{"id":1078,"date":"2007-12-09T15:27:49","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T06:29:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-20T06:29:03","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1078","title":{"rendered":"Impoundment policy with unwritten rules unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>D.C. Cir. holds that impoundment of vehicle in accord with unwritten addition to &#8220;standard policy&#8221; but contrary to the written policy was unreasonable.  United States v. Proctor, 376 U.S. App. D.C. 512, 489 F.3d 1348 (2007):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We believe that if a standard impoundment procedure exists, a police officer&#8217;s failure to adhere thereto is unreasonable and violates the Fourth Amendment. <em>Cf. United States v. Maple<\/em>, 358 U.S. App. D.C. 260, 348 F.3d 260, 263-64 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (search of vehicle relocated by police after traffic arrest unreasonable because contrary to [policy] GO 602.1). GO 602.1 provides that a vehicle &#8220;classified as prisoner&#8217;s property shall be disposed of in any lawful manner in which the person arrested directs.&#8221; GO 602.1, AA at 42 (emphasis added). Thus, before impounding the vehicle, an officer should provide the arrestee with the opportunity to arrange for its removal. <em>See Hill v. United States,<\/em> 512 A.2d 269, 274 n.10 (D.C. 1986) (&#8220;As &#8216;prisoner&#8217;s property&#8217; [under GO 602.1] &#8230; a vehicle cannot be impounded without first giving the prisoner an opportunity to make other lawful arrangements for its disposition.&#8221;); <em>Arrington v. United States,<\/em> 382 A.2d 14, 18 (D.C. 1978) (&#8220;[P]olice are authorized to impound a motor vehicle as prisoner property [under GO 602.1] only where the prisoner consents thereto or is incapable of making other arrangements for its disposition.&#8221;). Proctor, however, was afforded no such opportunity. On the contrary, Shegan testified that the officers were required to impound Proctor&#8217;s vehicle because no one was present to remove it, see Tr. 11\/23\/04 at 24, Proctor was not the owner and they &#8220;weren&#8217;t going to wait&#8221; for the owner to remove it, id. at 38; see also id. (&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe I had a choice.&#8221;). Accordingly, the officers&#8217; impoundment (seizure) decision violated GO 602.1.<\/p>\n<p>The officers&#8217; impoundment decision led to an inventory search that also violated GO 602.1. As noted earlier, Shegan testified that due to a lack of impoundment space at MPD facilities, MPD&#8217;s &#8220;new procedure&#8221; necessitated that a ROC crane tow Proctor&#8217;s vehicle to a private impoundment lot rather than to an MPD facility. <em>Id<\/em>. at 24-25, 52-53. According to Shegan, the officers were thus required to search &#8220;[t]he entire vehicle&#8221; before it was towed, <em>id.<\/em> at 26, &#8220;[t]o reduce liability on the police department and to preserve any property that the owner of the vehicle or the occupants of the vehicle may have,&#8221; id. at 25. GO 602.1, however, expressly prohibits an inventory search of a vehicle not taken to an MPD impoundment lot. GO 602.1, AA at 43 (&#8220;If a vehicle classified as prisoner&#8217;s property is disposed of so that it is not taken to a police facility, it shall not be inventoried in any way.&#8221;).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Consensual stop escalated into a detention without reasonable suspicion, and defendant was just going along.  United States v. Washington, 490 F.3d 765 (9th Cir. 2007):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Recent relations between police and the African-American community in Portland are also pertinent to our analysis: According to testimony at the suppression hearing, in the one and a half years before Shaw initiated contact with Washington, there were two well-publicized incidents where white Portland police officers, during traffic stops, shot, and in one instance killed, African-American Portland citizens. As a result of these incidents, the Portland Police Bureau published and distributed several pamphlets advising the public how to respond to a police stop. Washington testified that he knew of and discussed with a friend one of the pamphlets, n3 which contained advice to citizens such as &#8220;follow the officer&#8217;s directions&#8221; when stopped, and &#8220;if ordered, comply with the procedures for a search.&#8221; Additionally, in a message from the Chief of Portland&#8217;s Police Department, the pamphlet listed common reasons police will stop a person, such as a person &#8220;committed a crime,&#8221; or &#8220;is about to commit a crime.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>Washington&#8217;s voluntary consent to the search of his person, however, does not preclude the possibility that officer Shaw improperly seized Washington as events unfolded. <em>See Mendoza-Cepeda<\/em>, 250 F.3d at 628 (recognizing that a consensual encounter may become a seizure); <em>United States v. Ayarza,<\/em> 874 F.2d 647, 650 (9th Cir. 1989) (stating that a consensual encounter &#8220;may evolve into a situation where the individual&#8217;s ability to leave dissipates&#8221;). If Shaw and Pahlke&#8217;s actions exceeded the scope of Washington&#8217;s consent to the search of his person, such that a reasonable person in Washington&#8217;s situation would not have felt free to depart if he so chose, then Shaw and Pahlke seized Washington. <em>See Terry v. Ohio,<\/em> 392 U.S. 1, 18, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968) (recognizing that &#8220;a search which is reasonable at its inception may violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable intensity and scope&#8221;); <em>United States v. $25,000 U.S. Currency<\/em>, 853 F.2d 1501, 1506 (9th Cir. 1988) (reasoning that even if the suspect voluntarily consented to a search of his bag, the law enforcement officers could have &#8220;seized [him] for purposes of the fourth amendment at a later point&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>We have identified several non-exhaustive situations where an officer&#8217;s actions escalate a consensual encounter into a seizure: &#8220;when a law enforcement officer, through coercion, physical force, or a show of authority, in some way restricts the liberty of a person,&#8221; <em>Washington,<\/em> 387 F.3d at 1068 (internal quotation marks omitted), or &#8220;if there is a threatening presence of several officers, a display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer&#8217;s request might be compelled.&#8221; <em>Mendoza-Cepeda<\/em>, 250 F.3d at 628 (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration omitted). In Orhorhaghe, we identified several factors to consider in determining if a person was seized, any one of which, if present, could constitute a seizure: (1) the number of officers; (2) whether weapons were displayed; (3) whether the encounter occurred in a public or non-public setting; (4) whether the officer&#8217;s tone or manner was authoritative, so as to imply that compliance would be compelled; and (5) whether the officers informed the person of his right to terminate the encounter. <em>Orhorhaghe,<\/em> 38 F.3d at 494-96.<\/p>\n<p>Applying these factors, we conclude that under the total circumstances present in Washington&#8217;s case, Shaw and Pahlke&#8217;s encounter with Washington escalated into a seizure. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Hudson<\/em> forecloses inquiry into a knock-and-announce violation. The defendant argued, and the district court found, that the brevity of time between the knock and entry was so short as to constitute a no-knock warrant. United States v. Ankeny, 490 F.3d 744 (9th Cir. 2007):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Turning first to the alleged knock-and-announce violation, <em>see Wilson v. Arkansas,<\/em> 514 U.S. 927, 930, 115 S. Ct. 1914, 131 L. Ed. 2d 976 (1995) (&#8220;[The] common-law knock and announce principle forms a part of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment.&#8221;), we hold that suppression is foreclosed by the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in <em>Hudson v. Michigan<\/em>, 126 S. Ct. 2159, 165 L. Ed. 2d 56 (2006).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The federal DNA collection statute does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Banks v. United States, 490 F.3d 1178 (10th Cir. 2007).*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1078\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}