CADC: In the RS calculus, the officer’s experience has significant value

In the reasonable suspicion calculus, the officer’s experience has value. United States v. Douglas, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 17171 (D.C. Cir. July 7, 2023) (per curiam, but 2-1), Randolph, J., concurring:

It does not follow that the criminal nature of this place, noted for drug dealing and other crimes — the very reason Officer Jackson was there undercover on that April afternoon — that this fact should be tossed aside because it is not in itself conclusive. The Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Wesby reversed a panel opinion of our court that engaged in such mistaken reasoning. See 138 S.Ct. at 588. The factors giving rise to reasonable suspicion are not like coin flips in which the probability of heads on one flip is independent of the probability of heads on the next flip. Instead, the facts here are interdependent: the existence of one makes the existence of another more (or less) probable. See United States v. Prandy-Binett, 995 F.2d 1069, 1070-71, 302 U.S. App. D.C. 1 (D.C. Cir. 1993); see also Prandy-Binett, 5 F.3d at 558-60; Al-Adahi v. Obama, 613 F.3d 1102, 1105-07, 392 U.S. App. D.C. 135 (D.C. Cir. 2010). If an individual hands a book bag to another person in the Library of Congress, that is one thing. If the hand-off takes place in a high crime area in an outdoor walkway noted for criminal activity, that is quite another.

Another point about high crime spots is that innocent persons in the vicinity will exercise caution — the common expression is that they will be “looking over their shoulder” — to avoid being mugged or murdered. Those engaged in criminal activity will also be on the alert, but for a different reason. High crime areas attract, or should attract, high police presence, as was certainly true in this case. Individuals meeting on the street in such a location to conduct a criminal transaction will naturally take extra measures to avoid detection.

Another consideration, critical in my evaluation, relates to Officer Jackson’s skill and experience. By the time of these events, Officer Jackson had been a police officer for more than 20 years and had conducted 500 undercover observation posts. When asked on cross-examination in the suppression hearing how many arrests resulted from his 500 operations he answered “I would say close to 500.”

It is proper, indeed it is unavoidable, for “a police officer [to] draw inferences based on his own experience in deciding whether” reasonable suspicion warrants an investigatory stop. Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 700. At the suppression hearing, in compliance with Terry, Officer Jackson “articulated” the factors underlying his judgment, based on his experience. Hand-to-hand transactions, efforts at concealment, exchanges of closed containers like bags, money changing hands, on the streets in high crime areas — these factors together were, in Officer Jackson’s experience, indications of illegal transactions of guns or drugs or both. And, as Officer Jackson testified, each of these factors converged in the transaction he witnessed between Douglas and Williams on the walkway.