District of Columbia v. R.W.:  Courts must consider all circumstances to determine “reasonable suspicion” for investigatory stop

By Greg Mermelstein, Deputy Director & General Counsel, Missouri Public Defender

            Police had reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop of a juvenile driver who, at 2:00 a.m., kept backing up his car with a door open after two passengers fled the car when an officer approached, the U.S. Supreme Court held April 20 in District of Columbia v. R.W..

            Police were dispatched at 2:00 a.m. to an apartment building in Washington, D.C., to check out a report of a suspicious car.

            An officer arrived and saw two people immediately jump out of the car and flee.

            Even though the runners left the car’s back door open, the driver began backing out of a parking space with the door open.

            The officer decided to investigate and drew his gun.  He ordered the driver, R.W. – a juvenile – to get out and put his hands up.

            R.W. was subsequently charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and related offenses.

            R.W. moved to suppress all evidence obtained after he was stopped on grounds the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him under the Fourth Amendment.

            The trial court denied the motion to suppress, but the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed. 

            The Court of Appeals “excised” the dispatch call and the flight of R.W.’s passengers from its analysis, then concluded the remaining facts weren’t sufficient to show reasonable suspicion.

Holding

            The Supreme Court reversed, in a summary per curiam opinion, with two justices opposing the grant of certiorari.

            When an officer makes a brief investigatory stop that falls short of a traditional arrest, the Fourth Amendment is satisfied if the officer had “reasonable suspicion” to believe “criminal activity may be afoot”, the Court said.

            A reviewing court must look at the “totality of circumstances” of each case – “an analysis that precludes ‘evaluation and rejection’ of ‘factors in isolation from each other’”, the Court said.

            The D.C. Court of Appeals “departed” from these principles, the Court said.

            Reasonable suspicion “permits officers to make ‘commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior”, the Court said.

            Here, the officer had reasonable suspicion because passengers acted “strangely” by fleeing when the officer approached, and R.W. continued to back out of the parking space “ignoring” the car’s open back door, the Court said. 

            “R.W.’s own actions – combined with the panicked flight of his companions – strongly suggested that he (like them) engaged in unlawful conduct he wished to hide from police”, the Court said.

            The D.C. Court of Appeals incorrectly “excised” relevant facts – the flight of the passengers — from its analysis, the Court said. 

            “Pretending that the most revealing aspect of the encounter did not happen is imcompatible with the totality-of-the-circumstances approach required by our precedents”, the Court concluded.

Justices oppose summary intervention

            Justice Jackson dissented. 

            “I am not sure why our Court sees fit to intervene in this case, let alone do so summarily”, Jackson said.  

            If “the Court’s decision to intervene reflects disapproval of the DCCA’s assessment of which particular facts to weigh and to what extent, I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court.”

            “In my view, this is not a worthy accomplishment for the unusual step of a summary reversal”, Jackson said.

            Justice Sotomayor also would have denied the petition for writ of certiorari.