrial motion to suppress the evidence was denied by the district court. We reverse on the ground that the stop of Ward’s automobile violated the appellant’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure and that the violation required the suppression of evidence obtained as a result of the unlawful stop.
The evidence presented at the suppression hearing indicated that the FBI wished to interview the appellant regarding a federal fugitive, William Ayres, who had been indicted in 1970 by a federal Grand Jury. Prior to April 4, 1972, the date of the road stop, FBI agents surveilled Ward on different occasions, waiting for an opportunity to interview Ward outside the presence of friends and acquaintances.
The evidence further established that:
(1) The FBI agents knew where the appellant lived and had known for a number of months prior to April 4, 1972.
(2) The agents knew the appellant’s car by make, model, color, year and license number.
(3) The agents presumably knew that the appellant had worked as a typist for a practicing lawyer, but no effort was made to contact the appellant at that office or through the attorney.
(4) The agents knew that the appellant was using the name of Gerald Clay*168ton Washburn and had known for a number of months. Appellee acknowledges that it is not a crime in itself to assume a false identity.
(5) The agents knew that the appellant had a Washington driver’s license in the name of Gerald Clayton Washburn and had seen a copy of the driver’s license in the state’s records prior to April 4, 1972. (Washington drivers’ licenses have the driver’s photograph on them).
(6) The agents were also aware that there were birth records in Seattle of a Gerald Clayton Washburn who had died as a small child several years prior to April 4, 1972.
On April 4, 1972, agents Woodlieg and Clark together with two agents new to Seattle, spotted the appellant leaving his residence in his Volkswagen. They followed the appellant to and from a food co-op and then caught up with him at a stop sign at a nearby intersection. The agents then turned on the siren in their unmarked car and motioned the appellant to go around the corner and stop. The appellant immediately complied, turning the corner and pulling over to the side of the road. The agents stopped in the street behind appellant’s Volkswagen but about five feet from the curb. All four agents exited the car and approached the appellant. Agent Woodlieg testified that he and other agents identified themselves, informed the appellant that they wanted to interview him about federal fugitives and asked appellant to identify himself, already knowing that appellant was using the name Washburn and had a driver’s license in that name. When the appellant produced the driver’s license, Agent Woodlieg informed him that Washburn did not exist and that he could not be Washburn. Appellant in response to this shrugged his shoulders and handed Woodlieg a stack of identification papers as if to say, “What do you mean, of course I’m Washburn, see.” Agent Woodlieg saw that the top identification card was a Selective Service registration certificate in the name of Washburn, and immediately informed the appellant that he was under arrest and advised him of his rights.
Agent Woodlieg further testified that the FBI did not know or suspect that the appellant had the false Selective Service card; that prior to seeing the Selective Service card he had no grounds on which to arrest or detain Ward and no facts on which to suspect any law violation. The agents justified the stop of appellant’s vehicle on the ground that they were carrying out their “traditional investigatory function,” explaining that they wanted to interview the appellant in secret.
Central to the determination of this appeal is the legality of the FBI’s initial interception of the appellant’s automobile. If the stop was illegal, then the evidence obtained as a result of the stop should have been suppressed.
Although not all street encounters between citizens and law enforcement agents involve Fourth Amendment considerations, when an officer accosts an individual and by physical force or show of authority restrains his liberty short of arrest, the stop becomes a “seizure” of the person. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 19, n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Such a seizure must then be tested for reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. This requires the courts to weigh the need for police action against the inconvenience and intrusion which the stop entails. Terry v. Ohio, supra; United States v. Mallides, 473 F.2d 859 (9th Cir. 1973); United States v. Leal, 460 F.2d 385 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 889, 93 S.Ct. 154, 34 L.Ed.2d 146 (1972).
The appellee would forestall considerations of the reasonableness of the stop, arguing that the FBI’s interception of appellant’s car was merely an effective method of initiating a private interview, and the use of a siren equivalent to a knock on the door. Additional Brief for Appellee at 3-4. The appellee thus claims that the road stop did not amount to a “seizure” within the purview of the Fourth Amendment.
*169Although the Supreme Court has not defined the precise point at which a police encounter becomes subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny, Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 19, n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, it is clear that when four federal agents pull a motorist off the road by use of a siren there has been a seizure even though the agents only intended to make a routine investigation. United States v. Nicholas, 448 F.2d 622 (8th Cir. 1971); Carpenter v. Sigler, 419 F.2d 169 (8th Cir. 1970); see United States v. Mallides, supra. The appellant as a law abiding motorist was forced to respond to the siren (unlike the knock at the door); and despite the fact that the appellant was not formally under arrest, when the four agents flashed their badges and surrounded him, his freedom to depart was realistically restrained. United States v. Nicholas, supra. We find therefore that the FBI’s interception of Ward’s automobile under these circumstances did constitute a “seizure” which must be examined for reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment.
The circumstances surrounding the stop in the present case are distinguishable from those involved in Terry v. Ohio, supra, and the decisions of this court which have upheld certain “investigative stops.” E. g., United States v. Bugarin-Casas, 484 F.2d 853 (9th Cir., 1973); Wilson v. Porter, 361 F.2d 412 (9th Cir. 1966). In conformity with Terry, we have repeatedly held that a founded suspicion that criminal activity is afoot is a minimum requirement for any lawful detentive stop. United States v. Leal, supra; United States v. Davis, 459 F.2d 458 (9th Cir. 1972). The facts in the present case, however, preclude such a finding:
First, there was no crime “afoot.” The FBI agents did not stop appellant’s car in connection with any particular crime, but rather the stop was pursuant to a general criminal investigation that had begun several months before. There was no emergency situation nor any need for immediate action. The FBI was not fearful that the appellant would leave town. The agents never sought an interview with the appellant at either his home or place of business although both could have been arranged. In short, there were no exigent circumstances warranting the extreme nature of a vehicular stop by a siren on a public street.
Secondly, while local law enforcement officers may make vehicular stops as guardians of the peace generally, federal agents may enforce only specific federal statutes. Frye v. United States, 315 F.2d 491, 494 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 849, 84 S.Ct. 104, 11 L.Ed.2d 76 (1963). Here, by the government’s own admission, the FBI agents had no reason to suspect that the appellant had violated or was going to violate any federal law. Brief for Appellee at 13-15.
Finally, and most significantly, the stop was not made pursuant to the agent’s founded suspicion that the detainee was involved or about to be involved in criminal activity.1 Rather, the stop was made for the purpose of questioning the appellant about a third person. This then was not a “. brief stop of a suspicious individual [made] in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily . . . .” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972) (emphasis added), for the appellant was not the object of the FBI’s suspicions. Clearly, the narrow exception of Terry v. Ohio, supra, which allows investigative stops on grounds short of probable cause cannot *170be stretched so far as to allow detentive stops for generalized criminal inquiries.
For these reasons the FBI’s interception of the appellant’s car must be distinguished from the permissible investigative stops we have approved in other situations. E. g., United States v. Bugarin-Casas, supra. The stop in this case unreasonably interfered with the appellant’s right as a motorist to travel without interference. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 177, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543 (1925). The Supreme Court in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 37 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973) most recently reaffirmed the important nature of this right. The court approvingly quoted Justice Taft that “. . . those lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search . . .’’in absence of good cause. Id. at 274, 93 S.Ct. at 2540.
Having found the FBI’s stop of appellant’s car to be an unreasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment, we hold that the materials discovered as a result of the stop should have been suppressed as the fruit of the unlawful stop. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963); accord,, United States v. Davis, 459 F.2d 458 (9th Cir. 1972); Clay v. United States, 239 F.2d 196 (5th Cir. 1956). “If officers have the right to interfere with that essential pursuit of a nation of au-tomobilists, it must be based on what is known or reasonably believed before the commandeering starts. To allow justification to rest on discovery after intrusion would permit ‘the Government * * * to justify the arrest by the search and at the same time to justify the search by the arrest,’ Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 16, 68 S.Ct. 361, 370, 92 L.Ed. 436, 442.” Clay v. United States, supra at 200-201.
SNEED, Circuit Judge, who qualified as a judge of this court on September 11, 1973, did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge (dissenting) :
I dissent for the reasons expressed by Judge Sehnacke in our original panel opinion, United States.v. Ward, 488 F.2d 162.
Further, it seems more clear than ever to me that this was not a proper case to take en banc.

. “ . . . [T]he agent had no charge on which to suspect any law violation prior to seeing the Selective Service card; . . . ” Brief for Appellee at 13.
“Here, the agents had no knowledge of a crime having been committed and they did not observe anything, which would lead them to suspect a crime had been committed by Ward, prior to seeing the Selective Service card.” Id. at 14r-15.
“The stop in this case was not a Terry ‘investigative stop’ since the agents did not suspect that a crime had been or was being committed by appellant, Ward.” Id. at 21.