California Supreme Court Rules People Can’t Be Detained Just for Trying to Avoid Police

The California Supreme Court issued a 7-0 ruling that police or sheriff’s deputies cannot detain people on the street just because they are trying to avoid contact with them. Last week, the state’s high court wrote that a person who appears to be concealing themselves or acting nervously cannot be the only reason for an officer to detain them. Those actions can be “relevant context” but there still needs to be “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity,” wrote Justice Carol Corrigan in the court’s unanimous ruling. Law enforcement officials, she added in the opinion, “may consider what they see in plain view,” and they can “approach people in public, engage them in consensual conversation, and take note of their appearance and behavior.” However, there needs to be probable cause because the individual is “constitutionally protected and empowered to go on his or her way,” Justice Corrigan wrote....