Court Opinion

ID: 9748294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:59:02.88982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:34.049925
License: Public Domain

BELSON, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
The majority reverses appellant’s conviction on a ground which appellant raised neither in the trial court nor on appeal. When counsel for the United States read the majority opinion, they will learn for the first time of the argument that the seizure of appellant’s person and the subsequent seizure of the weapon he carried were illegal because, a short time before that seizure, an officer had improperly seized one of appellant’s companions by saying “come here, police officer.”
As the majority opinion explains, after three officers drove past what they deemed to be a suspicious-looking car parked in a high crime district with three men sitting inside, they turned back to investigate further. As they approached, the driver got out and started to walk toward the rear of the car. One of the officers said “come here, police officer,” whereupon the man suddenly ran to the front entrance of a nearby house. After he tried unsuccessfully to gain entry to the house, the police in some manner secured his return to the car. Shortly thereafter, there was a Terry seizure of appellant, who had remained in the car. Terry v. State of Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). That seizure led to the confiscation of a gun he had on his person.
At no time did appellant’s trial counsel or his appellate counsel argue that the initial seizure of the driver was illegal and that the driver’s reaction to it therefore could not serve as part of the basis for a subsequent Terry seizure of appellant. The majority interjects and undertakes to answer the difficult legal question which the government has not had the opportunity to argue, viz., whether the officer’s statement to the driver amounted to a seizure of the driver. If that issue had been properly raised on an adequate record, the relevant cases demonstrate that the result would have been by no means a foregone conclusion.
The majority opinion states that the police officer statement “plainly is” a Terry seizure, and that we must overlook the “analytic oversight” of counsel and the trial court in order to prevent manifest miscarriage of justice. (Majority opinion at p. 1329, n. 8.) To the contrary, opinions of the Supreme Court in this area suggest that *1330the seizure issue is not so simple. “There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets.” Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 34, 88 S.Ct. at 1886 (White, J., concurring). “Nor would the fact that the officer identifies himself as a police officer, without more, convert the encounter into a seizure requiring some level of objective justification.” Florida v. Royer, —U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), citing United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 555, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). A finding that the officer’s statement was no more than the initiation of a permissible encounter between police and citizen and did not amount to a seizure was, in my view, not precluded by Terry, Mendenhall and Royer.
A review of pertinent authorities supports that conclusion. We have upheld the action of a police officer in touching a citizen’s elbow and saying, “Hold it, sir, could I speak with you a second?” where he did not yet have grounds for a seizure. United States v. Burrell, 286 A.2d 845, 846-47 (D.C.1972). The citizen’s resulting statement about a gun led to his arrest and conviction. An appellate court of another jurisdiction has refused to suppress where police initiated contact, before having grounds to seize, with the statement, “Danny, stop, I want to talk to you.” People v. King, 72 Cal.App.3d 346, 348-50, 139 Cal.Rptr. 926, 926-27 (Cal.Ct.App.1977); see also United States ex rel. Frasier v. Henderson, 464 F.2d 260, 263 (2d Cir.1972); People v. Jordan, 43 Ill.App.3d 660, 662-63, 2 Ill.Dec. 182, 184, 357 N.E.2d 159, 161 (Ill.App.Ct.1976).
There have been, on the other hand, cases in this jurisdiction where the trial court’s assessment of the facts led it to conclude that under the law there had been a seizure. In In re J.G.J., 388 A.2d 472, 474 (D.C.1978), the trial court considered a purported Terry seizure in which officers halted their patrol car near a sidewalk where the suspects were walking, and one officer exited and showed his badge and identification to the suspects. There, we held the trial court not plainly wrong in holding that the officer had effected a seizure, but we went on to reverse the trial court’s order of suppression on the basis of our holding that the officers had an articulable suspicion upon which to base the seizure. In Crowder v. United States, 379 A.2d 1183 (D.C.1977), a suspect was standing on a sidewalk when three officers alighted from two squad cars near him and one of the officers demanded his identification. We determined that this show of authority was sufficient to restrain appellant’s liberty and so amounted to a Terry seizure.1
It is far from obvious where the instant case would have fit among our precedents if the appellant had asserted that an illegal seizure of the driver had occurred. That issue would have been a proper subject for appellate argument had the underlying fact issues been fully developed and determined in the trial court and had the matter been raised on appeal. That, however, is not what happened. Appellant did not raise the issue in the trial court. As a result, the government did not concentrate on the point in making a fact record and the trial judge did not address it specifically in making his findings of fact and conclusions of law at the suppression hearing. These omissions are crucial, since it is clear that the precise wording used by the officer in addressing the suspect, the officer’s tone of voice, his demeanor, and all other relevant circumstances must be taken into consideration by the trial judge in determining whether what transpired between the officer and the driver amounted to a seizure. See Gomez v. Turner, 217 U.S.App.D.C. 281, 291, 672 F.2d 134, 144 (1982).
Although the trial judge made no specific findings on those crucial matters, he made the broad finding that the police conduct was reasonable. On this record, with the propriety of the stop of the driver not questioned, it cannot be said that the trial *1331court s finding of reasonable police conduct was plainly wrong or not supported by the record, nor did the trial judge commit legal error. D.C.Code § 17-305(a) (1981). The record here falls far short of providing the basis for a conclusion that the commission of plain error jeopardized the very fairness of the proceeding, Johnson v. United States, 387 A.2d 1084, 1089 (D.C.1978) (en banc). I would affirm.

. We went on to hold that the seizure was reasonable under the circumstances. It was not clear whether the trial court had held that there had been no seizure, or that the seizure was reasonable.