California v. Hodari D.

On a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded the state court of appeals decision that the drug evidence was the fruit of an illegal seizure. In reaching this conclusion, the Court looked to the common law definition of arrest which required bringing the subject within physical control. Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia explained that in order for a seizure to have occurred there must have been either "the application of physical force, however slight," or submission to an officers "show of authority" to restrain the person's liberty. Scalia's two-part analysis focused first on whether any physical force occurred at the moment of the officer's show of authority and, second, on the defendant's failure to comply with that show of authority. If no physical force accompanied the show of authority and an individual then chooses to ignore the show of authority, no seizure exists until the officer does apply physical force. The police had not applied physical force in this case before Hodari tossed the drugs. Scalia wrote that the word "seizure" did not remotely apply to a policeman yelling, "Stop, in the name of the law!" at a fleeing person that continued to flee.

The Court was unwilling to accept Hodari's argument that the officer's pursuit qualified as a "show of authority" constituting a seizure even though Hodari did not submit to that expression of authority. As a result, the Court determined that the drugs abandoned during Hodari's flight were not the fruit of an illegal seizure at all, since no seizure occurred at that time. Thus, his motion to suppress the evidence was properly denied by the circuit court prior to the juvenile proceedings. In fact, any object discarded by the fleeing individual would be considered abandoned and its retrieval would not involve Fourth Amendment concerns.