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VT: Pointed questions turn the stop into a de facto arrest

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

While a few normal questions would not be a seizure, pointed questions here became a seizure where it would be apparent to the defendant he was not free to leave and terminate the encounter. State v. Pitts, 2009 VT 51, 2009 Vt. LEXIS 59 (May 22, 2009) [*P13] Other courts applying traditional Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure law have reached similar conclusions where relatively innocuous field inquiries concerning the subject's identity, address, or destination progress to more pointed police inquiries about drug possession or other criminal conduct suggesting that the person is the focus of a particularized police investigation into criminal activity. See, e.g., United States v. Nunley, 873 F.2d 182, 184-85 (8th Cir. 1989) (holding that consensual encounter became seizure which invalidated subsequent consent to search where police officers' statements to the defendant that they were attempting to stop the flow of drugs indicated that the defendant was the "particular focus of a narcotics investigation"); State v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on July 03, 2009 (boomark / email).