Court Opinion

ID: 9578951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:49:56.826705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:42.126631
License: Public Domain

Justice HOBBS
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part. I agree with the majority that when Guzman asked Paynter and his companion for identification the encounter was consensual, and I concur with the court’s holding in this regard. See I.N.S. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984) (“a request for identification by the police does not, by itself, constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure”). However, when Guzman left Paynter and his companion and walked to his patrol car with their licenses to run a warrants check as if he were conducting a routine traffic stop,1 the encounter ceased to be consensual and escalated into a detention or seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. We need not return the case to the trial court. Based on the facts of record, that court was correct in concluding that an illegal investigatory stop occurred.
When the operative facts are not in dispute, we may reach the legal conclusion that is appropriate based on the facts of the case. See People v. D.F., 938 P.2d 9, 15 (Colo.1997) (on interlocutory appeal, remand is not required when controlling facts are undisputed). The facts in this case are not contested. The trial court based its suppression order entirely on the uncontested testimony of the police officer. No issues of credibility or other facts remain to be determined. A remand serves no purpose other than ordering the trial court to determine uneontested facts and correct an erroneous ruling of law, a function within our domain to undertake on appeal.
*77The trial court concluded that an unconstitutional investigatory stop occurred. Although the trial court improperly centered its reasoning on the initial request for identification, the court justifiably ruled that Payn-ter was unlawfully detained.
Although the majority opinion refers to “the totality of the circumstances,” see maj. op. at 73, it truncates its analysis to focus only on the request for identification and, thereby, fails to account for the uncontested circumstances of the encounter as a whole. The Supreme Court has explained that “any assessment as to whether police conduct amounts to a seizure implicating the Fourth Amendment must take into account ‘all of the circumstances surrounding the incident.’ ” Michigan v. Chestemmt, 486 U.S. 567, 572, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1979, 100 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988).
Guzman approached a couple sitting in a parked car because he “felt it was suspicious.” The ear was not illegally parked, nor were the occupants engaged in any type of disturbance or altercation. However, Guzman proceeded to park behind the individuals. He turned on the patrol car’s spotlight and approached the car. He then requested and was given identification that matched both individuals.
After verifying their identities Guzman walked back to his patrol car, identifications in hand. Under these circumstances, his retention of the identifications under a show of authority constituted a detention. He did not give back the identifications; nor did he ask permission to take them to his patrol car; nor did he continue a consensual conversation. He simply took the identifications and walked away. I would hold that Guzman terminated the consensual encounter at this point and that the continuing police action created an unlawful seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes.2 In other words, the officer engaged in conduct involving more than non-eoercive questioning at a point in time when he possessed no reasonable articu-lable suspicion of criminal activity. As the district court observed, one cannot leave under these circumstances because “you can’t drive away while the officer has your driver’s license.” See § 42-2-101(1), 11 C.R.S. (1997) (a license is required to operate a car legally in this state); see also United States v. Thompson, 712 F.2d 1356, 1359 (11th Cir.1983) (seizure occurred where officer retained driver’s license of car’s driver, because “[i]f Thompson had tried to drive away he could have been arrested for driving without a license”).
The Fourth Amendment and its Colorado counterpart protect from governmental intrusion one’s reasonable expectation of privacy. See People v. Schafer, 946 P.2d 938, 942 (Colo. 1997). “In the absence of any basis for suspecting ... misconduct, the balance between the public interest and [one’s] right to personal security and privacy tilts in favor of freedom from police interference.” Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979) (invalidating a statute requiring persons to produce identification to authorities on demand without reasonable suspicion). When a person is not reasonably suspected of any wrongdoing, the police have no right to detain him or her. See, e.g., Rodriguez, 945 P.2d at 1359.
In People v. Thomas, 839 P.2d 1174 (Colo.1992), we set forth the standard for determining whether an encounter is consensual or is an unlawful detention:
The test for determining if the encounter is a consensual one is whether a reasonable person under the circumstances would believe he or she was free to leave and/or to disregard the official’s request for information.
Id. at 1177-78. See also People v. Padgett, 932 P.2d 810, 813 (Colo.1997) (holding that defendant was not free to leave when officer *78directed defendant to stay while he conducted a warrants check).
Here, Paynter and his companion had no choice but to comply when the officer required them to wait. They could not have communicated their desire to depart because he broke communication with them by walking toward his patrol car and taking with him the licenses they needed to operate the car legally. See United States v. Jordan, 951 F.2d 1278, 1282 (D.C.Cir.1991) (“once the identification is handed over to police and they have had a reasonable opportunity to review it, if the identification is not returned to the detainee [it is] difficult to imagine that any reasonable person would feel free to leave without it”); Richmond v. Commonwealth, 22 Va.App. 257, 468 S.E.2d 708, 710 (1996) (seizure occurred because a reasonable person “would not have believed that he could terminate the encounter once the officer retained the driver’s license and returned to his police vehicle to run a record check”); see generally 4 Wayne R. LaFave Search and Seizure § 9.3(a) (3d ed.1996) 103 & n. 74 (for discussion and other cases).
The majority opinion holds that the trial court committed error in its focus on the initial request for identification. I agree. The majority, on remand, apparently leaves the trial court free to substitute a more appropriate legal analysis based on the uncontested facts or take additional testimony and make additional findings. But, as an appellate court in this circumstance, we can correct the trial court by applying the appropriate reasoning and we should do so here.
Accordingly, I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part.
I am authorized to say that MARTINEZ and BENDER, JJ., join in this concurrence and dissent.

. In his testimony Guzman indicated that he probably talked to Aim and Paynter as he normally does "when I pull [someone] over.” A traffic stop is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and is lawful when an officer has reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and when the reason for the stop is related to the facts known to the officer at the time of the encounter. See People v. Rodriguez, 945 P.2d 1351, 1359 (Colo.1997).

. The majority states that the time between the officer’s initial contact with Paynter and Payn-ter’s arrest comprised a total of five minutes. See maj. op. at 70-71. However, Guzman's testimony also can be read as stating that he spent five minutes in the patrol car:
Q. How long were you in your patrol car with their ID cards?
A. Well, it was only about a minute, not even a minute, when I cleared him that they told me he was a suspect in a threats complaint. So it was almost immediate that I was told of that. But total time after everything came with the confirmed warrant, five minutes; and then he was placed in custody.