Thank you.
When my wife and I go for a walk, we generally aren’t carrying our IDs on us either. As far as I know, walking is still legal without a license.
No. Muffin herself agreed that “…however, the 911 call alleging indecent exposure would have been sufficient to detain the parties as per Terry.”
And, indeed, that’s correct. The 911 call reported a male and female engaged in a sex act in a Mercedes. When police arrived, they found a man and a woman matching the telephone descriptions near a Mercedes.
That justifies a Terry stop.
Muffin’s error was in the assumption that because the police apparently told the actress she was being detained for suspicion of prostitution, the police are somehow prohibited from asserting another basis for the stop.
Your error seems to be understanding the extremely low bar that “reasonable suspicion,” is. A 911 call reporting a crime is generally reasonable suspicion for the existence of that crime. In Prado Navarette v. California, for example, the Supreme Court explicitly upheld an anonymous 911 call as sufficient basis for a Terry stop.
This is not a question of any serious dispute. The police had reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry stop.
Well, a reasonable suspicion is like a second Procal Harum hit. There is only one Whiter Shade of Pale
So if I am a racist bigoted asshole and I see a couple sickeningly mingling the races and want to give them a hassle, all I have to do is call the cops and say hey I see a couple fucking in public or smoking crack or whatever, my name? Ano Nymous.
Then the cops arrive and regardless that there is zero evidence of anything claimed in the call, they will detain the couple and harass them for ID and hopefully one of them gets uppity and they get punched or tased or something.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Perhaps it is my misunderstanding of that point, but if the totality of the circumstances includes a 911 call stating a crime has occurred ALONG with my observations that would indicate no such crime occurred, then it would seem a Terry stop would not be supported. Is that an inaccurate read on the meaning of totality of the circumstances? Or does a 911 call carry such weight that it in and of itself is the totality of the circumstances?
I THINK Muffin is a feller…
Oops.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re picturing. What sort of observations are you thinking of that would indicate no crime had occurred?
If you make that 911 call, you certainly give the police reasonable, articulable suspicion to briefly detain the people you described in your call and investigate.
In a state that had such a law, the police would be allowed to ask for the names of the people detained, but not to demand physical identification. Police who did so would be acting illegally.
I think your stupidity is probably powerful enough to kill small animals. You should bottle it and sell it as rat poison. Anyway: given the definition of indecent exposure in California law, I think if the police go investigating a report like this and all they find is a couple sitting in a car (and perhaps kissing), they should just keep walking. Kissing in public is not indecent exposure.
You understand that merely because the police don’t see the illegal activity happening when they arrive does not mean the 911 report no longer provides reasonable suspicion, right?
I wonder if something along those lines is what Hentor was thinking.
That’s not the way of it. If a caller reports indecent exposure, the mere fact the police don’t see any when they arrive still allows them to briefly detain the people that meet the description given by the caller and question them.
The question isn’t whether they have the right, the question is whether they SHOULD.
Do you believe that police should detain and question, or do some brief observation and if it seems a spurious call move on? Keeping in mind this is not a major crime.
Whether they should is another matter, of course, on which I offer no opinion, because there are too many variables.
The alleged crime in this case was a misdemeanor. Terry stops for the investigation of completed misdemeanors are not permissible, unless the totality of the circumstances suggests an ongoing or escalating threat to public safety.
Here there was no ongoing misdemeanor, and no reasonable suspicion of an ongoing or escalating threat to public safety.
I anticipated this question above.
I think the police ought to act reasonably. A couple making out hot and heavy next to the elementary school ought to be asked to move on; a couple next to a movie lot ought to be left alone.
But the discussion above that I answered was about the legal aspects surrounding a Terry stop.
According to the article the police claimed they were there because they got a call about two people in a silver Mercedes who were “involved” in indecent exposure with the door open. As it happened, Watts had been in Lucas’ lap earlier and they had been making out in the car. So unless the officer was lying it doesn’t look to me like they just randomly stopped Watts and Lucas because they were an interracial couple.
The problem for the police is that as it stands, the reasonable suspicion cat got out of the bag when the police told the couple that prostitution was suspected, so until it comes out otherwise (maybe it will, maybe it won’t) that they did not disclose this, the best the officers can now assert is that yes, they unreasonably suspected prostitution and stated their suspicion at at the time, and they also reasonably suspected lewd conduct but did not state it.
That’s going to be a tough cat to get back in the bag, for the officers would be [del]lewdly[/del] loudly blowing and sucking at the same time, since s. 647 a (lewd) and s. 647 b (prostitution) do not overlap without the consideration aspect to tie lewd behaviour to prostitution, and the officers did not have any reasonable suspicion of there being consideration unless one is to accept that it is reasonable to suspect consideration when a black woman allegedly has been lewd with a white man in an expensive car. (Not to mention that given how racial profiling is considered to be pernicious, the officers might be better off steering clear of this.)
Which is more reliable? The statement made at the time by the officers, or something they come up with in the coming days? Barring hearsay problems (I defer to you on knowledge of hearsay), I’m inclined to go with a statement made at the time.
Except that there are two Whiter Shades of Pale. A guy named Bach wrote the first one a few hundred years ago. 
And I’‘m CERTAIN that I’m a feller. (My parents’ nickname for me.)
Muffin, isn’t prostitution a misdemeanor in CA? Wouldn’t that still represent a completed misdemeanor. US v Grigg, a Ninth circuit decision indicates that the gravity of the alleged misdemeanor must be sufficient for Terry to apply to a completed non-felony.
Wow, you should have led with this point.
If I recall correctly, there’s at least one federal circuit where the law is per se “no Terry stop for completed misdemeanor,” but most other circuits have balancing tests. I seem to recall that the Ninth Circuit allows a Terry stop for a completed misdemeanor when there’s no investigative alternative, but this will require research.
Still, you’re right: I did not even think about the fact that indecent exposure is a misdemeanor that the police did not witness.
Can they even execute a warrantless arrest in California for a misdemeanor officers did not observe?
I blew this call, I think.