District Court erred in concluding that there was reasonable suspicion at an earlier time that the Court of Appeals finds, but it is not reversible error. Officer shouting “Gun” and drawing weapon effected a stop because no reasonable person would believe he was free to go. United States v. Goddard, 377 U.S. App. D.C. 66, 491 F.3d 457 (2007):
We disagree with the district court that the stop happened “as soon as the police officers drove up to the gas station.” … Moreover, the fact that the car halted in the gas station’s entrance way does not suggest that a reasonable, innocent pedestrian would have felt unfree to leave.
Nor did the stop occur when the police exited their car and began to approach Goddard and the other three men. Admittedly, some of the circumstances are suggestive of a stop, including that four officers were present–all with guns and handcuffs showing and wearing identifiable MPD jackets and badges–and that the officers “jumped out” of the car. Tr. of June 21, 2004 Hr’g at 58. But the presence of multiple officers does not automatically mean that a stop has occurred.
Based on the record before us, the stop occurred when one of the officers yelled “gun” and told Walker to return to the group. We have no doubt that a reasonable person would feel unfree to leave upon hearing officers seven or eight feet away yell “gun”–a statement sure to arouse the concern of all officers and civilians in the immediate area–and order one of his companions to return. See Wood, 981 F.2d at 540 (finding stop where officer ordered defendant to stop); United States v. Alarcon-Gonzalez, 73 F.3d 289, 292 (10th Cir. 1996) (finding seizure where officer ordered defendant’s coworker to “freeze” when individuals “were only five feet apart and … obviously working together”).
Dissenting, Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote: “As a result, what we are now tempted to enforce is not Terry but the rule that, in a high-crime neighborhood, being young, male, and black creates reasonable, articulable suspicion.”
Reasonable suspicion was present, primarily from the occupants of the car not having their stories straight as to where they were going. United States v. Orta, 228 Fed. Appx. 633 (8th Cir. 2007) (per curiam)*:
Within the first twelve minutes of the stop, the trooper observed (1) the vehicle’s California license plate, (2) a single key on the key ring in the ignition, (3) three cell phones on the center console, (4) Orta’s Washington driver’s license, (5) an insurance card presented by one of Orta’s passengers which did not list the stopped vehicle, and (6) inconsistent statements between Orta and a passenger about the length of their intended stay in St. Paul as well as their inability to provide specific information about their trip destination.
Search incident that occurred before arrest was valid where there was probable cause. United States v. Dotson, 246 Fed. Appx. 897, 2007 FED App. 0411N (6th Cir. 2007)* (unpublished).
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." —Me
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well." –Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others)
“I am still learning.” —Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)).
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848)
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced." —Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." —Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today." — Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property." —Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment." —United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth." —Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable." —Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." —Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” —United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.” —United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need." —Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." —Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
