Court Opinion

ID: 9498764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:27:36.559042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:03.526473
License: Public Domain

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
After seeing two cars swerve to avoid striking Johnson as he leaned through the window of Burton’s car, police officers had ample cause to effectuate at least a limited seizure of Johnson — if for no other reason than to get him out of the way of moving traffic. Having legitimate reason to seize Johnson, I believe the officers were also justified in temporarily detaining Burton and his passenger by surrounding his car. The officers were approaching three strangers on the street in the immediate vicinity of a house reputed to be the site of narcotics trafficking. They had reason to be concerned for their own safety as well as that of passing motorists and pedestrians. Stationing themselves on three sides of Burton’s automobile — against which Johnson was leaning — was a reasonable means of asserting control over the scene until such time as Johnson was cleared from the roadway and the officers were satisfied that neither he nor Burton nor his passenger posed a danger. In the moment or two that it legitimately took the officers to do this, it is possible that they acquired the information that independently justified the (further) detention of Burton — he was driving without a license. As the record stands, we do not know whether the questioning that produced that disclosure prolonged the initial seizure, nor do we know whether during that questioning the officers removed one or more of the bicycles that were blocking the path of Burton’s car. Gaps in the record such as these are readily explainable: Burton did not make below the particular seizure argument that he is making on appeal, resulting in an eviden-tiary record that is not as well developed as it should be and depriving us of relevant factual findings by the magistrate and district judges. The government unwisely has not argued that Burton forfeited his argument; consequently, it waived the forfeiture. But that waiver does not fill in what is missing from the record, and because Burton is responsible for the omissions, it is reasonable to resolve any evidentiary ambiguities against him. Based on the record we have, it is reasonable to assume that the police officers initially detained Burton no longer than was necessary to deal with Johnson’s obstruction of traffic and to provide for their own safety and that within that time period Burton disclosed his own traffic infraction. That is sufficient to resolve Burton’s Fourth Amendment claim, and I would say no more about whether seizures that are unsupported by either probable cause or reasonable suspicion may nonetheless be sustained as reasonable based on their relative brevity and minimal degree of intrusiveness.