From: patrik@cup.portal.com (Patrick M Crumhorn)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Supreme Court to review frisk restrictions (news story)
Date: Tue,  6 Oct 92 16:28:35 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

=START=   XMT: 11:26 Mon Oct 05  EXP: 11:00 Tue Oct 06 

U.S. SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW POLICE FRISK RESTRICTIONS 

WASHINGTON (OCT. 5) UPI - The Supreme Court Monday agreed to decide if a police
officer who conducts a warrantless pat-down search for weapons can now use the
opportunity to seize items that ''feel'' like drugs. 

The court agreed to hear an appeal by Minnesota, backed by 14 other states and
a dozen prosecutors groups, to a ruling that such police action violates the
Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. 

The Supreme Court in the past has said that warrantless searches violate the
Fourth Amendment, with a few specific exceptions. 

One exception was spelled out in 1968, when the court's ''Terry rule'' allowed
police to stop a person and search for weapons when they have: a reasonable,
articulable suspicion that the person may be involved in a crime, and; believe
the suspect is armed and dangerous. 

The ''Terry rule'' said when both factors are present, police can ''conduct a
carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such person in an attempt to
discover weapons which might be used to assault him.'' 

In this case, Minnesota wants the high court to rule that if, while conducting
a Terry frisk for weapons, an officer feels what he or she thinks is
contraband, the object can be seized. 

On Nov. 9, 1989, Minneapolis police on routine patrol saw a man leave a home
where they suspected drug use. The man changed course when spotting the police
car. 

Police followed the man, Timothy Dickerson, stopped him in an alley, and
conducted a pat-down search for weapons. 

During the frisk, an officer felt a small lump in Dickerson's jacket pocket
which he believed felt like crack cocaine. 

He removed the item, which turned out to be crack, and Dickerson was arrested. 

At trial, the officer testified that he had felt crack in clothing many times
before and was ''absolutely sure'' that the lump in Dickerson's jacket - no
bigger than a small marble - was crack. 

The trial court said the seizure of the cocaine was justified under what it
called a ''plain feel'' exception to the warrant requirement of the 4th
Amendment, which it likened to the accepted ''plain view'' exception. 

Under plain view, an officer who sees something which he or she has probable
cause to believe is illegal can at times seize the object without a warrant. 

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling in Dickerson's
case, and the Minnesota Supreme Court - by a 4-3 vote - agreed. 

''Because we do not believe the senses of sight and touch are equivalent, we
decline to extend the plain view doctrine to the sense of touch,'' wrote the
majority. 

Noting the officer's confidence that what he felt in Dickerson's jacket was
crack, the state's highest court said his sense of touch ''must compare with
that of the fabled princess who couldn't sleep when a pea was hidden beneath
her pile of mattresses.'' 

''There is no 'plain feel' exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth
Amendment,'' the court wrote. 

''If given long enough, most police officers, or civilians for that matter,
could pinch and squeeze and twist and pull and rub and otherwise manipulate a
suspect's jacket and figure out what is inside,'' the majority continued. ''But
the Fourth Amendment doesn't permit that type of intrusive conduct without a
warrant or probable cause to arrest, and police in this case had neither.'' 

The 14 states and prosecutors, in a friend-of-the-court brief, called the
Minnesota Supreme Court ruling a ''hypertechnical decision'' that ''deters
effective drug enforcement to the detriment of the public interest.'' 



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