GA: Bailing out the back door at an attempted knock-and-talk did not justify detaining the persons fleeing; they had a right to “be let alone” and avoid contact with the police

Officers went to a house for a knock-and-talk, admittedly with no justifiable information about criminal activity. When they knocked, somebody looked out the blinds, and then four people started bailing out the back sliding door. The last one was stopped, and detained, and, in plain view inside, drug paraphernalia could be seen. This view was a violation of the Fourth Amendment because there was no justification for a detention in the first place. Galindo-Eriza v. State, 306 Ga. App. 19, 701 S.E.2d 516 (2010):

Furthermore, the totality of the circumstances here did not provide the officers with the reasonable articulable suspicion necessary for elevating this first-tier encounter to a second-tier Terry stop. There was no testimony that these occupants of the house were specifically suspected of criminal activity or that the officers even knew who they were. In fact, the totality of the circumstances here consisted of the occupants running from a house that the police had on one occasion observed a suspected drug dealer enter. However, neither the occupants’ presence in the house nor their running away from the officers could provide the officers with a reasonable articulable suspicion. In Black, supra, 281 Ga. App. at 44-47(1), we held that officers had no reasonable articulable suspicion to justify detaining or arresting an individual who had just left a residence that had been under surveillance for illegal drug activity. In State v. Mallard, we held that officers had no reasonable articulable suspicion to justify stopping a vehicle that had just left a residence upon which officers were preparing to execute a search warrant for marijuana. Here, as the testifying officers acknowledged, no warrant had been issued and no search was imminent. In State v. Harris, we found that officers had no reasonable articulable suspicion to detain a defendant based on nervousness and on defendant’s cohort’s exiting and then immediately returning to a motel room upon seeing police. In this matter, the mere fact that during this first-tier encounter the occupants of the house sought to “be let alone” by avoiding contact with police did not create an objective articulable suspicion. See Black, supra, 281 Ga. App. at 46(1); Harris, supra, 261 Ga. App. at 122. Accordingly, Galindo-Eriza’s and the other occupants’ exercise of their right to avoid police gave the officers no grounds to detain them and conduct an investigative stop.