Court Opinion

ID: 9494345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:36:03.245008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:22.086853
License: Public Domain

HENRY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join with Parts I and II of Judge Briscoe’s opinion in concluding that non-consensual police encounters should continue to be measured by the parameters of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 *1237L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and its progeny, which specifically means that the government must demonstrate that an investigative detention “was sufficiently limited in scope and duration.” Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (emphasis added).
However, I join in Parts I and II of Judge Ebel’s opinion, with the following caveats: (1) In Part I, I do not agree that questions of travel plans are before us and thus I express no opinion on whether travel plan questions are within the scope of all traffic stops; and (2) I agree with Part II’s holding that there is a narrow exception afforded during traffic stops to inquire about the presence of firearms, in the interest of officer safety. I am not convinced that the statistical data upon which Part II relies is dispositive, but considered in the context of Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) and Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997), I am persuaded that a narrow officer-safety exception is appropriate. Indeed, local state law enforcement must make their own determinations about whether or not the interests of ensuring officer safety are furthered by asking about the presence of firearms.
To restate, in my view, we are declaring a narrow personal safety exception to the Terry scope and duration: During a valid traffic stop, officers may ask the occupants of the vehicle about the presence of loaded firearms. In my opinion, this questioning would also extend to ask about the presence of unloaded weapons, for the risk of violent response to either is similar. See McLaughlin v. United States, 476 U.S. 16, 17, 106 S.Ct. 1677, 90 L.Ed.2d 15 (1986) (affirming lower court’s conclusion that petitioner’s unloaded gun was a “ ‘dangerous weapon’ within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d)”); United States v. Boyd, 924 F.2d 945, 948 (9th Cir.1991) (noting that unloaded weapons, like loaded weapons “instill[ ] fear in victims and bystanders, creating the risk of violent response”); United States v. Benson, 725 F.Supp. 69, 73 (D.Me.1989) (recognizing “that the display of such a [unloaded] weapon instills fear in the average citizen and creates a danger that the unloaded weapon may evoke a violent response from police or others”) (internal quotation marks omitted). In addition, as the government suggests, this narrow exception would not run afoul of Fourth Amendment limitations “as long as such questioning does not prolong the duration of the stop or alter its fundamental character as a Terry-type detention.” Govt’s Petition for Reh’g En Banc at 11; see id. at 14, 88 S.Ct. 1868.
Finally, and most importantly, we reiterate the practical implications of such questioning and the elicited response: First, “the detainee is not obligated to respond. And, unless the detainee’s answers provide the officer with probable cause to arrest him, he must then be released.” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439-40, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (footnotes omitted). Similarly, as the majority points out, a “refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 34, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (White, J., concurring). Any “continued observation” must be tempered by the scope and duration requirements of Terry. See INS v. Delgado 466 U.S. 210, 216-17, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984) (noting that the' “Fourth Amendment imposes some minimal level of objective justification to validate the detention or seizure,” in the face of a refusal to respond). Similarly, as the government acknowledged during oral argument, in the face of a negative response, any further detention must be supported by reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Soto, 988 *1238F.2d 1548, 1555 (10th Cir.1993) (“Whether such an investigative detention is supported by an objectively reasonable suspicion of illegal activity does not depend upon any one factor, but on the totality of the circumstances.”).