Detentions and Consent: When Do Legal Searches Turn Illegal, and Potential Evidence Suppressed? 

• Consensual encounters 
• Detentions 
• Show of authority 

A “show of authority” by law enforcement officers may convert an intended consensual encounter into a detention. If such a detention is not accompanied by evidence that the detainee is engaged in criminal conduct, then the detention is illegal, requiring the suppression of any resulting evidence. The discovery during an unlawful detention that a detainee is on parole makes such a discovery, and the results of a parole search, subject to suppression. 

Defendant Jeremiah Paul was observed by two Los Angeles Police Department officers sitting in his Toyota Prius around 9 p.m. on March 7, 2020, in a residential area. The officers first noticed Paul because he was sitting there with his vehicle’s lights on. As the officers drove up next to Paul’s car, one of the officers “illuminated the Prius with his flashlight.” In response, Paul sunk lower in his seat as if “conceal[ing] himself from [the officers’] view,” an action Paul later denied, and the significance of, the court never discussed. One of the officers patrolled this area regularly and knew that a parolee lived across the street from where the Prius was parked. The driving officer then backed up the patrol car and stopped in the middle of the street with his ....