CA9: There is no blanket “domestic violence” exception to Terry’s requirement for particularized suspicion

A domestic violence call doesn’t per se mean there is reasonable suspicion. The circumstances of the call have to be evaluated on arrival at the scene from all the circumstances. Thomas v. Dillard, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 8679 (9th Cir. May 5, 2016):

As a general category of crime, therefore, domestic violence is clearly distinguishable from the more specific crimes the Supreme Court and this court have held are likely to involve the use of weapons, such as the daytime store robbery in Terry, bank robbery or narcotics trafficking. Although mail theft and bank robbery both fall under the category of theft offenses, only the latter gives rise to suspicion a suspect is armed. Compare Flatter, 456 F.3d at 1158, with Johnson, 581 F.3d at 1000. Likewise, illicit drug use, large-scale marijuana cultivation and narcotics trafficking are all drug offenses, but only the latter two give rise to reasonable suspicion for a Terry frisk. Compare Ramirez, 560 F.3d at 1022, with Davis, 530 F.3d at 1082-83, and $109,179 in U.S. Currency, 228 F.3d at 1086-87. As with the general categories of theft and drug offenses, domestic violence encompasses too broad an array of crimes to categorically justify reasonable suspicion under Terry and its progeny.

Given the breadth of domestic violence, the specific circumstances of a call must be factored into the reasonable suspicion analysis. Some domestic violence calls may pose serious threats to officers, such as those requiring an officer to enter a suspect’s home and intervene in the middle of a heated fight or vicious attack. See Mattos, 661 F.3d at 457 (Kozinski, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that by entering the home, officers may “become targets of fear and anger” and are “in close quarters, ‘at the disadvantage of being on [their] adversary’s turf'” (quoting Buie, 494 U.S. at 333)). Other examples are those involving a suspect angrily threatening a responding officer to get off his property, see Reed v. Hoy, 909 F.2d 324, 325 (9th Cir. 1989), overruled on other grounds by Edgerly v. City & Cty. of San Francisco, 599 F.3d 946, 956 n.14 (9th Cir. 2010), or a report of a suspect wielding a gun, see George v. Morris, 736 F.3d 829, 832 (9th Cir. 2013). But not all domestic violence calls present such risks. Reasonable suspicion must be based on “specific and articulable facts” regarding the suspect and the “particular circumstances,” rather than “unparticularized suspicion.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 27. “This demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of [the Supreme] Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Id. at 21 n.18. We reject the notion there is a blanket “domestic violence” exception to Terry’s requirement for particularized suspicion.