Terry stop
A Terry stop in the United States allows the police to briefly detain a person based on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity.
[3] In the United States at the federal level, the Supreme Court has decided many cases that define the intersection between policing and the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The police conducted a pat down search and discovered a revolver, and subsequently, two of the men were convicted of carrying a concealed weapon.
[9] The men appealed their case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the search in which the revolver was found was illegal under the Fourth Amendment.
This brief detention and search were deemed permissible by the court, judging that the officer had reasonable suspicion which could be articulated (not just a hunch) that the person detained may be armed and dangerous.
[10] This decision was made during a period of great social unrest in the United States in the 1960s, with rising crime, opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, and race riots.
Some criticized the decision for watering down the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures; others praised it for balancing safety and individual rights.
These subjective influences naturally create the opportunity for bias on the part of police officers who possess animus toward a certain class of people.
[14] Merely identifying that a person belongs to a broad category, such as physical location, race, ethnicity or profile, is insufficient for reasonable suspicion.
However, stop-and-frisk has been validated on the basis of furtive movements, inappropriate attire, carrying objects such as a television or a pillowcase (in English law, "going equipped"), vague, nonspecific answers to routine questions, refusal to identify oneself and appearing to be out of place.
While the original case was concerned with armed violence and firsthand observation by officers, Adams v. Williams (1972) extended the doctrine to drug possession substantiated by the secondhand hearsay of an informant.
[6] Regarding the case, Justice Marshall stated: "Today's decision invokes the specter of a society in which innocent citizens may be stopped, searched, and arrested at the whim of police officers who have only the slightest suspicion of improper conduct.
[19][20] In Illinois v. Wardlow (2000), a person's unprovoked flight from Chicago police officers in "an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking" constituted reasonable suspicion to stop him.
[23] In New York, courts have limited the effects of Terry by creating a four-level continuum of intrusion, each of which requires its own level of suspicion.
United States v. Mendenhall found that police are not generally required to advise an individual that the stop is on a consensual basis nor that the person may leave at any time.
[6] A frisk, also known as a pat-down, of the surface of a suspect's garments is permitted during a Terry stop but must be limited to actions necessary to discover weapons and must be based on a reasonable suspicion the individual may be armed.
The officer is legally permitted to open the pack because he has prior knowledge, based on experience, that a small switchblade or tiny gun could be hidden in such a box.
In Michigan v. Long, Terry stops were extended to searching the inside of a car passenger compartment if police have reasonable suspicion that an occupant may have access to a weapon there.
[31] Based on the Supreme Court decision in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1972), a person waives Fourth Amendment protections when voluntarily consenting to a search.
Justice Marshall, in his dissent, wrote that it is a "curious result that one can choose to relinquish a constitutional right—the right to be free from unreasonable searches—without knowing that he has the alternative of refusing to accede to a police request.
The Supreme Court has held that drivers and passengers may be ordered to exit the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures.
They occur when a police officer wishes to investigate a motorist on other suspicions, generally related to drug possession, and uses a minor traffic infringement as a pretext to stop the driver.
In the case of Whren, the defense used a "would-have" rule, asking whether a reasonable police officer would have made the stop without the suspicion of other criminal behavior.
[36] Sixteen states ban pretextual stops based solely upon racial profiling or other immutable factors:[37] Police officers may develop schemas after continuously being exposed to certain environments, like high-crime minority neighborhoods, which can lead to their association of crime with race instead of focusing on suspicious behavior.
[43] SQF tactics were found to disproportionately target minorities, regardless of control over variables like social and economic factors, precinct crime rates, and neighborhood racial or ethnic composition.
[16] Kwate and Threadcraft argue that stop and frisk is a public health problem and works to "produce bodies that are harassed, stressed and resource deprived, if not altogether dead".
[44] Stop and frisk creates an environment of fear that alters the behaviors of a community's inhabitants and limits their freedom of action.
[16] Items that are discovered during pat-downs that are incriminating, like clean needles, condoms, and other harm reduction tools, are used less to prevent arrest; this then is a danger to public health.
[48] Researchers have analysed 20 million traffic stops from this data finding that African Americans as a share of the population were twice as likely to be pulled over than whites and four times as likely to be searched.
[52] Our conclusion that no seizure occurred is not affected by the fact that the respondent was not expressly told by the agents that she was free to decline to cooperate with their inquiry, for the voluntariness of her responses does not depend upon her having been so informed.
