Illinois v. Wardlow Case Brief

Illinois v. Wardlow

528 U.S. 119 | 120 S. Ct. 673 | 145 L. Ed. 2d 570 | 2000 U.S. LEXIS 504

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that unprovoked headlong flight in a high-crime area can create reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, even though neither flight nor location alone automatically justifies a seizure.

Background

Chicago officers Nolan and Harvey were part of a four-car police caravan entering an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking. Officer Nolan saw Sam Wardlow standing outside a building with an opaque bag. After Wardlow looked toward the officers, he ran through a gangway and alley. The officers followed, cornered him, and stopped him.

Officer Nolan immediately frisked Wardlow because, based on his experience, weapons were commonly present near narcotics transactions. When Nolan felt a heavy, hard object shaped like a gun in Wardlow's bag, he opened it and found a loaded .38-caliber handgun. Wardlow was arrested and later convicted of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.

The trial court denied Wardlow's suppression motion. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed, holding that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, and the Illinois Supreme Court agreed. Although the state supreme court accepted that the location was a high-crime area, it concluded that sudden flight was merely an exercise of a person's right to go on his way and did not create reasonable suspicion, even when combined with the location. The Supreme Court granted review solely to decide whether the initial stop was supported by reasonable suspicion.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment to make a Terry stop when a person makes unprovoked, headlong flight after seeing police in an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking.

Holding

Yes. Wardlow's unprovoked flight, considered together with the area's heavy narcotics activity, gave the officers reasonable suspicion to stop him briefly and investigate further.

Reasoning

Under Terry v. Ohio, an officer may briefly detain a person for investigation when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is occurring. Reasonable suspicion requires less than probable cause, but it must rest on objective, particularized facts rather than an unparticularized hunch.

Wardlow's presence in an area of expected criminal activity could not, standing alone, justify a stop. But the character of a location is a relevant contextual fact. Officers need not disregard that a particular area is known for heavy narcotics trafficking when deciding whether otherwise suspicious conduct warrants investigation.

The additional fact here was Wardlow's unprovoked, headlong flight upon noticing the police. The Court treated such flight as the consummate act of evasion: it is not invariably proof of criminal conduct, but it is strongly suggestive of it. Courts may draw commonsense inferences about human behavior and need not demand scientific certainty before recognizing flight as suspicious.

The holding did not undermine the rule that a person ordinarily may refuse to answer police questions and go about his business. Mere refusal to cooperate does not justify a seizure. But running away from officers is not simply declining to cooperate or peacefully going about one's business; it is conduct that permits officers to stop the person briefly to resolve the resulting ambiguity.

That innocent explanations for flight exist did not defeat reasonable suspicion. Terry itself permits an officer to investigate conduct that is lawful and capable of innocent explanation when, viewed in context, it reasonably suggests criminal activity. A brief stop accepts some risk that innocent people will be detained, while requiring that they be allowed to leave if the investigation does not produce grounds for further action. The Court did not decide whether the frisk was independently lawful, because review was limited to the validity of the initial stop.

Dissents

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens agreed that neither side's proposed per se rule was sound. Flight can sometimes support reasonable suspicion, but it cannot always do so; likewise, it cannot be declared constitutionally irrelevant in every case. The proper inquiry remains the totality of the circumstances, including such details as the time, place, police presence, manner of flight, and other behavior surrounding the encounter.

In Stevens's view, the State failed to produce enough specific evidence to show that Wardlow's flight was meaningfully connected to the police or criminal activity. Officer Nolan could not recall whether his car was marked, did not establish what Wardlow could see of the other patrol cars or officers, and did not explain whether Wardlow knew that the passing vehicles contained police. The sparse record showed only that Wardlow looked toward the officers' car and began to run.

Flight has many innocent explanations, particularly in neighborhoods with high crime and fraught police-community relations. A person may run to avoid danger near criminal activity, to avoid a potentially unwanted encounter with police, or for reasons unrelated to police altogether. For minority residents and people living in heavily policed areas, fear or mistrust of police may make flight understandable rather than suspicious.

The high-crime-area label did not cure the evidentiary weakness. Presence in such an area is itself generic and susceptible to innocent explanation; indeed, Stevens reasoned that the realities of high-crime neighborhoods may make innocent motives for leaving quickly more common. Because Illinois bore the burden to articulate particular facts creating reasonable suspicion, he would have affirmed the Illinois Supreme Court's suppression ruling.