No Reasonable Suspicion to Turn Interaction With Motorist Tending to Broken Vehicle Into Investigative Stop

Wingate v. Fulford: This civil case arises from a situation where the check engine light in Wingate’s car came on while driving late at night. He pulled over in front of a car dealership, opened the hood, and started to work on his car. A police officer saw the disabled vehicle and pulled in behind. After asking Wingate what was happening, he repeatedly demanded that Wingate produce identification. A second officer arrived and explained that there had been a series of catalytic converter thefts in the area and that Wingate’s situation was “kind of weird.” When Wingate persisted in not providing identification, he was arrested under a local ordinance that makes it a crime to refuse to provide identification to an officer “if the surrounding circumstances are such as to indicate to a reasonable man that the public safety requires such identification.” A search of Wingate’s care did not uncover anything that might be related to catalytic converter thefts.

All criminal charges against Wingate were dropped. He then sued the arresting officers under 18 USC 1983, arguing that his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. The district court granted the officers’’ motion for summary judgment.

 

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision. The court noted that the officer’s initial engagement with Wingate “did not trigger the Fourth Amendment’s protection,” but that when he told Wingate “he was not free to leave until he identified himself,” that “unambiguous restraint on Mr. Wingate’s liberty” transformed the situation into an investigatory stop. Evaluating the circumstances of the incident individually and as a whole, the court concluded that there officers lacked reasonable suspicion “indicating the criminal activity was afoot.” The court also held that Wingate’s arrest violated the Fourth Amendment and that the local ordinance requiring drivers to provide identification is “unconstitutional when applied outside the context of a valid investigatory stop.” That is because “a valid investigatory stop, supported by Terry-level suspicion, is a constitutional prerequisite to enforcing stop and identify statutes.” Nor, the court held, were the officers entitled to qualified immunity on the initial detention, although they were on the arrest, given that no court had struck down such a statute previously.

 

Judge Richardson wrote a brief, concurring opinion, emphasizing that “we address only this case and not the constitutionality of applying an ordinance like this one outside the context of investigatory stops,” noting that it could apply in other contexts, such as sobriety checkpoints or border crossings.