Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1991

California v. Hodari D.

499 U.S. 621 | 111 S. Ct. 1547 | 113 L. Ed. 2d 690 | 1991 U.S. LEXIS 2397 | 91 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 2893 | 59 U.S.L.W. 4335 | 91 Daily Journal DAR 4665

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that a Fourth Amendment seizure occurs through physical force or through a show of authority only when the person submits; evidence discarded while a person keeps fleeing is treated as abandoned, not as fruit of a seizure.

Background

Late at night in a high-crime Oakland neighborhood, Officers McColgin and Pertoso, wearing jackets marked “Police,” saw several youths gathered around a parked car. When the youths saw the officers’ unmarked car, they fled. Hodari D. ran through an alley and then onto another street. Officer Pertoso pursued him on foot.

Hodari looked back, saw Pertoso nearly upon him, and threw away a small rock. Pertoso then tackled and handcuffed Hodari. The rock was crack cocaine; Hodari also had cash and a pager. California conceded that, before Hodari discarded the cocaine, Pertoso lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him.

In the juvenile proceeding, the trial court denied Hodari’s motion to suppress the cocaine. The California Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that Hodari had been seized when he saw the officer running toward him and that the seizure was unreasonable. The Supreme Court granted review to decide whether Hodari had been seized before he dropped the cocaine.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a fleeing suspect is seized under the Fourth Amendment when an officer makes a show of authority but the suspect does not submit.

Holding

No. A show of authority effects a seizure only when the person yields to it; without physical force, an unheeded command or pursuit is not a seizure.

Reasoning

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures, and a seizure of a person traditionally entails either the application of physical force to restrain movement or an assertion of authority that actually brings the person under the officer’s control. An officer’s pursuit may communicate an order to stop, but an order that the suspect ignores does not itself constitute a seizure.

At common law, an arrest could be completed by even slight physical touching undertaken with authority to arrest, even if the suspect then escaped. But where there is no touching, words or a show of authority alone complete an arrest only if the person submits. Hodari had not been touched and continued to run when he discarded the cocaine.

The Court accepted for purposes of decision that Pertoso’s pursuit was a show of authority. Still, the Fourth Amendment’s use of “seizure” does not naturally encompass an officer yelling or signaling for a fleeing person to stop when that person continues to flee. Hodari was therefore seized only when Pertoso tackled him.

Issue #2

Whether the Mendenhall “not free to leave” test makes a police show of authority a seizure even when the person does not yield.

Holding

No. The Mendenhall test identifies when police conduct amounts to a show of authority, but a seizure by show of authority also requires actual submission.

Reasoning

United States v. Mendenhall asks whether, in light of all the circumstances, a reasonable person would believe that he or she was not free to leave. The Court read that formulation as a necessary condition for a seizure by show of authority, not as a sufficient condition in every case.

The test is objective: it determines whether an officer’s conduct would communicate to a reasonable person that compliance is required. But communication alone does not restrain a person who disregards the officer and keeps running. In this setting, restraint occurs only when the person submits.

The Court viewed Brower v. Inyo County and Hester v. United States as consistent with this distinction. A police chase and other forceful displays of authority do not themselves seize a person who continues to flee; evidence discarded during flight is abandoned rather than the product of a completed seizure.

Issue #3

Whether the crack cocaine discarded during Hodari’s flight had to be suppressed as fruit of an unlawful seizure.

Holding

No. Because Hodari discarded the cocaine before he was seized, it was abandoned property and was lawfully recovered.

Reasoning

Hodari threw away the cocaine while he was still running and before Officer Pertoso tackled him. Since there had been no seizure at that point, the abandonment was not the fruit of an unconstitutional stop.

Once Pertoso saw the discarded rock, its apparent nature as cocaine could supply reasonable suspicion for the later, undisputed seizure when Pertoso tackled Hodari. The Court therefore reversed the California Court of Appeal’s suppression ruling and remanded.

Dissents

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens dissented, arguing that the majority improperly made the common-law technicalities of arrest control the modern meaning of Fourth Amendment seizure. In Justice Stevens’s view, Katz and Terry rejected the idea that constitutional protection turns on narrow common-law categories, and Terry specifically recognized that the Amendment reaches restraints on liberty short of a traditional arrest.

Under the Court’s prior cases, the relevant question is whether police conduct would cause a reasonable person to believe that he or she was not free to leave. Pertoso’s head-on pursuit and eventual tackle plainly conveyed that Hodari was not free to go. Justice Stevens would treat that coercive show of authority as a seizure when it restrained Hodari’s liberty, rather than waiting for Hodari’s physical capture or submission.

Justice Stevens criticized the majority for treating the Mendenhall reasonable-person standard as merely necessary, rather than sufficient, to establish a seizure by a show of authority. Prior decisions, in his view, used that objective test to identify when an encounter had become a Fourth Amendment detention, and the test properly focuses on the officer’s conduct rather than the target’s reaction.

The majority’s rule makes constitutional coverage depend on whether an individual submits, flees, or successfully evades the police. That approach creates uncertainty about when submission occurs and permits officers to initiate unjustified, intimidating displays of force without Fourth Amendment scrutiny if the person does not immediately yield.

The exclusionary rule is intended to deter unlawful police conduct. Justice Stevens believed that the Court’s rule weakens that deterrent by allowing police to benefit from evidence predictably discarded in response to an unjustified show of force. He warned that the decision could encourage coercive pursuits and other unlawful attempts to stop citizens, including innocent people.