Womack v. US

• Decision Date: 14 March 1996
• Docket Number: No. 93-CF-1548.,93-CF-1548.
• Parties: David L. WOMACK, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

673 A.2d 603

David L. WOMACK, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 93-CF-1548.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued September 11, 1995.

Decided March 14, 1996.

Jon W. Norris, Public Defender Service, with whom James Klein and Gretchen Franklin, Public Defender Service, were on the brief, for appellant.

Nancy B. Bukas, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, and John R. Fisher and Patricia Stewart, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before SCHWELB and RUIZ, Associate Judges, and GALLAGHER, Senior Judge.

Opinion for the court by Associate Judge SCHWELB.

Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge RUIZ at p. 614.

SCHWELB, Associate Judge:

On August 10, 1993, following the denial of his motion to suppress an out-of-court identification, tangible evidence, and statements, appellant David Womack was convicted of rape while armed,¹ possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or a dangerous offense,² two counts of first-degree burglary while armed,³ two counts of kidnapping while armed,⁴ and three counts of armed robbery.⁵ On appeal, Womack contends that he was arrested without probable cause and that the trial judge erred in denying his motion to suppress the alleged fruits of that arrest. Although Womack concedes that his initial seizure by police was lawful, he claims that the officers' action in handcuffing him exceeded the scope of a legitimate investigative detention and transformed the encounter into a full arrest requiring probable cause. The motions judge concluded that the seizure of Womack was effected to enable the complaining witness to identify him, and that it therefore constituted an investigative detention pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), rather than a full arrest. We agree and affirm.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS

Following an evidentiary hearing at which several police officers and the defendant's grandmother testified, the motions judge denied Womack's motion to suppress and made oral findings as set forth below. On the night of November 29, 1992, at about 11:00 p.m., the complaining witness, N.H.,⁶ was confronted at her home by a man who was armed with a handgun and whose face was covered by some type of hood or scarf. N.H. was in the intruder's presence for up to two hours, during which time he raped her and committed a number of other unlawful acts.⁷ Although she was blindfolded for some of that time, N.H. was able to recognize her assailant based on his features and a scar around his left eye, which she could see through the eye holes in the attacker's face covering.

N.H. called the police immediately after her assailant left. She advised the police that she believed that the man who had raped her was someone whom she had known since June 1992 as "D." N.H. related that she did not know "D's" full name, but that she had gone out with him on one occasion, and that she believed that he lived in the area. N.H. also gave the police a photograph of the man she knew as "D."

Based on statements made by the attacker to N.H. as related by N.H. to the police, the officers had reason to believe that one of N.H.'s friends might know the man's name and address. The friend was unable to provide the police with a full name, but she gave the officers two telephone numbers for the individual whom she knew as "D." The police, using a Haines or a Criss-Cross Directory, traced one of the telephone numbers to an address on Taylor Street in northwest Washington, D.C. This address turned out to be the home of Womack's grandmother, Ms. Sylvia Steele.

The officers went to Ms. Steele's home approximately two to three hours after the assault ended.⁸ Ms. Steele answered the door and invited them into the house. One of the officers asked her whether or not she had a son named "D." Ms. Steele responded that she did not have a son named "D," but that she had a grandson named David.⁹ The motions judge concluded that, based on this conversation, it was reasonable for the officers to believe that Ms. Steele recognized the name "D" and that Ms. Steele's grandson, David, was the individual known as "D."

After the officers' inquiry about "D," Ms. Steele called to her grandson to come downstairs. Womack, who was wearing sleeping attire, came down the steps. Detective Cobel placed handcuffs on Womack and took him outside the house to the porch. N.H., who was seated in a patrol car approximately thirty-five feet from the house, positively identified Womack as her assailant, and he was formally placed under arrest.

After the show-up identification, Ms. Steele went upstairs to retrieve clothing for her grandson. She brought down, among other things, a pair of boots. In her statement to the police, N.H. had described the rapist's boots, and Detective Cobel suspected that the boots which Ms. Steele had brought might be the pair that N.H. had previously described. The officers told Ms. Steele that she would have to get some other shoes for Womack, and they seized the boots as evidence.

Having found the facts as described above, the motions judge ruled that, at the point when Womack came downstairs, the officers had reasonable and articulable suspicion that Womack was N.H.'s assailant. The judge found that the officers were legitimately on the premises by the invitation of Ms. Steele, and that the show-up procedure was reasonable because it would either clear Womack of suspicion or confirm that the police had found the right man. The judge specifically ruled that the police did not have probable cause to make an arrest before the show-up identification, but he concluded that articulable suspicion was sufficient at that stage. The judge held — and it is undisputed — that after N.H. had positively identified Womack, the police had probable cause to arrest him. The judge therefore denied Womack's motion to suppress the out-of-court identification, the tangible evidence (including his boots), and certain statements which Womack made at the police station. Womack was tried and convicted as noted above, and this appeal followed.

II. LEGAL DISCUSSION

A. Scope of Review.

On appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, the scope of our review is limited. Brown v. United States, 590 A.2d 1008, 1020 (D.C.1991); Lawrence v. United States, 566 A.2d 57, 60 (D.C.1989). We must defer to the trial judge's findings of evidentiary fact. Lawrence, supra, 566 A.2d at 60. We view the evidence presented at the suppression hearing in the light most favorable to the party prevailing below, and we draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Peay v. United States, 597 A.2d 1318, 1320 (D.C.1991) (en banc); United States v. Pannell, 383 A.2d 1078, 1080 (D.C.1978). Whether the evidence, as found by the motions judge, establishes that Womack was seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights is a question of law, which we consider de novo. See Brown, supra, 590 A.2d at 1020.

B. Reasonableness, Proportionality, and the Fourth Amendment.

Womack's claims in this case are grounded in the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, which vindicates the constitutional proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. The basic question presented is whether, under all of the circumstances, the seizure and handcuffing of Womack were reasonable.

We do not assess reasonableness in a vacuum. The risk to the safety of the officers might not seem very great to a judge reviewing a transcript years after the fact, but the situation may reasonably have appeared far more dangerous to an officer who had just come into contact with a suspect in an armed rape and kidnapping which occurred only hours before. The evidence must be "weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement." United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981).

Even though we, sitting in the relative calm of a court or library, may have concluded otherwise, we are bound to give deference to the officer's decision if it was reasonable under the facts as viewed by him.

Arrington v. United States, 311 A.2d 838, 839 (D.C.1973).

When courts are called upon to decide whether the force used by an officer to restrain a suspect was excessive, "the calculus of reasonableness must also embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1872, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). When Detective Cobel and his colleagues arrived at Ms. Steele's home and saw a suspected armed rapist and kidnapper coming downstairs, they had to act immediately, without the luxury of extended thoughtful reflection regarding the question whether it would be absolutely necessary to place the suspect in handcuffs. From the officers' perspective — not an unreasonable one — it was better to be safe than sorry.

The use in the Fourth Amendment of the adjective "unreasonable" imports a command of proportionality to that Amendment's jurisprudence. Brown, supra, 590 A.2d at 1013. The greater the restriction on the seized individual's liberty, the more substantial the justification for such a restriction must be. "A lesser intrusion, on the other hand, requires a correspondingly lesser showing." Id.

We must also accord appropriate weight to the safety of the officers, as well as to their obligation to assure that a dangerous suspect does not flee. We recently adopted as our own these compelling words written by Judge Harold Leventhal:

As a society, we routinely expect police officers to risk their lives in apprehending dangerous people. We should not bicker if in bringing potentially dangerous situations under control they issue commands and take

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