CA4: Blocking defendant’s car made the encounter a seizure

Blocking defendant’s car made the encounter a seizure. [This case provides a wealth of caselaw.] United States v. Jones, 678 F.3d 293 (4th Cir. 2012):

That this was not a routine encounter, but one targeted at Jones seems to us particularly significant given that the officers blocked in Jones’s car to effectuate the encounter. In United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515 (7th Cir. 1997), the Seventh Circuit considered a very similar case. There, as here, the police followed a car into a driveway where the driver parked the car, and there, as here, the defendant then exited his car. Id. at 517. The Seventh Circuit concluded that, although the driver was no longer in his car, and indeed was walking away from his car toward a house, when “the officers pulled their car in behind the [defendant’s car], blocking the car’s exit … a reasonable person would not feel that he was free to leave.” Id. at 520 n.1. Accordingly, the court found that the police had seized not only the passenger who remained in the car but also the driver who had left it. Id.

This holding comports with that of numerous other courts considering similar facts. …

We agree that when an officer blocks a defendant’s car from leaving the scene, particularly when, as here, the officer has followed the car, the officer demonstrates a greater show of authority than does an officer who just happens to be on the scene and engages a citizen in conversation. For this reason, the three cases on which the Government relies are inapposite. … Rather, Jones saw the officers follow his car from a public street onto private property and then block the car from exiting in their haste to speak with him.

The Government contends that the placement of the police cruiser has minimal relevance because, as the police approached, two of Jones’s companions walked away from the car—one into an apartment and one in the other direction —and the officers did not chase after them or call them back. But it is not altogether clear to us which way this fact cuts. On the one hand, that the officers allowed two passengers to walk away from the vehicle could convey to a reasonable person that he, too, was free to walk away.