Transporting Detainees
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Last updated
A detention will ordinarily become a de facto arrest if the detainee was transported to the crime scene, police station, or some other place.169 This is because the act of removing the detainee from the scene constitutes an exercise of control that is more analogous to a physical arrest than a detention. Moreover, officers can usually accomplish their objectives by less intrusive means.
There are, however, three exceptions to this rule. First, officers may transport the detainee if he freely consented.170 Second, they may transport him a short distance if it might reduce the overall length of the detention.171 As the California Supreme Court observed, “[T]he surrounding circumstances may reasonably indicate that it would be less of an intrusion upon the suspect’s rights to convey him speedily a few blocks to the crime scene, permitting the suspect’s early release rather than prolonging unduly the field detention.”172
Third, removing the detainee to another location is permitted if there was good reason for doing so. In the words of the Ninth Circuit:
[T]he police may move a suspect without exceeding the bounds of an investigative detention when it is a reasonable means of achieving the legitimate goals of the detention given the specific circumstances of the case.173
For example, if a hostile crowd had gathered it would be reasonable to take the detainee to a place where the detention could be conducted safely.174 Or it might be necessary to drive the detainee to the crime scene or a hospital for a showup if the victim had been injured.175 Thus, in People v. Harris, the court noted, “If, for example, the victim of an assault or other serious offense was injured or otherwise physically unable to be taken to promptly view the suspect, or a witness was similarly incapacitated, and the circumstances warranted a reasonable suspicion that the suspect was indeed the offender, a ‘transport’ detention might well be upheld.”176
Another example of a situation in which a “transport detention” was deemed reasonable is found in the case of People v. Soun.177 In Soun, the Court of Appeal ruled it was reasonable for Oakland officers to drive six suspects in a San Jose robbery-murder to a parking lot three blocks from the detention site because the officers reasonably believed that they would not be able to resolve the matter quickly (given the number of suspects and the need to coordinate their investigation with SJPD detectives), plus it was necessary to detain the suspects in separate patrol cars which were impeding traffic. Said the court, “A three-block transportation to an essentially neutral site for these rational purposes did not operate to elevate [the suspects’] custodial status from detention to arrest.
Keep in mind that this exception will be applied only if officers are able to articulate one or more specific reasons for moving the detainee. Thus, in U.S. v. Acosta-Colon the court responded as follows when an officer cited only “security reasons” as justification for the move:
[T]here will always exist “security reasons” to move the subject of a Terry-type stop to a confined area pending investigation. But if this kind of incremental increase in security were sufficient to warrant the involuntary movement of a suspect to an official holding area, then such a measure would be justified in every Terry-type investigatory stop.178