California v. Hodari D.

Facts

Late one evening in April 1988, Officers Brian McColgin and Jerry Pertoso were on patrol in a high-crime area of Oakland, California. They wore street clothes and jackets marked with the word Police, and they drove an unmarked car. They saw four or five youths huddled around a small red car parked at the curb. When the youths saw the officers' car approaching, they apparently panicked and took flight. Hodari D. and one companion ran west through an alley, and the others fled south. The officers were suspicious and gave chase. Pertoso left the car and ran back north along 63rd Avenue, then west on Foothill Boulevard, and south on 62nd Avenue. Hodari came out of the alley onto 62nd Avenue and ran north. Looking behind as he ran, he did not turn and see Pertoso until the officer was almost upon him. At that moment he tossed away what appeared to be a small rock. A moment later Pertoso tackled him, handcuffed him, and radioed for assistance. Hodari was carrying $130 in cash and a pager. The rock he had thrown away was crack cocaine. Pertoso never touched Hodari before the rock was discarded. California had conceded below that Pertoso lacked the reasonable suspicion needed to justify stopping Hodari. For purposes of its decision, the Court accepted as true that the pursuit was a show of authority calling on Hodari to halt.

Issues

1. When an officer makes a show of authority that the person does not obey, is the person seized under the Fourth Amendment at the time of the show of authority, so that drugs he throws away while fleeing are the fruit of a seizure?
2. Does the test from Mendenhall, asking whether a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave, alone establish that a seizure has occurred when the officer relies on a show of authority?

Holding

Assuming Pertoso's pursuit was a show of authority calling on Hodari to halt, Hodari was not seized until he was tackled, because he did not comply. The cocaine he abandoned while running was not the fruit of a seizure, so the motion to suppress was properly denied.