all right there was an article that came out i believe it was yesterday from childersburg alabama where a local pastor ends up getting arrested by the police for the shocking crime of watering his neighbor's plants while his neighbor is away now actually of course the cops didn't actually arrest him before that in the report they arrested him for obstruction also known as contempt of cop so this is according to i'll post this but it's w-i-a-t in childersburg alabama michael jennings who is the preacher at vision of abundant life ministries and cylic sylacuga cylicalga has been in ministry for more than 30 years and sunday after church he went over to his neighbor's house to water the roses some other neighbor apparently a karen didn't immediately recognize who he was and made the unfortunate mistake of calling the police to report a suspicion suspicious person on someone else's property apparently so of course officers responded they made contact with mr jennings who did not have his his identification on his person now he said that he did tell the officers who he was and why he was there he said give me some id i said no i don't have to give no id because there ain't no crime been committed i said but what i will do is tell you that i'm pastor jennings and i live right across the street right there and i said you can go ask my wife which sort of reminds me of a charlie daniels song now jennings said that when he continued to water the plants he ended up being detained the sergeant then shows up he's already mad he gets out of the car and mr jennings says you're making a mistake this is wrong what you all are doing and he says that the sergeant yelled back shut up and listen you talk too much i said you don't tell me to shut up boy i'm a grown man now things always go well after you i believe he said that to the cop called him boy i once had a case that came out of calling a cop boy but that's another video then he said you're going to jail that's it lock them up so the original neighbor who called police told officers that she made a mistake and begged them not to arrest jennings once she realized it was her friend and neighbor the woman's account is detailed in the police report but he was still charged with get this obstructing governmental operations when asked if there was any reason that jennings would have have been required to show identification the police said it well it would have depended on the circumstances and apparently now they're investigating so this is something that i've seen before in fact i have a case just about to go to trial where a black man was arrested in west virginia for the very suspicious activity of performing utility work on a utility right-of-way what was he arrested for same thing alleged failure to provide id i.e obstruction so in both sorts of scenarios you have no actual crime that was committed but somebody calling police for whatever reason and then when the police get there they want to assert their authority and if whoever they encounter doesn't immediately submit to their authority well pursuant to their training or or lack of training whichever it is they'll just go ahead and take that person into custody and no crime has been committed except for the alleged obstruction or alleged failure to provide id now this begs the question is is are you required to provide id in such circumstances now generally in a traffic stop that's not really an issue because you already have the existence of reasonable suspicion because assuming that there has been some observation of a valid traffic violation that's automatically gonna qualify as reasonable suspicion for an investigatory detention i.e traffic stop but where things get interesting is when you're dealing with pedestrians with as i've said before as a pedestrian you have many more rights under the fourth amendment than you do when you step into your car so there's a lot that that really we don't know from this article and specifically what i would like to hear is well the neighbor who called police what did she actually say what did she allege did she say i see somebody watering my neighbor's roses or did she say i see somebody who appears like they're engaging in some sort of criminal activity now reasonable suspicion is required for any sort of fourth amendment event any sort of seizure so it's required for the stop of the vehicle it's required for the stop of a pedestrian note that so-called consensual encounters do not trigger the fourth amendment so like the rest of us police can walk up to people on the street and they can have a consensual conversation with them they don't have to say by the way you're free to leave they can just have a conversation and so long as it's consensual the fourth amendment isn't triggered under the law so no reasonable suspicion is required under those circumstances now when do those circumstances exist that can be that can be a trial right there that can be a jury issue right there so as a general matter police officers are free to approach and question individuals without affecting a seizure so a person is seized within the meaning of the fourth amendment only when the officer by means a physical force or a show of authority has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen so the first real question to determine is whether or not a seizure has occurred of course it did in this case the guy was actually arrested but sometimes that's not necessarily the case so how do the courts determine whether or not there's been a seizure so a seizure can occur is said to occur when after considering the totality of the circumstances the court concludes that quote a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave so when a police approach a person at a location that they do not necessarily wish to leave the appropriate question is whether that person would feel free to terminate the encounter this note this is a this is an objective test not a subjective test so it's not whether this person actually felt like he was free to leave it's whether an objectively reasonable person would feel that they're free to terminate the encounter to walk away and a lot of times that's why people who've researched the law will say am i being detained because then that is is really taking all the guesswork out of it the police officer says no you're not being detained in which case you're free to go or they say no no you're not free to go and that's often the situation where police are asking for ids all right um what is reasonable suspicion what is the legal standard so reasonable suspicion is a common sense non-technical standard that relies on the judgment of experienced law enforcement officers not legal technicians so what does that mean so the courts require that the detaining officer to either articulate why particular behavior is suspicious or logically demonstrate given the surrounding circumstances that the behavior is likely to be indicative of some more sinister activity than may appear at first glance so the what does that mean it sounds like absolute nonsense the most important thing is is that the suspicion by the police officer has to be particular to that individual it can't be just categorical or generalized obviously it can't be because that guy he's a black guy and all black guys are suspicious it can't be because he's a man it can't be it has to be particular to the individual secondly it should be based on suspicion of illegal conduct now that's why i would like to hear what the neighbor alleged as well as what the police observed when they got there watering your neighbor's roses is not illegal conduct if that is all the information that the police officers had there can be no reasonable suspicion there now if it was alleged that it appeared to be a burglary in process now that might be different that burglary is illegal conduct so it has to be particularized to the individual that the police are encountering and secondly it has to be based on suspicious suspicion of illegal conduct so that's basically what reasonable suspicion is now an officer must either articulate why a particular behavior is suspicious or logically demonstrate given the given the surrounding circumstances that the behavior is likely to be indicative of some more sinister activity than may appear at first glance so this comes up in like open carry type cases where a police officer because freedom is scary might be subjectively afraid of firearms they see somebody open carrying even though it's completely legal in their mind it's suspicious well where you get into tricky situations is where police officers are encountered with completely lawful conduct and they try to make a case of reasonable suspicion out of completely lawful conduct so in that case it's up to the police officer to articulate um why they thought that they had reasonable suspicion so there's these are the sorts of situations that can be really tricky pedestrians a call from a karen and you in the end have to look at the totality of the circumstances now what do we know from this case just looking at the totality all right just say that there's a very vague call from a karen saying there's a suspicious guy the police get there they observe this i don't know 50 60 year old pastor well dressed who says he lives next door who says he's a pastor who appears to be watering roses and says he's watering roses for for the neighbor that's just looking at the totality of the circumstances that is i don't know little something less than reasonable reasonable suspicion in my mind i'm sure it's it's not going to be an easy case to defend from the police it looks like more like a reaction to well you didn't respect my authority and so i'm going to teach you a lesson sort of deal so we'll have to keep an eye on this one and see how it turns out [Music]