Mayo v. United States, 315 A.3d 606

Background

On Oct. 26, 2016 GRU officers in unmarked cars entered an alley in the Kenilworth neighborhood and approached a group of people “hanging out.”
Officers focused on 19‑year‑old Landon Mayo; from their vantage he made shoulder/waistband‑level movements with his back to them, but officers in the car could not see his hands or a bulge.
The three officers exited, followed Mayo, called out “Do you have any guns?,” and Mayo ran; Sgt. Jaquez dove and grabbed Mayo’s foot (causing him to stumble), but Mayo initially escaped and was stopped shortly thereafter by other GRU officers.
Officers recovered a handgun and drugs along Mayo’s flight path and on his person; Mayo was tried and convicted of gun and drug offenses.
The trial court first granted suppression, then reconsidered and denied it; a division of this court held the dive‑tackle constituted a Fourth Amendment seizure and that officers lacked reasonable articulable suspicion (vacated for en banc review); the en banc court reaffirms the division: seizure occurred at the dive and the stop lacked reasonable suspicion, so the fruits must be suppressed.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Gov’t)	Defendant's Argument (Mayo)	Held
Whether the dive‑tackle was a Fourth Amendment seizure	Not a seizure unless the officer’s force successfully restrained Mayo (relying on pre‑Torres precedent).	Any physical force applied with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the suspect escapes.	Dive‑tackle/grab was a seizure under Torres; intent to restrain + physical contact suffices.
Whether officers had reasonable articulable suspicion at the moment of the seizure to justify a Terry stop	Flight in a “high‑crime area” (plus perceived waistband movement) alone supplied reasonable suspicion (relying on Wardlow).	Flight must be evaluated in context; officers lacked particularized facts and the locational evidence was vague.	No reasonable suspicion: flight examined in totality; location evidence must be particularized and was too vague here; officer observations were ambiguous.
Role/weight of “high‑crime area” evidence in a Terry analysis	Labeling an area “high‑crime” justifies treating flight as strongly suspicious (per Wardlow).	General locational labels are conclusory; only specific, relevant locational details should be weighted.	Court rejects talismanic “high‑crime area” label; relevant locational evidence may inform suspicion only when specific, nonconclusory, and tied to the conduct.
Remedy for constitutional violation (suppression)	Evidence was admissible because seizure was lawful or because the fruit doctrine shouldn’t apply if later officers had independent grounds.	Evidence is fruit of the illegal seizure and must be suppressed.	Because the en banc review limited to suspicion issue, the court reinstates the division’s suppression holding: the gun and drugs are suppressed as fruits of the unlawful seizure.

Key Cases Cited

Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 307 (2021) (use of physical force with intent to restrain is a Fourth Amendment seizure even if the suspect escapes)
Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000) (flight in a high‑crime area is a contextual factor that may support reasonable suspicion)
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (police may conduct a brief investigatory stop upon reasonable articulable suspicion)
United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002) (reasonable‑suspicion inquiry is a totality‑of‑the‑circumstances commonsense analysis)
Hodari D. v. California, 499 U.S. 621 (1991) (discusses physical force and the concept of seizure)
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690 (1996) (reasonable‑suspicion/probable‑cause questions reviewed with de novo legal analysis and fact‑sensitive judgment)
District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018) (flight and furtive actions may be strong indicia of mens rea under the totality of circumstances)
Kansas v. Glover, 589 U.S. 376 (2020) (reasonable‑suspicion standard requires less than probable cause but must be more than a hunch)