Court Opinion

ID: 9460850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:01:38.331453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:48.384595
License: Public Domain

HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
The undisputed facts are that three law enforcement officers approached Richards’ aircraft as it was preparing to take off. Agent Needham, standing near one wing, displayed his badge and, over substantial engine noise, ordered Richards to cut the motor and to disembark. As Richards hesitated momentarily, Agent Collins moved to the front of the aircraft, drew his gun, pointed it at Richards, and ordered him to shut off the engine and get out of the plane.
The majority opinion holds that this police conduct did not constitute an arrest, but merely a brief investigatory detention. I cannot equate Richards’ obedience to police commands made at gunpoint with the brief investigatory stop authorized by Adams v. Williams (1972) 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612. An identical argument was rejected in United States v. Strick-ler (9th Cir. 1974) 490 F.2d 378, which held that an arrest occurred when police surrounded a parked vehicle and one of the officers, after drawing his gun, ordered the driver out of the automobile.
The majority opinion implies that the determination that Richards was not arrested when ordered at gunpoint from the plane is a question of fact, resolved against Richards by the district court, as to which this court must pay the usual deference accorded to a district court’s factual findings supported by the record. Such deference to the district court’s conclusion is improper. The facts concerning the officers’ armed approach to the aircraft and their orders for Richards to deplane were undisputed. The question whether, based on those facts, an arrest or merely an investigatory detention occurred is one of law, controlled by our prior decision in United States v. Strickler, supra. (See also Plazola v. United States (9th Cir. 1961) 291 F.2d 56, 60, disapproved on the standing issue only, Diaz-Rosendo v. United States (9th Cir. 1966) 357 F.2d 124, cert. denied, 385 U.S. 856, 87 S.Ct. 104, 17 L.Ed.2d 83.)
As the majority opinion implicitly recognizes, the officers had no warrant and no probable cause to arrest Richards when he was ordered from his plane. The arrest was therefore illegal. All of the evidence that was developed thereafter was the product of the illegal arrest *1031and should have been suppressed. (Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441.)
Under United States v. Strickler, supra, reversal is compelled.