A Professor’s Perspective on Detentions in a High-Crime Area 
By Ray Hill, Professor Emeritus 
Santa Rosa Junior College 

Refer to Case Alert: “Be Careful, This New State Supreme Court Decision May Change How You Do Your Job Today.” Case: People v. Flores, Cal #S267522, 2024 WL 1919992, 2024 Cal. Lexis 2293 (5/2/24) -LU Ref. #CAC0139 – Bob Phillips – 5/4/24. 

In their infinite legal wisdom, the California Supreme Court has unanimously decided that police officers cannot detain someone simply because that person tries to avoid interacting with them. The legal inference is that under these circumstances, you should conduct a contact or consensual encounter with this person or wait until they take off. Then a detention would be justified (Illinois v. Wardlow (2000) 528 U.S. 119).  

This is the most troublesome decision I’ve read from the California Supreme Court since the infamous “Rose Bird” era in the 1970s-1980s, where the court’s decisions tied the hands of law enforcement and ignored precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court. This led to the 1982 passage of Proposition 8, dubbed the Right-to-Truth-in-Evidence (Article 1, Section 28 of the California Constitution). Now, only relevant evidence that was obtained by violating the U.S. ....