The rationale behind the Supreme Court decision revolves around the notion that, as the opinion argues, "the exclusionary rule has its limitations."

[3] It was historically viewed as a "low visibility" police procedure and was "largely ignored by commentators and dealt with ambiguously by most courts.

[7] On October 31, 1963, police officer Martin McFadden was on duty in downtown Cleveland, Ohio when he noticed two men standing on a street corner.

The trial judge denied his motion on the basis that the stop-and-frisk was generally presumed legal, and Terry was convicted.

[10] If this case involved police conduct subject to the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment, we would have to ascertain whether "probable cause" existed to justify the search and seizure which took place.

But we deal here with an entire rubric of police conduct—necessarily swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat—which historically has not been, and as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure.

Neither intrusion required that police have the higher level of "probable cause" that would be needed to arrest or to conduct a full search.

"[12] Our evaluation of the proper balance that has to be struck in this type of case leads us to conclude that there must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime.

The officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.

[13] The court then applied these legal principles to McFadden's actions with Terry and found that they comported with the "reasonable suspicion" standard.

McFadden had years of experience as a policeman and was able to articulate the observations that led him to suspect that Terry and the other men were preparing to rob the store.

[13] The court ended its opinion by framing the issue very narrowly, saying the question it was answering was "whether it is always unreasonable for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is probable cause for an arrest.

[15] Justice Byron White joined the opinion of the court but suggested: There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets.

He also criticized it for "fail[ing] to strike a meaningful Fourth Amendment balance between effective law enforcement and individual freedom.

In Michigan v. Long,[21] the Supreme Court ruled that car compartments could be constitutionally searched if an officer has reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous.

[citation needed] The court most recently cited Terry v. Ohio in the 2009 case of Arizona v. Johnson, in which the court unanimously ruled to further expand Terry, granting police the ability to frisk an individual in a stopped vehicle if there is reasonable suspicion to believe the individual is armed and dangerous.