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Alexander v. Municipality of Anchorage12/15/2000
ion or to an established police facility, we should no longer rely on generalized speculation about what some other arrestees might do. Instead, the law should focus on the specific circumstances of this particular arrestee's case. In Alexander's case, the question is whether Alexander gave any indication that it would be unsafe to allow him to handle the telephone himself. The record indicates that the answer is no.
I say "indicates" because Judge Finn apparently upheld the handcuffing on generalized concerns for officer safety; she and the parties never specifically focused on the question of whether there were case-specific reasons to keep Alexander handcuffed behind his back during the telephone call. For this reason, I would remand Alexander's case to the district court. The government should be allowed to present evidence of any case-specific reasons why it was prudent to keep Alexander handcuffed behind his back while he conferred with his attorney.
If the government proves that there were articulable reasons to believe that Alexander would pose an unacceptable danger if his cuffed hands were switched to the front of his body during the telephone call, then I would uphold the legality of the behind-the-back restraint and the admissibility of the resulting breath and blood tests. But if the government fails to present evidence that Alexander was unruly or violent, that he was acting unpredictably, or that his words or conduct gave Officer Goldberg any other articulable reason to believe that it would be dangerous to let Alexander handle the telephone, then I would rule that Goldberg violated Alexander's right to consult his attorney in relative privacy - and that the district court should have granted Alexander's motion to suppress the results of these chemical tests.
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