Legal Update No. 157 (01/2025)

January 24, 2025

Mere presence in a “high crime” area does not provide particularized suspicion of criminal activity for an investigatory detention.

Background and Facts

In People v Prude, Prude was in a parked vehicle at an apartment complex that was regularly patrolled by police because of frequent reports of crimes committed by non-residents.  Prude was observed by an officer sitting alone during daylight hours, with the engine off, in an area of the parking lot where criminal activity was common.  No one else was in the area, and there was no evidence Prude’s vehicle was parked illegally or describing how long he had been parked in that location.  An officer approached Prude, asked for identification, and inquired whether he was a resident of the complex.  Although Prude declined to identify himself, he answered that he was not a resident but that he stayed at the complex with his girlfriend who was a resident.  A second officer then arrived, approached Prude’s vehicle, and upon recognizing Prude, provided his name to the first officer.  The first officer then advised Prude he needed to be with a resident while on the property before returning to his patrol vehicle to verify Prude’s tenant status through LEIN and to check the complex’s internal database to see if Prude had previously received a trespass warning from the complex.  When asked, the second officer advised Prude he was being detained and that he was not free to leave.  Prude then started the vehicle, rolled up his window, and drove away at a high rate of speed.  

Prude was later arrested, charged, and eventually convicted by a jury of second degree fleeing and eluding under MCL 257.602a(4), and assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer under MCL 750.81d(1).  The Court of Appeals affirmed Prude’s convictions.  Prude sought leave to appeal where he argued that because both offenses required the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the police acted lawfully (see People v Chapo and People v Moreno), the prosecution presented insufficient evidence the officers lawfully detained him based on a reasonable suspicion he was trespassing.  The Michigan Supreme Court granted leave and without any oral argument, reversed Prude’s convictions and remanded the case to the trial court to enter judgments of acquittal.  

Standard for Investigatory Detentions / Terry Stops

Under Terry v Ohio and other well established Fourth Amendment cases, an officer can detain a person for a brief investigatory stop if the officer has reasonable suspicion the person is engaged in, or is about to be engaged in, criminal activity.  While the level of suspicion required for a Terry seizure is less than that required for probable cause to arrest, an officer must have more than an inchoate or unparticularized suspicion or hunch.  A Terry seizure is only lawful if an officer has an objectively reasonable particularized suspicion that the specific individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.  Determining whether this standard is met requires a fact-specific analysis of the totality of the circumstances known to the officer when the seizure occurred.  

Mere Presence in “High Crime” Area and Refusal to Identify

While “presence in a high-crime area may support the existence of reasonable suspicion, the Court noted this is so only if a suspect engages in suspicious behavior.”  Without more, the Court noted there is nothing suspicious about someone sitting alone in a parked car in an apartment-complex parking lot while visiting a resident of that complex, especially during daylight hours when there was no evidence as to how long he was parked there.  Additionally, mere presence in an area of frequent criminal activity does not provide particularized suspicion someone is engaged in any criminal activity, and an officer may not detain someone simply because that person declines a request to identify themself.  Even when viewed together, the Court found these facts did not provide the officers with an objectively reasonable particularized basis for suspecting that Prude was trespassing at the complex when they detained him.  Because the officers were not acting lawfully in the performance of their duties when they detained Prude, a required element of the charged offenses, there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions beyond a reasonable doubt.  

The Court also highlighted well established caselaw “that a refusal to cooperate [with police], without more, does not furnish the minimal level of objective justification needed for a detention or seizure.”  While the officers had the right to seek a consensual encounter with Prude in the parking lot to determine if he was engaged in criminal activity and to advise him of any trespass policy the complex may have had, there was no evidence that Prude engaged in any suspicious behavior to provide a particularized basis for a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.  The Court noted that “finding reasonable suspicion under these circumstances would effectively mean that any person who is approached by an officer in a high-crime area must fully cooperate with that officer or else be subject to a Terry seizure” and that “ironically, the compliance that would be required to avoid a seizure would essentially amount to a seizure.”  The Court expressly declined to create “an exception to the Fourth Amendment for all people living in or passing through certain neighborhoods.”

Officers are reminded that except for the requirement to possess a valid operator’s or chauffer’s license when operating a motor vehicle and to display it upon demand of any police officer under MCL 257.311 when lawfully stopped by that officer, and absent unique circumstances such as concealed pistol license holders lawfully stopped by police, there is generally no legal duty under state law to provide identification or otherwise cooperate with police requests or demands for information.  

Determining Whether Officer’s Actions were “Lawful”

When reviewing challenges to convictions in cases where the lawfulness of police action is an element of the criminal offense, as it is for resisting and obstructing a police officer and fleeing and eluding, courts will view the facts in the light most favorable to the prosecution and then determine whether the officer’s actions were “lawful” by viewing those facts under a lens sufficiently deferential to that conduct.  As such, officers are reminded of the importance of remaining thorough in their articulation of the facts and circumstances surrounding their actions and the exercise of their lawful authority.

Holding

Because the officers’ actions were outside the lawful performance of their duties, a required element for each offense, the prosecution did not prove Prude’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Prude’s convictions were found to be invalid.