{"id":6265,"date":"2012-04-04T13:15:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T08:43:20","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T08:43:20","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6265","title":{"rendered":"LA: The \u201cinherent social pressure to cooperate with police\u201d does not make questioning inherently under a seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cinherent social pressure to cooperate with police\u201d does not make questioning inherently under a seizure. Here, the officer had the defendant\u2019s ID, but the record did not show that he was not free to leave [which makes no sense; possession of the ID is not free to leave]. State v. Martin<\/a>, 79 So. 3d 951 (La. 2011), revg State v. Martin, 54 So. 3d 111 (La.App. 3d Cir. 2010):<\/p>\n

We note \u201cpolice-citizen encounters do not become \u2018seizures\u2019 simply because citizens may feel an inherent social pressure to cooperate with police.\u201d Daniel, 12 S.W.3d at 425, citing People v. Paynter, 955 P.2d 68, 72 (Colo. 1998). Yet, \u201c[w]hile most citizens will respond to a police request, the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response.\u201d Delgado, 466 U.S. at 216, 104 S.Ct. at 1762. Courts must pay attention to the facts of each encounter, while keeping in mind the realities of every day life and the importance of an individual\u2019s identification. As noted by the Florida Supreme Court,<\/p>\n

[c]ertainly, the dangers posed by crimes such as identity theft and the ever-present threats to our national security makes the act of identifying oneself through presentation of valid, government-issued identification a necessary part of a panoply of human endeavors, from cashing a check to boarding an airplane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Golphin v. State, 945 So.2d 1174, 1189-1190 (Fla. 2006), cert. denied, 552 U.S. 810, 128 S.Ct. 40, 169 L.Ed.2d 11 (2007). In examining the totality of the circumstances, a court must look to \u201cnumerous factors, including the time, place and purpose of the encounter, the words used by the officer, the officer\u2019s tone of voice and general demeanor, the officer\u2019s statements to others present during the encounter, the threatening presence of several officers, the potential display of a weapon by an officer, and the physical touching by the police of the citizen.\u201d United States v. Weaver, 282 F.3d 302, 310 (4th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 847, 123 S.Ct. 186, [Pg 11] 154 L.Ed.2d 75 (2002).<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Here, there was no abuse of the district court’s discretion in its denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress. The record fails to support a finding that there was an unmistakable show of official authority in the police\/citizen encounter at issue which would have indicated to a reasonable person that he was not free to leave. We find, as did the dissenting appellate judge, that Martin voluntarily complied with the officer\u2019s request for identification and voluntarily offered a response to the officer’s potentially incriminating question. Under the totality of the circumstances, we find the officer\u2019s brief retention of Martin\u2019s identification under these facts did not change the nature of this essentially consensual encounter and the officer lawfully retrieved the Soma pills from the defendant’s pocket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[If any can find this on the Louisiana Supreme Court\u2019s website, good luck. It is the worst court website I\u2019ve seen: Everything but the cases.]<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> A reader, an ADA in another state, no less, was able to find the opinion link for me. Thank you so much. I spent about 10 minutes looking for the link and gave up. I don’t have all day….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/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-6265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6265","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=6265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}