Mr. Grigg is clearly very selective and picky.
Florida v. Royer doesn't apply in this case. In that case, Royer was not only detained, but the police
moved him to another location, and did so without a warrant or probable cause. If detained, and then they move you, the minute they move you, in almost all circumstances, you are under arrest. That didn't happen here.
In most instances, you can't just cite one part of a ruling from one case, and then apply it to another case or situation, unless the other case or situation is similar in scope and material facts, yet that is precisely what Mr. Grigg, and you, tries to do in citing the
Royer case by only citing the part of the ruling which supports your claim, and omitting that part which does not.
In the
Royer case that Mr. Grigg proudly offers, the officers should not have asked
Royer to accompany them from the point of the initial consensual encounter to the small room until they returned his airline ticket and license, which they had taken from him to verify identity. Trial and appellate courts have often ruled that a reasonable person would believe that he is in custody and not free to leave if asked to consent to a search or transportation
while police retain something of value to that person. Police
must return such items before asking a person to accompany them. Since the officers only had reasonable suspicion, not probable cause to believe he was transporting narcotics until they opened the suitcase and found the marijuana (which they admitted in court), they had no legal right to place
Mr. Royer in custody and move him to another location.
The key part of the
Royer case was failing to give
Royer back his ticket and license, and moving him to another location, which made
Royer rightly feel that he was not free to leave under the circumstances. The biker incident is in no way similar to that. The context of the two cases are vastly different, no matter how much you want to make it solely about being handcuffed.
An arrest basically is a "seizure" of a person. The seizure can be permanent (arrest of a killer who goes to prison for life) or temporary (application of handcuffs to mouthy, irate person during a car stop). [Note the second example there--it's an arrest- AM]
Note the word "irate"
. You should probably read the rest of that page. Pay particular attention to the text around it whenever the word "safety" appears.
In
United States v. Meza-Corrales (9[SUP]th[/SUP] Cir. 1999) 183 F.3[SUP]rd[/SUP] 1116; "(W)e allow intrusive and aggressive police conduct (handcuffing, in this case) without deeming it an arrest in those circumstances when it is a reasonable response to legitimate safety concerns on the part of the investigating officers." The Supreme Court upheld that ruling.
It also seems, like Mr. Grigg, you can be quite selective and picky, as well. The little snippet of the remainder of the second paragraph that you conveniently left out while quoting the
When Are You Considered Southern California Defense Blog goes on to say:
What is difficult to understand is the interplay between a stop, detention, and arrest. Understand that an arrest is more than a stop. It is more than a detention. Further, mere contact, interaction or discussion with the police is not necessarily an arrest.
It's an important part of what constitutes an arrest versus a detention, and is important to put the rest of what you quoted in full context. An important part of the first paragraph that you quoted is, "
An arrest is the act of legal authority taking actual physical custody of a citizen thus causing a restraint on that citizen's liberty. An arrest occurs when there is a submission to authority causing a seizure of your person." In order to understand those two sentences, one must first understand the difference between restraint of liberty and a simple temporary detention, because they are, in fact, two different things.
In
People v. Celis the court found that the use of firearms, handcuffing, a non-consensual transportation, and/or putting a subject into a patrol car, if necessary under the circumstances, particularly if precautions are taken to make sure that the person knows he is only being detained as opposed to being arrested, or when the use of force is necessitated by the potential danger to the officers, may be found to be appropriate and does
not necessarily elevate the contact into an arrest.
Here's a whole list of court decisions and precedents that you won't like at all.
Welcome to Legal Update
It would seem the Blogs you hang out at, and perhaps your own views, are not at all unlike the previously noted tax Blogs where someone advocates the various and sundry ways to escape paying taxes, where your favorite Blogs are essentially advocating that people should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want without any notice or interference whatsoever from anyone who has anything whatsoever to do with the government. Good luck with that.
