Error and/or relief
The defendant appeals from the trial court’s order denying his motion to suppress evidence, contending the court erred when it found police officers had reasonable suspicion to detain him. Because we have concluded there was insufficient evidence that defendant’s conduct, when considered in the totality of circumstances, supported a reasonable suspicion that he was, or was about to be, engaged in activity relating to crime, we agree with defendant that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him. Accordingly, the subsequent recovery of the handgun was the product of an illegal detention and arrest and evidence related to the recovery was subject to exclusion.
[GARY NOTE: The facts relied on by the court are too extensive to adequately summarize. Essentially, the officer saw a group of people milling about. When some appeared to notice him, they ran off, though the defendant and one other did not run off. The officer described various body movements and claimed to have seen something that was not borne out by the appellate court’s review of the body cam video.]First Holding:
The Fourth Amendment permits an officer to initiate a brief investigative stop when the officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. [Although a mere hunch does not create reasonable suspicion, the level of suspicion the standard requires is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence, and obviously less than is necessary for probable cause. Because it is a less demanding standard, reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause. The standard depends on the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. Courts cannot reasonably demand scientific certainty where none exists. Rather, they must permit officers to make commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior.
Authority:
Kansas v. Glover (2020) 589 U.S. 376, 380–381
People v. Flores (2024) 15 Cal.5th 1032, 1041
Second Holding:
The officer’s subjective suspicion must be objectively reasonable, and an investigative stop or detention predicated on mere curiosity, rumor, or hunch is unlawful, even though the officer may be acting in complete good faith.
Authority:
People v. Wells (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1078, 1083
Third Holding:
In reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to that court’s factual findings, express or implied, if they are supported by substantial evidence. We exercise our independent judgment in determining whether, on the facts presented, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. In doing so we do not consider each fact in isolation. Instead, we must consider the totality of the circumstances—the whole picture.
Authority:
People v. Flores (2024) 15 Cal.5th 1032, 1043