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Chapter 4. Stop and Frisk. Introduction. Terry v. Ohio reasonable suspicion field interrogations are essential for investigating and detecting street crimes distinguished from custodial arrests purpose of protection “Reasonableness Clause” of the Fourth Amendment. Reasonable Suspicion.
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Chapter 4 Stop and Frisk
Introduction • Terry v. Ohio • reasonable suspicion • field interrogations are essential for investigating and detecting street crimes • distinguished from custodial arrests • purpose of protection • “Reasonableness Clause” of the Fourth Amendment
Reasonable Suspicion • balancing: • the need for swift action by an officer to investigate and to detect crime • the modest intrusion on individual privacy • requiring an officer to wait until he/she has developed probable cause would place society at risk • the facts relied on by the police officer are to be judged against the objective standard of whether the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure “warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate”
Terry v. Ohio • Three men engage in a “series of acts,” each of which may have been “innocent in itself, but which taken together warranted further investigation” • “It would have been poor police work indeed for an officer of thirty years’ experience in the detection of thievery from stores in the same neighborhood to have failed to investigate this behavior.”
Determining Reasonable Suspicion • facts cannot be “reduced to a neat set of legal rules” • case-by-case basis • articulable suspicion • objective standard of judgement • experience, expertise, and informants • totality of the circumstances • probabilities • probable cause vs. reasonable suspicion • various facts contributing to reasonable suspicion
Informants and Hearsay • secondhand information / hearsay reports • informants • victims • eyewitnesses • police bulletins • must posses an “indicia of reliability”
Informants and Hearsay (cont.) • informant credibility • information specificity • anonymous tips • reasonable suspicion is a “less demanding standard than probable cause” and may be based on less complete and less reliable information than is required for probable cause • Adams v. Williams and Alabama v. White
Drug Courier Profiles • typically are based on an analysis of the behavior of individuals who have been arrested in the past for crimes such as air hijacking and illegal immigration. • first profiles were developed to detect trafficking in illegal narcotics. • “Markonni drug courier profile” • three points concerning reliance on profiles • reasonable suspicion • suspect’s conduct • nonsuspicious conduct
Race and Reasonable Suspicion • racial profiling • to solely rely on race to stop an individual would be contrary to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments • sole factor • incongruity • identifications • profiles
Scope and Duration of Terry Stops • emphasis on “limited intrusion” • challenges focus on three areas • movement • length of detention • intrusiveness
Automobiles and Terry Stops • Pennsylvania v. Mimms • officers can make driver and passengers exit a stopped vehicle • purpose of officer safety • minor intrusion • three state supreme courts have have held that the police require reasonable suspicion to order a driver out of an automobile • two state supreme courts have held that an officer requires reasonable suspicion to order a passenger out of an automobile
Frisks • American criminals have a “long tradition of armed violence” • officers is entitled to protect him/herself by searching the outer clothing of a suspicion individual • a frisk is intended to protect the officer and others in the vicinity and that it must therefore be “confined to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs or other hidden instruments for assault of the police officer”
Frisks (cont.) • the officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed and presently dangerous • the test is whether a reasonably prudent man or woman under the circumstances would believe that his or her safety or the safety of others is at risk • a number of courts have approved “automatic” frisks in the cases of suspected drug trafficking
Frisks (cont.) • automobiles • Michigan v. Long • the search must be limited to those areas in which a “weapon may be placed or hidden” • narcotics • narcotics can be seized as a result of a frisk • immediate probable cause / immediately apparent • plain-feel doctrine
