Court Opinion

ID: 9459101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:10:41.725492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:01.101572
License: Public Domain

LAY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. This is a significant case. In balance is the individual’s right to privacy as weighed against society’s interest in having lawful police protection.
First, it should be emphasized what this case is not about. This case does not involve interrogation by police when they are investigating a specific crime which has been committed. Cf. Orricer v. Erickson, 471 F.2d 1204 (8 Cir. 1973); Klingler v. United States, 409 F.2d 299 (8 Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 859, 90 S.Ct. 127, 24 L.Ed.2d 110. Nor does this case involve an investigation of activities in an area where previous crimes were known to have been committed. Cf. United States v. Wickizer, 465 F.2d 1154 (8 Cir. 1972); Carpenter v. Sigler, 419 F.2d 169 (8 Cir. 1969).
In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 11, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1874, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the Supreme Court gave tacit approval to the argument that within “[t]he heart of the Fourth Amendment . . . is a severe requirement of specific justification for any intrusion upon protected personal security . . . . ” The Court in Terry further recognized that “whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.” Id. at 16, 88 S.Ct. at 1877. In the present case, there can be little doubt that Owens was effectively “seized” when the officers commanded, “Hold it, Owens, police officers. Whose checks are those?” It is equally clear that this constituted a formal detention specifically directed at discovering the ownership of something Owens then possessed.
When the police seize a person the question then becomes whether the facts warranted the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868; United States v. Wickizer, 465 F.2d at 1156; Carpenter v. Sigler, 419 F.2d at 171. In order to justify the intrusion the officers must be able to recite “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880. The standard, as articulated by the Supreme Court, is whether the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure would warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe that the action taken was appropriate. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868.
The information and facts available to the officers here do not rise to the level of suspicion that could reasonably justify a restraint upon Owens’ liberty. The three officers at the moment of seizure recognized Owens as a police character and knew that he had looked back at them several times while riding in a car; that after he stepped out of the car he walked along a street where a house known for narcotics traffic existed; that he quickened his pace when he saw them; and that he removed from his pocket two brown envelopes similar in *788size, shape and color as those used for government checks.1
The police had no knowledge that a crime had been or was being committed. The inference that a person who walks along a street near a house used for illicit narcotic activity and who removes two envelopes from one pocket and places them in another is engaged in criminal activity is simply not the kind of reasonable inference required to support an intrusion upon that person’s personal security. Compare Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 62, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968); United States v. Nicholas, 448 F.2d 622 (8 Cir. 1971); Riccardi v. Perini, 417 F.2d 645, 647 (6 Cir. 1969). Assuming the envelopes could be identified from a distance as government checks, the possession of such checks is not unlawful per se and such possession should not give rise to any suspicion of illegal activity. From the meager facts known by the police, it is obvious that the officers stopped Owens only upon a “hunch”, and such un-particularized suspicion should not and cannot be the basis of a seizure. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889.
Terry also teaches that even if the initial intrusion is permissible, any further intrusion must be reasonably related “to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. at 1879; United States v. Wickizer, 465 F.2d at 1156; Carpenter v. Sigler, 419 F.2d at 171. The discovery here of the cheeks' identity was related to the officers’ reason for stopping Owens; however, what actually became necessary was the disclosure of the contents of Owens’ pocket. This intrusion is not sanctioned by the Terry decision. The purpose of the limited search permitted in Terry was not to discover evidence of a crime, but to allow police officers to make a narrowly drawn search for weapons for their own protection. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). A physical search of Owens’ pockets for government checks would have been impermissible. Similarly, a verbal charge by a police officer, such as “Whose checks are those?”, which results in a suspect’s acquiescence to the police command (requiring the disclosure of the contents of one’s pocket) is just as impermissible.
“The difficulty is that from the viewpoint of the observer, an innocent gesture can often be mistaken for a guilty movement. He must not only perceive the gesture accurately, he must also interpret it in accordance with the actor’s true intent. But if words are not infrequently ambiguous, gestures are even more so. Many are wholly nonspecific, and can be assigned a meaning only in their context. Yet the observer may view that context quite otherwise from the actor: not only is his vantage point different, he may even have approached the scene with a preconceived notion — consciously or sub-cqnsciously — of what gestures he expected to see and what he expected them to mean. The potential for misunderstanding in such a situation is obvious.”
This case would not be here if Owens did not have wrongful possession of the checks. Many persons will easily justify the police conduct on the basis of what the illegal intrusion produced. However, the law is not as shortsighted as to condone police illegality by the end result. Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548 n. 10, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968). To give sanction to the police conduct here goes beyond any existing case law of which I am aware. We now east the balance against the interest of the individual to be reasonably free from police harassment and seizure. The privacy of the individual is intended to be more sacrosanct under our Constitution. Some may urge that the intrusion by the police in this case is trivial and constituted only “a minor indignity;” however, when innocent conduct can be so easily subjected to police surveillance followed by a detentive intrusion, then we place every innocent indi*789vidual at the mercy of the authoritarian state.2
Today’s emotional concern surrounding entrance into a federal building, border searches and fear of airplane hijacking has subjected the American public to sometimes strained invasions of our individual freedom. We as a “free” people should hold fast to one of the few remaining vestiges of privacy the individual enjoys 3 — the right to use the public street without undue fear of police surveillance, harassment and detention.
“The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found that ‘[i]n many communities, field interrogations are a major source of friction between the police and minority groups.’ President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: The Police 183 (1967). It was reported that the friction caused by ‘[mjisuse of field interrogations’ increases ‘as more police departments adopt “agressive patrol” in which officers are encouraged routinely to stop and question persons on the street who are unknown to them, who are suspicious, or whose purpose for being abroad is not readily evident.’ Id., at 184. While the frequency with which ‘frisking’ forms a part of field interrogation practice varies tremendously with the locale, the objective of the interrogation, and the particular officer, see Tiffany, McIntyre &. Rotenberg, supra, n. 9, at 47 — 48, it cannot help but be a severely exacerbating factor in police-community tensions. This is particularly true in situations where the ‘stop and frisk’ of youths or minority group members if ‘motivated by the officers’ perceived need to maintain the power image of the beat officer, an aim sometimes accomplished by humiliating anyone who attempts to undermine police control of the streets.’ Ibid.”

. The alleged furtive movements established nothing. As the California Supreme Court observed in People v. Superior Court of Yolo County, 3 Cal.3d 807, 91 Cal.Rptr. 729, 735, 478 P.2d 449, 455 (1970):

. By our decision today, we thus give sanction to police surveillance in minority housing areas where only further friction can result. As pointed out in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 14 n. 11, 88 S.Ct. at 1876:

. See Westin, Privacy & Freedom (1967).