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By Richard J. Chrystie, retired Los Angeles County deputy district attorney
Now that there is more information about the Daniele Watts situation, I offer some final thoughts based upon what we now know.
The 911 calls reported seeing a woman and a man engaged in sexual intercourse in a car with the door open. This is a violation of Penal Code section 647, subd.(a), engaging in lewd or dissolute conduct in any public place or place exposed to public view. So when the police responded to the 911 call and came upon the described couple in a car at the described location, they were lawfully entitled to detain the couple to investigate the reported crime.
Regarding demanding identification, open acts of sexual intercourse like this would lead to a reasonable belief on the part of officers that the woman was engaging in an act of prostitution. They don’t have probable cause to arrest, but they do have reasonable suspicion to detain. Since prostitutes very often have criminal records and are on probation, it would be reasonable for officers to obtain the identification of the woman to see if she has prostitution priors, if she is on probation for it, and if she has a search and seizure condition.
Thus, in accordance with the language of the Hiibel case (which I discussed in my posting last week), the request for identification was “reasonably related to the reason for the detention.” Therefore, when Miss Watts refused to provide her identification upon demand, she could then be arrested for delaying or obstructing an officer in the lawful performance of his duties in violation of Penal Code section 148, subd.(a)(1). So Miss Watts could have been arrested for refusing to provide her identification.
But there is another basis upon which Miss Watts could have been arrested. During the course of Miss Watts’ detention, she tried to walk away saying officers had no right to hold her. But a person who is lawfully detained cannot simply walk away. Doing so is also a violation of Penal Code section 148, subd.(a)(1). So she could have been arrested for that as well.
As authority for this, please note the following quotation from the case of People v. Lloyd (1989) 216 Cal.App.3d 1425,1429, in which a motorist walked away from an officer attempting to give him a ticket for a traffic violation: With no right to resist this lawful detention, Calvin’s conduct in quickly walking away from the officer rather than complying with the demand for identification provided the officer with probable cause to arrest him (Pen. Code, section 148).
The fact is the LAPD sergeant exercised wise discretion in deciding Miss Watts’s conduct -- although unlawful and contemptuous -- did not merit an actual arrest. The detention in the street and the temporary handcuffing was enough. So he let her go. She was lucky.
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The officer and officers showed an amazing amount of restraint and I dare say compassion for letting her go.
ReplyDeleteI still have a nagging suspicion it was some sort of publicity stunt.. but we'll never know that for sure.