A warrantless seizure is per se unreasonable unless it falls within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement. State v. Dalton, 165 N.H. 263, 265, 75 A.3d 1140 (2013). One such exception is an investigatory stop.
For such a detention to be lawful under the State Constitution, the police must have "reasonable suspicion—based on specific, articulable facts taken together with rational inferences from those facts—that the particular person stopped has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity." State v. Dalton, 165 N.H. 263, 265, 75 A.3d 1140 (2013) (quotation omitted). The scope of the stop, however, must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification, must be temporary, and must last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.
Finally, the State argues that "[t]he totality of the circumstances establishes that the defendant gave free, knowing, and voluntary consent to search his residence." When reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the trial court's factual findings unless they lack support in the record or are clearly erroneous, and we review its legal conclusions de novo . State v. Dalton, 165 N.H. 263, 264, 75 A.3d 1140 (2013), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 1313, 188 L.Ed.2d 330 (2014). Because the defendant places significant emphasis upon whether the pre-consent search was lawful under the Federal Constitution, we first address this issue under the Federal Constitution.