Supreme Court of Florida Holds that Officer Retaining License to Run Warrant Check Does Not Convert Consensual Encounter Into Unlawful Detention

In the recently-issued State v. Baez decision, the Supreme Court of Florida held that a consensual encounter, in which the officer asks to see the citizen's identification, is not turned into a unlawful seizure when the officer extends the encounter by taking the identification to his patrol car and running a warrants check.  The dissent criticized the majority decision for "appearing to create a category of police-citizen encounter that is neither fish nor fowl--neither a wholly consensual encounter nor a detention supported by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity."  [Mark Godsey]