The line between a consensual encounter and a seizure can be blurry. Generally, there is no seizure when an officer simply approaches a person and asks the person a question. But there is a seizure when an officer approaches a person with a show of authority that would make a reasonable person feel that he or she was not free to leave. The court of appeals just decided an interesting case in this area – one that makes an interesting contrast with another relatively recent case. Facts of Knudsen. This week’s case is State v. Knudsen. It arose when two Winston-Salem officers, on patrol downtown at 11:00 p.m. on a summer night, noticed the defendant get into, and start, a car “while holding a cup that looked similar to cups that were commonly used at downtown bars to serve mixed drinks.” One of the officers rode past the car on his bicycle and peered in the window. The defendant and his companion subsequently exited the vehicle and began to walk down the sidewalk, with the defendant still carrying the cup. The bicycle officer positioned himself on the sidewalk in the pedestrians’ path, and the other officer, who was driving a cruiser, pulled into a parking lot just behind the bicycle officer in such a way as to block access to the lot. As the defendant approached the bicycle officer, the latter asked “what do you have in the cup?” Water, said the defendant, and indeed, water it was. Lower court proceedings. [...]
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