Many times, a drug arrest will result from a seemingly innocuous encounter on the street between a law enforcement agent a suspect.  On those occasions when an arrest results, the defendant will usually contend that the encounter was in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.  Those contentions usually fail because historically the cases have concluded that law enforcement agents can encounter a suspect or make a “field inquiry” without violating the Fourth or Fifth Amendments  of the Constitution.  Stated differently, a police officer can ask a question of any person on the street without violating any constitutional rights and that is so  because there is no seizure as that term is received in this area of the law.

A field inquiry can develop into a seizure, however, if the suspect is not free to leave because the police officer restrained the suspects freedom.  This is an extremely fact-sensitive question and turns on  whether an objectively reasonably person feels that the right to move has been curtailed.