Court Opinion

ID: 9558391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:08:45.970431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:07.306379
License: Public Domain

Schultheis, A.C.J.
(dissenting) — I cannot endorse the adoption of a bright-line rule that permits police, as a matter of departmental policy, to seize vehicle passengers without constitutional justification. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
The Fourth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 84 A.L.R.2d 933 (1961), provides: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . .” One of the most fundamental rights protected by this Amendment is the ability to move or travel as one pleases without fear of being stopped or detained unless the police have adequate constitutional justification for doing so. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629-30, 89 S. Ct. 1322, 1328-29, 22 L. Ed. 2d 600 (1969), overruled in part on other grounds in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S. Ct. 1347, 39 L. Ed. 2d 662 (1974); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 177, 69 S. Ct. 1302, 1311, 93 L. Ed. 1879 (1949). Indeed, "freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful . . . .” Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 520, 84 S. Ct. 1659, 1671, 12 L. Ed. 2d 992 (1964) (Douglas, J., concurring).
Absent probable cause to make an arrest, law enforcement officials may briefly detain a person as part of an investigatory stop if they have a reasonable articulable *795suspicion based on objective facts that the person has engaged in criminal activity. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S. a. 2248, 60 L. Ed. 2d 824 (1979); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968). The police could constitutionally seize the driver in this case based on their reasonable suspicion that he had committed a traffic infraction. The scope of the stop is limited to issuance of a citation, but for their own safety police may order the driver and any passengers to get out of the vehicle pending completion of the stop, thus denying them access to weapons potentially concealed within. Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109-10, 98 S. Ct. 330, 332-33, 54 L. Ed. 2d 331 (1977); Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 117 S. Ct. 882, 886, 137 L. Ed. 2d 41 (1997). Balanced against the legitimate and weighty public interest in police safety, the intrusion on passengers’ liberty is deemed minor because the only change resulting from the police order is that they will be waiting outside of, rather than inside of, the stopped car while the officer issues the citation. Wilson, 117 S. Ct. at 885-86.
It is important to remember, however, that the detention of the passenger is merely an unavoidable consequence of the usual traffic stop. It results from the fact that the passenger has chosen to travel with the driver and the passenger must wait until they can proceed on their way. It is under these circumstances that ordering the passenger to wait outside the car instead of inside can be deemed a reasonable minor intrusion. But constitutional rights are individual, and if a passenger chooses to leave the scene of a traffic stop of the driver with whom he is traveling and proceed on his way independently, police cannot interfere without adequate constitutional justification.
The seizure at issue in this case is not the stopping of the driver, but rather the actual physical restraint imposed on a passenger. Whether the police could lawfully seize Efrain Mendez and arrest him for obstruction depends upon their authority to interfere with his individ*796ual right to move about freely and to simply walk away from the police encounter. The police had no grounds for their seizure of Mr. Mendez. They clearly did not have probable cause to arrest him and, as the majority concedes, they also did not have a reasonable articulable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity when they ordered him to get back into the car. Neither logic nor any reasonable interpretation of Wilson supports the majority’s conclusion that the police could nevertheless constitutionally order Mr. Mendez to stay at the scene of the traffic stop, in the car, for officer safety.
On facts remarkably similar to these, Maryland’s highest court considered (and after remand by the United States Supreme Court, reconsidered) whether a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation may be convicted of disorderly conduct and battery when, rather than heeding the police command to remain in the vehicle, he walks away from the scene, and subsequently resists police attempts at detention. Dennis v. State, 342 Md. 196, 674 A.2d 928, vacated,_U.S__, 117 S. Ct. 40, 136 L. Ed. 2d 4 (1996); Dennis v. State, 345 Md. 649, 693 A.2d 1150, cert. denied,_U.S__, 118 S. Ct. 329 (1997). The court held the officer could not legally detain the passenger simply for the general purpose of officer safety; as in any other case, detention required at least an articulated reasonable suspicion that the passenger was engaged in activity justifying a Terry stop. Dennis, 693 A.2d at 1150, 1152. That is the proper holding in this case as well. That police would prefer to exercise unquestioned control in every situation is an insufficient justification for abandoning individualized suspicion. "The needs of law enforcement stand in constant tension with the Constitution’s protections of the individual against certain exercises of official power. It is precisely the predictability of these pressures that counsels a resolute loyalty to constitutional safeguards.” Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 273, 93 S. Ct. 2535, 2540, 37 L. Ed. 2d 596 (1973).
The crime of obstructing a law enforcement officer *797requires that the officer be discharging his or her official powers or duties. RCW 9A.76.020(1). A police officer is not discharging his official powers or duties when he seizes an individual illegally. Holt v. State, 227 Ga. App. 46, 487 S.E.2d 629 (1997); see City of Seattle v. Lewis, 70 Wn. App. 715, 855 P.2d 327 (1993), review denied, 123 Wn.2d 1011 (1994). Because the officers had no grounds for detaining Mr. Mendez, his flight did not give them probable cause for the arrest. See State v. Hudson, 56 Wn. App. 490, 496-98, 784 P.2d 533, review denied, 114 Wn.2d 1016 (1990); see also State v. Little, 116 Wn.2d 488, 506, 806 P.2d 749 (1991) (Utter, J., dissenting). The evidence should have been suppressed. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441 (1963).
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.
Review granted at 135 Wn.2d 1016 (1998).