Ensure You Have Reasonable Suspicion Before Making a Detention

This post is only offered as a discussion topic only and does not represent legal advice. Officers must refer to the laws in their own State as well as their agency's policies, which can be more restrictive on officers that the law requires.

Scenario: A witness called dispatch and reported that two people on bicycles were possibly casing by shining flashlights into parked vehicles. A Police officer and their partner arrived and the partner detained a man simply because the man was sitting in his vehicle which was parked in the vicinity of the call. After detaining the man, the partner learned he was on parole, conducted a search and located contraband.

Was the detention and search of the man legal and is the evidence admissible in court?

Answer: This scenario is similar to the 2023 California Supreme Court case People v McWilliams. In this case, the court ruled that the detention was unlawful and the contraband located was not admissible in court. The court explained, “As a general rule, evidence seized as a result of an unlawful search or seizure is inadmissible against the defendant in a subsequent prosecution.” The court further stated, “We conclude the officer's discretionary decision to conduct the parole search did not sufficiently attenuate the connection between the officer's initial unlawful decision to detain McWilliams and the discovery of contraband.”

So, because there was no reasonable suspicion that connected the man who was detained to any crime, the detention of the man was unlawful. Therefore, everything that happened after that unlawful detention was not admissible, even though the man was on parole.

Nothing in this incident would prevent officers from doing a consensual contact, asking the man questions and then detaining him after discovering he was on parole. But before an officer decides to detain a person, you must have reasonable suspicion that they were, are, or are about to be involved in criminal activity. Just being in the area of a reported crime is not enough.

And by the way, this is different than discovering someone has an arrest warrant after an illegal detention. The California Supreme Court has allowed the admission of evidence seized incident to arrest on a valid warrant, where the warrant was discovered during an unlawful detention - "People v. Bendlin (2008, Cal Supreme Court). The difference being that a warrant is a judicial mandate to arrest, whereas a parole search is discretionary on the part of the officer.

As always if you are a subscriber to TheBriefingRoom.com, you can find this case in its entirety in the additional resources. Officers should always make sure to refer to their agency policy, which can be more restrictive than the law requires.

This blog topic serves as a summary of our video lesson on this crucial topic. If you're interested in accessing the full video lesson and additional resources, click the link to register for your free 30-day trial.