Court Opinion

ID: 9696554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:51:19.316638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:23.027203
License: Public Domain

STEELE, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that, by the time Ross extended a cupped hand toward a reticent older man in an apparent attempt to pass off the drugs, the police had a reasonable articulable suspicion to seize Ross. I disagree with the majority, however, with regard to when the seizure occurred. Because I believe that the seizure occurred before Ross approached the older man, I do not believe that the police had a reasonable articulable suspicion to seize Ross based on the anonymous tip and their observations. Therefore, I believe the Superior Court judge should have granted Ross’s motion to suppress the evidence derived from the seizure and would reverse Ross’s conviction.
Following the United State Supreme Court’s holding in Michigan v. Chesternut,17 we held, in Jones v. State,18 that a seizure takes place when “a reasonable person would have believed that he or she is not free to ignore the police presence.”19
Relying on Jones, Ross claims that no reasonable person would have believed that he was free to ignore the police presence under the circumstances. He submits that a reasonable person in his position would have known that the police officers’ repeated requests for an interview would end only when he stopped and submitted.20 Even though Officers Brown and Villaverde never used the command “stop” (until they grabbed him), nor testified, as the majority deems important, that they “were attempting a pedestrian stop,” as they did in Jones, Ross claims that the police clearly intended to stop him from the beginning and that their intent became clearer each time Villaverde made the request and Ross ignored him during the police’s slow pursuit.
The rationale of Jones applies here: by the officers’ continued questioning and slow pursuit, any reasonable person would have believed that the police had communicated that Ross was not free to walk away. Indeed, the police did not let Ross ignore them. Officers Brown and Villaverde did *495not “merely ask[ ] to speak with [Ross] as he was walking away,” as the majority suggests. Instead, the officers made eye contact with Ross and followed him a short distance in their marked police car, then, dressed in their uniforms and carrying batons, left their car and followed Ross on foot in slow pursuit, closing the distance between Ross and themselves, all the while “requesting” that he submit to an interview. I cannot imagine a reasonable person believing, under those circumstances, that he or she was free to continue ignoring the police. I read Jones to require a focus on what a reasonable person would believe the police intent to be, not what the police testify it to be in a later hearing. Thus, I believe that the police seized Ross before Ross approached the older man. Because there was no reasonable articula-ble suspicion to support the seizure before Ross approached the older man, I respectfully dissent.

. 486 U.S. at 574, 108 S.Ct. 1975 (1988) (holding that a seizure occurs whenever the conduct of a police office would "communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.”).

. 745 A.2d 856 (Del. 1999).

. Jones, 745 A.2d at 868.

. Brown testified that Villaverde repeated the request for an interview "the whole time.”