Connecticut Court Says Cops Can Detain You For Being Near Someone That’s Getting Arrested

Connecticut cops can detain citizens for no
other reason than the suspicion they hold for another person, all
in the name of “officer safety.” According to a recent ruling from
the state’s highest court, if you are in a public place with a
person who the cops want to arrest, they can detain you also—even
if they have no reason to suspect you of doing anything wrong. On
its face the ruling is not all that grandiose, but in a
passionately written dissenting opinion Justice Eveleigh explains
why this verdict tramples on citizens’ Fourth Amendment
rights:

I agree with the majority that the police have a legitimate
interest in protecting themselves. There must be, however, some
restrictions placed on the intent. In my view, there are several
potential unconscionable ramifications to the majority opinion. For
instance, if a suspect with an outstanding warrant is talking to
his neighbor’s family near the property line, can the police now
detain the entire family as part of the encounter with the suspect?
If the suspect is waiting at a bus stop with six other strangers,
can they all be detained?

If the same suspect is observed leaving a house and stopped
in the front yard, can the police now seize everyone in the house
to ensure that no one will shoot them while they question the
suspect? What if the suspect is detained in a neighborhood known to
have a high incident of crime, can the police now seize everyone in
the entire neighborhood to ensure their safety while they detain
the suspect? There simply is no definition of who is a
”companion” in the majority opinion. I would require more than
mere ”guilt by association.” Ever mindful of Franklin’s
admonition, we cannot use the omnipresent specter of safety as a
guise to authorize government intrusion.

As Techdirt.com notes, such expanded power for the police could
allow them to “use spurious reasons to detain people they just
don’t want around—like
eyewitnesses and photographers.”

The verdict comes from the case
State of Connecticut v. Jeremy Kelly, where the
defendant was seeking to have evidence thrown out of his trial
because he claims that he was unlawfully detained by police and,
therefore, his fourth amendment right against unreasonable search
and seizure was violated. 

In 2007, Kelly was walking alongside another man into a driveway
when two undercover officers determined that his walking companion
fit the description of a guy they were looking for who had violated
his probation. The officers stopped their car in front of the
driveway, one of them displayed a badge and said, “I’m a police
officer.” The officer then told both men to come over to the
vehicle, even though the cops at that point in time really only had
a particular interest in one of the men. 

Both men did not comply with the officer’s command and
attempted to run away. The cops eventually caught up with the two
of them and that is when they discovered Kelly was carrying
cocaine.

So, he got nine years in prison. And the man that he was with?
He wasn’t the guy police were looking for.