Title: Virginia v. Smith
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 092561
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: April 21, 2011

Present:  Kinser, C.J., Hassell, Lemons, Goodwyn, and Millette, 
JJ., and Lacy and Koontz, S.JJ.1 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 092561 
 
JUSTICE LEROY F. MILLETTE, JR. 
 
 
 
   
 
 
         April 21, 2011 
COREY TAYVON SMITH 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we address whether a frisk of a passenger 
conducted during a valid traffic stop was supported by 
reasonable suspicion based upon an alert by a police computer 
system that the passenger was “probably armed and a narcotics 
seller/user.” 
BACKGROUND 
 
Corey Tayvon Smith was a passenger in a vehicle stopped on 
September 18, 2007 by Richmond police officers, Robert Hedman 
and Steven Moore, for a broken rear brake light.  The officers 
asked the driver and Smith for their identification and 
processed that information using the Richmond police database 
known as PISTOL (Police Information System Totally On Line), 
which was accessed through a computer in the police patrol car.  
The PISTOL database returned an “alert” stating that Smith was 
“probably armed and a narcotics seller/user.”  Upon receiving 
                                                 
1 Former Chief Justice Hassell presided and participated in 
the hearing and decision of this case before his death on 
February 9, 2011; Justice Koontz participated in the hearing and 
decision of this case prior to the effective date of his 
retirement on February 1, 2011; Justice Kinser was sworn in as 
Chief Justice on February 1, 2011. 
the PISTOL alert, Officer Moore asked Smith to “step out” of the 
vehicle and Smith complied.  Smith denied having any weapons or 
drugs on his person in response to Officer Moore’s inquiry.  
Officer Moore stated that he was going to pat Smith down to make 
sure he did not have any weapons.  Smith replied to Officer 
Moore, “[Y]ou’re not going to search me.”  During the pat down, 
Officer Moore felt a gun in Smith’s front left pocket.  Officer 
Moore retrieved a .38 caliber “two-shot Derringer” from Smith’s 
pocket.   
 
Smith was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm 
by a convicted felon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.2.  Prior 
to trial, Smith filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained 
as a result of the pat down arguing that the search, based 
solely on the information obtained from the PISTOL database, was 
unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution.  During the suppression hearing, 
Detective Timothy Neville testified that he obtained a warrant 
on October 18, 2006 – eleven months before the incident at issue 
in this case – for Smith’s arrest for possession of a firearm by 
a convicted felon.  Detective Neville further testified that 
Officer Roger Harris arrested Smith on the warrant and placed 
the arrest information in the PISTOL system.  Detective Neville 
stated that this information would have caused the alert 
“probably armed” to be put into the PISTOL system.   
 
2
 
Smith argued that for a frisk to be lawful, it must be 
based upon reasonable suspicion of present criminal activity.  
Smith continued: 
If this were to be allowed, basically anybody that’s 
been convicted of a firearm offense within maybe a 
certain period of time, can be patted down with 
absolutely no other indication of suspicion for any 
other criminal activity any time the police come into 
contact with them.  And I would suggest to the Court 
that that has to be clearly wrong. 
 
 
In response, the Commonwealth argued that because PISTOL is 
the police’s own system, “there is inherent[] [re]liability 
[and] that [the police] should be able to rely on [PISTOL 
alerts] when they are out in the field doing their work.”  The 
Commonwealth further asserted the police should be permitted to 
use PISTOL alerts not only for determining whether criminal 
activity is afoot, but in order to protect themselves.   
 
After hearing argument from counsel and taking the motion 
under advisement, the trial court denied Smith’s motion to 
suppress, stating: 
The Court believes that under the circumstances of the 
search, the stop being appropriate, and there not 
being any challenge to the stop, and the officer 
receiving information with regards to the fact that 
the person had been known to carry firearms, did not 
act impermissibly in conducting a pat-down in the 
search, and the same was appropriate for purposes of 
the officer’s safety. 
 
 
Smith entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge.  At 
the hearing for the entry of the plea, the Commonwealth 
 
3
introduced a criminal conviction order showing that Smith had 
previously been convicted of both possession of a firearm by a 
person convicted of a felony, with an offense date of October 
18, 2006, and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, 
with an offense date of March 13, 2007.   
 
On appeal to the Court of Appeals, Smith asserted that the 
trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress.  The Court 
of Appeals agreed and reversed his conviction.  Smith v. 
Commonwealth, 55 Va. App. 30, 54, 683 S.E.2d 316, 328 (2009).  
In considering whether Officers Hedman and Moore had reasonable 
suspicion to frisk Smith, the Court of Appeals held that the 
holding of United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229-33 
(1985), “permits imputation of the knowledge of the officers who 
entered the information in the police department’s PISTOL system 
to Officers Hedman and Moore.”  Smith, 55 Va. App. at 42-43, 683 
S.E.2d at 322.  According to the Court of Appeals, 
[t]he officers who entered the data into PISTOL were 
not shown to have done so based on any more 
information than that [Smith] had been arrested for 
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon for an 
incident that had occurred eleven months earlier and 
possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute for 
an incident that had occurred six months earlier. 
 
Id. at 54, 683 S.E.2d at 328. 
Even though knowledge of the two arrests was imputed to 
Officers Hedman and Moore, the Court of Appeals concluded that 
“in the absence of some contemporaneous indication that the 
 
4
individual might be carrying a weapon, these facts do not 
provide reasonable suspicion to believe he may be presently 
armed and dangerous.”  Id. at 46, 683 S.E.2d at 324. 
We awarded the Commonwealth this appeal. 
DISCUSSION 
In its appeal to this Court, the Commonwealth raised a 
number of assignments of error generally asserting that the 
PISTOL alert combined with the public’s interest in officer 
safety qualified as sufficient reasonable suspicion to conduct a 
pat down search for weapons under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 
(1968).  In our view, the record supports the conclusion that 
Officers Hedman and Moore had reasonable suspicion to justify 
the frisk.2 
The standard of review in this case is well settled. 
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress 
evidence claiming a violation of a person’s Fourth 
Amendment rights, we consider the facts in the light 
most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing 
party at trial.  The burden is on the defendant to 
show that the trial court committed reversible error.  
We are bound by the trial court’s factual findings 
unless those findings are plainly wrong or unsupported 
by the evidence.  We will review the trial court’s 
application of the law de novo. 
 
Jones v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 665, 670, 691 S.E.2d 801, 803 
(2010). 
                                                 
2  Having reached this conclusion, we need not address other 
issues raised by the Commonwealth. 
 
5
As an initial matter, it is undisputed that the traffic 
stop was valid.  The only issue in this case is whether the 
subsequent frisk was supported by reasonable suspicion. 
Under settled constitutional principles, once a law 
enforcement officer has conducted a valid traffic stop, the 
officer is justified in conducting a frisk of the person for 
weapons if the officer reasonably suspects that the person 
stopped is armed and dangerous.  Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 
___, ___, 129 S.Ct. 781, 784 (2009).  In Johnson, the Court 
clarified that Terry stop and frisk principles apply to traffic 
stops: 
[I]n a traffic-stop setting, the first Terry condition 
– a lawful investigatory stop--is met whenever it is 
lawful for police to detain an automobile and its 
occupants pending inquiry into a vehicular violation.  
The police need not have, in addition, cause to 
believe any occupant of the vehicle is involved in 
criminal activity.  To justify a patdown of the driver 
or a passenger during a traffic stop, however, just as 
in the case of a pedestrian reasonably suspected of 
criminal activity, the police must harbor reasonable 
suspicion that the person subjected to the frisk is 
armed and dangerous. 
 
Id. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 784. 
In explaining the officer’s authority to conduct such a 
frisk, the Supreme Court has also stated: 
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.  And in determining whether the officer acted 
reasonably in such circumstances, due weight must be 
 
6
given, not to his inchoate and unparticularized 
suspicion or “hunch,” but to the specific reasonable 
inferences which he is entitled to draw from the facts 
in light of his experience. 
 
Terry, 392 U.S. at 27 (citations omitted). 
 
The Supreme Court recently reiterated its recognition that 
“traffic stops are especially fraught with danger to police 
officers.”  Johnson, 555 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 786 (internal 
quotation marks omitted).  Considering the danger posed to 
officers during traffic stops, the Supreme Court has held that 
“once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic 
violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out 
of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment’s 
proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures.”  
Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 111 n.6 (1977). 
 
Twenty years later, the Supreme Court extended the Mimms 
rule to passengers, holding that an officer may order passengers 
to get out of the vehicle during a valid traffic stop.  Maryland 
v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 415 (1997).  In Wilson, the Court 
recognized that “the same weighty interest in officer safety is 
present regardless of whether the occupant of the stopped car is 
a driver or passenger.”  Id. at 413.  The Court emphasized that 
the risk of a violent encounter during a traffic stop “stems not 
from the ordinary reaction of a motorist stopped for a speeding 
violation, but from the fact that evidence of a more serious 
 
7
crime might be uncovered during the stop.”  Id. at 414.  Lastly, 
the Supreme Court has stated that “officers who conduct routine 
traffic stop[s] may perform a pat-down of a driver and any 
passengers upon reasonable suspicion that they may be armed and 
dangerous.”  Johnson, 555 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 787 
(internal quotation marks omitted). 
In Terry, the United States Supreme Court, in announcing 
the “stop and frisk” rule, made this statement relevant to 
officer safety: 
Certainly it would be unreasonable to require that 
police officers take unnecessary risks in the 
performance of their duties.  American criminals have 
a long tradition of armed violence, and every year in 
this country many law enforcement officers are killed 
in the line of duty, and thousands more are wounded.  
Virtually all of these deaths and a substantial 
portion of the injuries are inflicted with guns and 
knives. 
 
 
In view of these facts, we cannot blind ourselves 
to the need for law enforcement officers to protect 
themselves and other prospective victims of violence 
in situations where they may lack probable cause for 
an arrest.  When an officer is justified in believing 
that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is 
investigating at close range is armed and presently 
dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear 
to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the 
power to take necessary measures to determine whether 
the person is in fact carrying a weapon and to 
neutralize the threat of physical harm. 
 
Terry, 392 U.S. at 23-24. 
In the context of a traffic stop in which multiple 
individuals were present in the vehicle, the officer’s knowledge 
 
8
of the driver’s, or the occupants’, prior criminal history is 
highly relevant in determining whether the officer had 
reasonable suspicion to conduct a pat down for his or her 
safety, particularly when that prior criminal history included 
weapons and dangerous narcotics violations.  In this case, after 
conducting a valid traffic stop, Officers Hedman and Moore were 
alerted via the PISTOL system that Smith was “probably armed and 
a narcotics seller/user.”  We agree with the Court of Appeals 
that the knowledge of the officers who entered the criminal 
history into the PISTOL system is imputed to Officers Hedman and 
Moore for purposes of assessing whether they had reasonable 
suspicion to frisk Smith.  Smith v. Commonwealth, 55 Va. App. 
30, 42-43, 683 S.E.2d 316, 322-23 (2009); see also United States 
v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229-33 (1985). 
In Hensley, the United States Supreme Court addressed 
whether police officers may stop an individual who is the 
subject of a “wanted flyer” while they attempt to find out if an 
arrest warrant had been issued.  469 U.S. at 223.  The Court 
held that where officers issue a flyer based upon reasonable 
suspicion that an individual had committed a criminal offense, 
and other officers, who lack personal knowledge amounting to 
reasonable suspicion, objectively rely on the flyer to conduct a 
stop, the validity of the stop turns on whether the officers who 
 
9
issued the flyer had the requisite reasonable suspicion.  Id. at 
232.   
We agree with the Court of Appeals that “the imputation-of-
knowledge principles used in Hensley to determine whether 
reasonable suspicion existed for a stop also apply to 
determining whether an individual, already being detained in the 
course of a legitimate stop, may be subjected to a weapons 
frisk.”  Smith, 55 Va. App. at 43, 683 S.E.2d at 323.  In 
determining whether the Fourth Amendment was violated, the issue 
before us is whether the information known to the officer making 
that PISTOL entry – coupled with the personal knowledge of 
Officers Hedman and Moore – was sufficient to provide reasonable 
suspicion for the frisk. 
The PISTOL system informed Officers Hedman and Moore that 
Smith was “probably armed and a narcotics seller/user.”  
Applying the imputation principles enunciated in Hensley, 
Officers Hedman and Moore also knew that Smith was arrested for 
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon eleven months prior 
to the stop at issue in this case.  This information, as 
Detective Neville testified at the hearing on Smith’s motion to 
suppress, was entered into the PISTOL system by Officer Harris.  
Detective Neville stated that this entry would have resulted in 
the “probably armed” portion of the alert.  Therefore, in 
assessing the PISTOL alert, Officers Hedman and Moore had a 
 
10
reasonable belief that Smith was a convicted felon, and that he 
had been charged and arrested for possession of a firearm by a 
convicted felon eleven months earlier. 
The Court of Appeals went further and assumed that the 
drug-related portion of the alert was based on Smith’s act of 
possessing with intent to distribute cocaine, which occurred six 
months prior to the stop that is at issue in this case.  Smith, 
55 Va. App. at 45, 683 S.E.2d at 323.  The Court of Appeals held 
that the record in this case established that the data entry 
officers also knew that Smith had been arrested for possessing 
cocaine with intent to distribute six months prior to the stop 
at issue in this case.  Id. at 45, 683 S.E.2d at 324.  
Accordingly, the Court of Appeals imputed this knowledge to 
Officers Hedman and Moore in assessing whether the officers had 
reasonable suspicion to justify the frisk of Smith.  In their 
briefs and during oral argument, the Commonwealth and Smith have 
adopted the Court of Appeals’ position that knowledge of both 
arrests was imputed to Officers Hedman and Moore. 
The details of Smith’s criminal record, the knowledge of 
which is imputed to the officers based on the language appearing 
in the PISTOL alert, and reasonable inferences to be drawn 
therefrom are critical in determining whether the officers had 
reasonable suspicion to believe Smith was armed and dangerous.  
First, the officers knew that Smith was a convicted felon.  
 
11
Second, they knew that despite having been convicted of a felony 
that prohibited his possession of a firearm, he was arrested 
eleven months prior to this encounter for possession of a 
firearm by a convicted felon.  Third, the officers knew that 
just five months after his arrest for possession of a firearm, 
which was also just six months prior to the date of this 
encounter, Smith was arrested for possessing cocaine with the 
intent to distribute, an offense that is closely associated with 
firearms due to the danger inherent in the drug trade.  See 
Jones v. Commonwealth, 272 Va. 692, 701 & n.3, 636 S.E.2d 403, 
407 & n.3 (2006); United States v. Grogins, 163 F.3d 795, 799 
(4th Cir. 1998) (“the connection between illegal drug operations 
and guns in our society is a tight one”). 
We find that a reasonably prudent police officer, in light 
of his experience, and with due regard to his own safety when 
executing a valid traffic stop, has reasonable suspicion that an 
individual may be armed and dangerous based upon the officer’s 
knowledge of the individual’s prior felony conviction, followed 
by repeated charges over the previous eleven months involving 
firearms and a drug offense closely associated with firearms. 
The remoteness of arrests and convictions or an absence of 
weapons-related or dangerous offenses in an individual’s 
criminal history may be such that the individual’s criminal 
history is not sufficient for an officer to reasonably be 
 
12
concerned about his safety or the safety of others in order to 
establish reasonable suspicion for a frisk.  However, in this 
case, Smith’s criminal history of a prior felony conviction, his 
arrest eleven months prior for possession of a firearm by a 
convicted felon, and his arrest six months prior for possession 
of cocaine with the intent to distribute, was sufficient to 
provide the officers with reasonable suspicion that Smith may be 
armed and dangerous, justifying a pat-down or limited search of 
his outer clothing for weapons. 
The cases cited by the dissent do not support the 
proposition that a prior criminal record involving arrests for 
weapons and intent to distribute narcotics violations cannot 
provide reasonable suspicion to support a frisk of a passenger 
conducted during a valid traffic stop, without additional 
evidence of the suspect’s appearance, or behavior, or the 
circumstances of the encounter providing an indication of 
criminal activity.  Further, those cases do not support the 
dissent’s belief that the majority opinion is at odds with 
United States Supreme Court precedent and departs from 
established Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.  
The majority of the cases cited by the dissent involve the 
first prong of the Terry analysis, that a brief investigatory 
stop of persons and vehicles is justified if the officer’s 
action is supported by reasonable suspicion that criminal 
 
13
activity may be afoot.  United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 
273 (2002).  For example, in United States v. Foster, 634 F.3d 
243, 245-26, 249 (4th Cir. 2011), a recent decision by the 
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, cited by 
the dissent, evidence discovered in the search of a glove box 
was suppressed based upon the improper stop of the vehicle.  
Nowhere in our opinion do we state that a police officer armed 
with knowledge of a suspect’s criminal record, even a record 
including firearms and narcotics, is justified in stopping an 
individual based solely upon that record, without additional 
circumstances supporting a reasonable suspicion that a crime has 
occurred or is occurring. 
As the Supreme Court clarified in Arizona v. Johnson, a 
“stop and frisk” is constitutionally permissible if two 
conditions are met.  555 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 784.  The 
first condition is that the investigatory stop must be lawful.  
Id.  As in this case, in which Smith was a passenger in a 
vehicle validly stopped for a traffic offense, that requirement 
is met when the police officer reasonably suspects that a person 
stopped (the driver) is committing or has committed a violation 
of the laws regulating the operation of motor vehicles.  The 
second condition is met when the police officer reasonably 
suspects that the person stopped (including a passenger in the 
stopped vehicle) is armed and dangerous.  Id. 
 
14
Although reasonable suspicion is required for both the 
initial stop or seizure and for the subsequent frisk, once there 
is reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred or may be 
occurring to justify a stop, there does not need to be 
additional reasonable suspicion that the passenger in the 
lawfully stopped vehicle is himself personally involved in 
criminal activity.  The inquiry turns on whether there is 
reasonable suspicion that the person subjected to the frisk is 
armed and dangerous.  Id. 
Among the cases cited by the dissent, several cases do 
involve frisks.  While several of those cases do state that a 
criminal record, standing alone, cannot create a reasonable 
suspicion to support a search or seizure, in none of the cases 
was a frisk suppressed based upon the reasoning argued by the 
dissent.  For example, in State v. Valentine, 636 A.2d 505, 510-
11 (N.J. 1994), a case affirming a conviction after denial of a 
challenge to a frisk, the New Jersey Supreme Court first stated, 
with a citation only to Terry, that a suspect’s criminal history 
alone is not sufficient to justify a frisk of a suspect or to 
justify a frisk of a suspect once stopped.  But then, 
immediately thereafter, the court states that “[i]n many 
instances, a reasonable inference may be drawn that a suspect is 
armed and dangerous from the fact that he or she is known to 
have been armed and dangerous on previous occasions.”  Id. at 
 
15
511.  And in State v. Giltner, 537 P.2d 14, 17 (Haw. 1975), also 
relied on by the dissent, evidence obtained by a frisk was 
suppressed because the seizure of the person was found to be 
“constitutionally impermissible.”  According to the Supreme 
Court of Hawaii, while the officer’s personal knowledge that the 
accused was armed on a previous occasion “might have been an 
important factor in determining the legality of the frisk 
itself, it could not supply the justification for the initial 
seizure.”  Id. 
It is not the fact that Smith had a criminal record that 
supplied the officers in this case with reasonable suspicion 
that Smith was armed and dangerous.  It was the specific 
information contained in the criminal record that supplied the 
officers with information that Smith, a felon, had been armed 
and dangerous on previous occasions based on his arrests for 
unlawful possession of a firearm and possession with intent to 
distribute cocaine. 
In McCain v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 546, 554-55, 659 S.E.2d 
512, 516-17 (2008), a case (like this one) in which nothing 
furtive or overtly illegal was observed about the vehicle’s 
passenger by the officers on the scene of the traffic stop 
justifying “reasonable, individualized suspicion” that the 
passenger was armed and dangerous, this Court held that the 
fruits of a pat-down search should have been suppressed because 
 
16
the only extrinsic information available to the officers was 
that the vehicle’s passenger had merely recently visited a 
certain home where narcotics were thought to be trafficked, some 
months before.  In the present case, the PISTOL report was 
received, containing further important criminal history 
information, which established the reasonable inference that 
Smith may be armed and dangerous from the fact that he was known 
to have been armed and dangerous on previous occasions.  This 
information provided reasonable, individualized grounds for 
suspicion that Smith “may be armed and dangerous.”  Johnson, 555 
U.S. at ___, ___, 129 S.Ct. at 784, 787; Terry, 392 U.S. at 23-
24, 27. 
The proper function of the PISTOL system includes alerting 
police officers who have made valid stops to information that, 
in and of itself, may cause a prudent officer to reasonably 
suspect that an individual may be armed and dangerous.  In this 
case, the unchallenged stop is an intrusion that was justified 
by the officers’ investigation of a suspected traffic offense.  
The officers’ requiring the occupants to exit the vehicle is 
justified by case law, which balances the interest in officers’ 
safety against the minimal intrusion of requiring the occupants 
to exit.  Upon learning of Smith’s criminal record of a felony 
conviction and recent arrests for firearm and narcotics 
violations, the officers, for their own safety as well as the 
 
17
safety of the community, were justified in questioning Smith 
further.  Not being relieved of their safety concerns by Smith’s 
denial of having weapons or drugs on his person, the officers 
were entitled to follow up the questioning with a limited search 
for weapons.  The frisk, which is only a limited pat-down of the 
outer clothing for weapons, was justified by the knowledge of 
Smith’s specific criminal history involving weapons and 
narcotics, which was imputed to the officers based upon the 
PISTOL system.  Only after he felt the gun during the frisk was 
the officer justified in reaching into Smith’s pocket and 
retrieving the gun. 
CONCLUSION 
For all of the foregoing reasons, we will reverse the 
judgment of the Court of Appeals, and enter final judgment 
affirming the conviction. 
Reversed and final judgment. 
 
JUSTICE GOODWYN, with whom SENIOR JUSTICE KOONTZ joins, and 
JUSTICE HASSELL concurs, dissenting. 
 
The majority holds that law enforcement officers could 
reasonably suspect Corey Tayvon Smith was armed and dangerous 
and frisk him because of Smith’s past criminal record, even 
though there was nothing about his appearance or behavior or the 
circumstances under which the police came in contact with him 
that would indicate that Smith was presently involved in 
 
18
criminal activity or armed and presently dangerous.  I believe 
that the majority opinion is at odds with United States Supreme 
Court precedent regarding rights afforded under the Fourth 
Amendment and departs from established Fourth Amendment 
jurisprudence.  As evidenced by the majority’s inability to cite 
any precedent supporting its position, no other court in the 
United States has found that an officer can conduct a frisk 
based solely on knowledge of an individual’s criminal record.  
Therefore, I must respectfully dissent. 
The only aspect in the majority opinion disputed by this 
dissent concerns whether the officers had reasonable suspicion 
to frisk Smith.  It is undisputed that the initial stop of the 
vehicle was proper.  It is also undisputed that the officers’ 
request for Smith’s identification and their background check on 
him were proper.  Additionally, it is undisputed that upon 
viewing the PISTOL alert that Smith was “probably armed and a 
narcotics seller/user,” the officers could order Smith out of 
the vehicle and vigilantly observe him during the traffic stop.  
However, without any additional factor suggesting Smith was 
armed and presently dangerous, the officers could not frisk 
Smith based solely on the PISTOL alert, because under settled 
constitutional principles, a generalized concern for officer 
safety is not enough to justify the frisk of a citizen.  A 
police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable 
 
19
facts showing that criminal activity may be afoot or that the 
person may be armed and presently dangerous in order to justify 
a pat down search.  See McCain v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 546, 
552, 555-56, 659 S.E.2d 512, 516, 518 (2008) (majority opinion 
and dissent, both citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)). 
Smith was a passenger in a vehicle stopped because of a 
defective brake light.  After stopping the vehicle in which 
Smith was riding, the officers requested and obtained 
identification information, not only from the driver but also 
from Smith.  The requested information was willingly provided. 
The officers checked and determined that there were no 
outstanding warrants for Smith’s arrest.  However, upon 
receiving an alert from the PISTOL system stating that Smith was 
“probably armed and a narcotics seller/user,” an officer asked 
Smith to step out of the vehicle and proceeded to frisk Smith.  
Smith was cooperative until he declined the officer’s request to 
frisk him.  The officers removed Smith from the vehicle and 
searched him solely because of the PISTOL alert. 
As pointed out by the Court of Appeals and by the majority, 
the Fourth Amendment analysis concerning whether the PISTOL 
alert supports the existence of a reasonable suspicion must 
focus on the facts known by the person or persons who entered 
the information into the PISTOL system.  Knowledge of those 
facts may be imputed to Officers Hedman and Moore in determining 
 
20
whether there was sufficient reasonable suspicion to justify 
frisking Smith. 
According to the majority, the facts, properly imputed to 
have been known by the officers because of the PISTOL alert, 
were that Smith was a felon who had been arrested for possession 
of a firearm eleven months prior to the stop and that he had 
been arrested for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute 
six months prior to the stop.  The majority concludes that 
knowledge of those facts concerning Smith’s criminal record was 
sufficient, without more, to create a reasonable suspicion that 
Smith was armed and presently dangerous.  Established Fourth 
Amendment jurisprudence is to the contrary. 
Under well-settled principles of law, police officers may 
stop a person for the purpose of investigating possible criminal 
behavior even though no probable cause exists for an arrest.  
Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.  A stop is permissible so long as the 
officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal 
activity may be afoot.  United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 
(1989).  During the course of a traffic stop, an officer may 
take certain steps to protect himself, such as asking the driver 
and any passengers to exit the vehicle.  Maryland v. Wilson, 519 
U.S. 408, 414-15 (1997).  However, “because a frisk or ‘pat-
down’ is substantially more intrusive than an order to exit a 
 
21
vehicle, . . . an officer must have justification for a frisk or 
‘pat-down’ beyond the mere justification for the traffic stop.”  
United States v. Sakyi, 160 F.3d 164, 169 (4th Cir. 1998).  
During a Terry stop, an officer may frisk a person if he 
develops reasonable suspicion during the stop to believe the 
particular person to be frisked is armed and dangerous.  Knowles 
v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 117-18 (1998); see Adams v. Williams, 407 
U.S. 143, 146 (1972).  Thus, there must be reasonable suspicion 
justifying the stop and reasonable suspicion justifying a frisk 
which occurs after a proper stop has been made.  The 
constitutional standard for both stops and frisks is the same – 
reasonable suspicion. 
The authority is unanimous in stating that an individual’s 
criminal record alone is not sufficient to support a finding of 
reasonable suspicion whether it regards a stop or a frisk.  See 
United States v. Rice, 483 F.3d 1079, 1085 (10th Cir. 2007) (“a 
criminal record, standing alone, is not sufficient to create 
reasonable suspicion of anything) (emphasis added); accord, 
United States v. Monteiro, 447 F.3d 39, 47 (1st Cir. 2006) 
(knowledge of a person’s prior criminal involvement or mere 
arrest is insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion); 
United States v. Mathurin, 561 F.3d 170, 177 (3d Cir. 2009) 
(criminal record alone insufficient to amount to reasonable 
suspicion); United States v. Johnson, 427 F.3d 1053, 1057 (7th 
 
22
Cir. 2005) (law enforcement officer’s knowledge of a suspect’s 
criminal history is not enough, in and of itself, to support 
existence of reasonable suspicion); Burrell v. McIlroy, 464 F.3d 
853, 858 n. 3 (9th Cir. 2006) (prior criminal history alone 
cannot establish reasonable suspicion); United States v. 
Laughrin, 438 F.3d 1245, 1247 (10th Cir. 2006) (law enforcement 
officers cannot disturb a person’s liberty solely because of a 
criminal record); Outlaw v. State, 17 P.3d 150, 157 (Colo. 2001) 
(knowledge of prior criminal record not sufficient to create 
reasonable suspicion).  
As a result, officers cannot justify an investigatory stop 
solely on the basis of an individual’s criminal record.  See 
United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45, 59 (2d Cir. 1977) 
(“investigative stops certainly cannot be made ‘merely because 
[the detainees] have criminal records or bad reputations’”); 
Carter v. State, 692 N.E.2d 464, 467 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997) 
(officer’s mere knowledge of defendant and his prior criminal 
record was not sufficient to justify the investigatory stop); 
Commonwealth v. Morgan, 248 S.W.3d 538, 541 (Ky. 2008) (prior 
record of a suspect, standing alone, will never justify a Terry 
stop); State v. Collins, 479 A.2d 344, 346 (Me. 1984) 
(investigative stop cannot be made merely because person has a 
criminal record).  Likewise, an individual’s criminal record, 
alone, is not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion for a 
 
23
frisk.  See United States v. Miranda, 393 Fed. Appx. 243, 245-46 
(5th Cir. 2010) (prior criminal conduct, standing alone, cannot 
create a reasonable suspicion to support a search or seizure); 
United States v. Hairston, 439 F. Supp. 515, 518 (N.D. Ill. 
1977) (prior conviction cannot justify search and seizure in 
absence of other circumstances); State v. Giltner, 537 P.2d 14, 
17 (Haw. 1975) (“The reputation of an individual for carrying 
arms is not, in and of itself, a sufficient basis for a stop and 
frisk.”); State v. Valentine, 636 A.2d 505, 550 (N.J. 1994) 
(permitting the use of suspect’s prior criminal history alone to 
justify a Terry frisk may lead to unwarranted intrusions on a 
suspect’s constitutional protections).  As stated by the Supreme 
Court of Maryland, “[T]o allow the reasonable articulable 
suspicion standard to be satisfied based upon a person’s 
[criminal] status, rather than an individualized assessment of 
the circumstances, would undermine the purpose [of] requiring 
officers to justify their reasons for searching a particular 
individual.”  State v. Nieves, 861 A.2d 62, 77 (Md. 2004). 
There is no authority to support the majority’s proposition 
that a prior criminal record involving arrests for weapons and 
intent to distribute narcotics is sufficient to provide 
reasonable suspicion to support a frisk, without any additional 
indicators that the individual is armed and presently dangerous.  
While a person’s criminal record is among the proper factors to 
 
24
be considered in determining if reasonable suspicion exists, no 
other jurisdiction has found that a person’s criminal record, 
standing alone, creates a reasonable suspicion to support a 
search or seizure.  In fact, every other jurisdiction in the 
United States that has considered the issue has decided the 
opposite.  Each has required some additional evidence of a 
suspect’s appearance or behavior or circumstances regarding the 
encounter, in addition to the defendant’s criminal record, to 
support the existence of a reasonable suspicion. 
In Valentine, for example, the Supreme Court of New Jersey 
affirmed a Terry frisk based on a review of the totality of the 
circumstances.  After approaching a suspect believed to be 
engaged in criminal activity, the officer initially became 
alarmed because the defendant had his hands in his pockets.  636 
A.2d at 512.  The officer developed further suspicion when the 
defendant offered weak excuses in response to the officer’s 
questions, refused to make eye contact, and repeatedly looked 
around the area.  Id.  This encounter occurred after midnight on 
a dark street known to the officer as a high-crime area.  In 
addition, the officer recognized the defendant as someone who 
had a long history of criminal activity, including armed 
robberies and weapons offenses.  Id. at 512-13.  Thus, as has 
heretofore all other jurisdictions, the Supreme Court of New 
Jersey required evidence of other contemporaneous observations 
 
25
or circumstances, in addition to knowledge of the suspect’s 
criminal history, to justify a Terry frisk.  Id.; see also, 
e.g., United States v. Stachowiak, 521 F.3d 852, 856-57 (8th 
Cir. 2008) (officer’s knowledge that defendant was likely to be 
armed, coupled with the observation of defendant’s furtive 
gesture and refusal to cooperate, provided reasonable suspicion 
to believe officer in danger); Rice, 483 F.3d at 1084 (facts 
justifying frisk include defendant’s presence in high crime area 
at 2:30 a.m., officer’s observation of car slowing 
intermittently in a manner consistent with preparing for a 
burglary or drive-by shooting, officer’s observation that car 
did not have a tag light, and computer check identifying 
defendant as known to be armed and dangerous);  Collins, 479 
A.2d at 346 (frisk justified by officer’s belief that defendant 
may have been armed on a prior occasion and the defendant’s 
belligerent behavior on this occasion). 
As recently as last month, the United States Court of 
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reiterated the heretofore 
established jurisprudence concerning the issue.  “A prior 
criminal record is not, standing alone, sufficient to create 
reasonable suspicion.  [The investigating officer] was required 
to pair his prior knowledge of [defendant’s] criminal record 
with some more ‘concrete factors’ to demonstrate that there was 
a reasonable suspicion of current criminal activity.”  United 
 
26
States v. Foster, 634 F.3d 243, 245-46 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal 
citations and quotation marks omitted). 
In its opinion, the majority does not pair the officers’ 
knowledge of Smith’s prior criminal involvement with more 
concrete factors that would be necessary to create a reasonable 
suspicion that Smith was presently engaged in criminal conduct 
or was armed and presently dangerous at the time of the frisk.  
Instead, the majority holds that knowledge of Smith’s past 
criminal record was sufficient, by itself, to create a 
reasonable suspicion that Smith was armed and presently 
dangerous.  The majority opinion contravenes all previous 
precedent on the issue. 
In this case, the officers knew there was no outstanding 
warrant for Smith’s arrest at the time he was searched.  In 
addition, they neither observed nor discerned any present 
circumstances to support any suspicion that Smith was engaged in 
criminal activity or that he was armed and dangerous.  There is 
no evidence in the record indicating that the officers observed 
Smith or the driver engage in any furtive behavior tending to 
indicate the presence of a weapon or some sort of contraband or 
other criminal activity.  There is no indication that the 
officers saw any signs of weapons, drugs or other contraband on 
the person of the car’s occupants or in the vehicle.  In fact, 
the record is completely devoid of any evidence that the 
 
27
characteristics of the area surrounding the stop, the time of 
the stop, the conduct, behavior or appearance of Smith, or the 
character of the offense they were investigating (defective 
brake light and/or trespass) in any way support the conclusion 
that Smith was engaged in criminal conduct or armed and 
presently dangerous.  It is undisputed that the officer frisked 
Smith based solely upon the PISTOL alert. 
Whether the Fourth Amendment has been violated is a 
question to be determined from all the circumstances.  Samson v. 
California, 547 U.S. 843, 848 (2006).  Review of the existence 
of probable cause or reasonable suspicion involves application 
of an objective, rather than a subjective, standard.  Terry, 392 
U.S. at 21-22; Bass v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 470, 475, 525 
S.E.2d 921, 923 (2000).  In its analysis of the reasonable 
suspicion issue, the majority properly imputes knowledge of 
Smith’s criminal history to the officers.  However, in 
evaluating the totality of the circumstances, the majority does 
not consider information known to the officers in addition to 
that provided by the PISTOL alert.  Having been informed that 
there was no outstanding arrest warrant for Smith, the officers 
knew that after reviewing Smith’s criminal record and being 
aware of the previous charges, a judicial officer had found 
either that the charges were not valid, or that despite the 
charges, Smith need not be incarcerated because he was not a 
 
28
danger to the public.  See Code § 19.2-120.  They also knew 
Smith was stopped only because he was a passenger in a car with 
a defective brake light and that they had not observed anything 
to lead them to believe he was presently involved in criminal 
activity or that he was armed and presently dangerous.  The 
officers’ knowledge of Smith’s prior felony conviction and the 
two arrests in the eleven months before the encounter with the 
police are not, without some contemporaneous observation 
indicating criminal activity or present dangerousness, 
objectively sufficient to support a reasonable suspicion that 
Smith was presently involved in criminal activity or that he was 
armed and presently dangerous and thus subject to being frisked 
in compliance with the Fourth Amendment. 
In apparent contravention of previous precedent, the 
majority holds that certain people, because of their criminal 
record, are subject to a pat down search if stopped for a minor 
traffic violation, regardless of whether the police have any 
contemporaneous objective indicia of their current involvement 
with criminal activity or of their being armed and presently 
dangerous.  Inherent in the majority opinion’s ruling is the 
conclusion that individuals, who have been determined by a 
judicial officer to be sufficiently safe to release from 
custody, may be presumed by law enforcement officers to be armed 
and dangerous.  Such a presumption is the type of “hunch” the 
 
29
Supreme Court of the United States has admonished should not be 
allowed in determining the constitutional propriety of a search.  
See Terry, 392 U.S. at 27. 
Reliance on the PISTOL database is a useful tool that can 
improve officer safety.  However, its use must comply with the 
requirements of the Fourth Amendment.  When the officers’ 
investigation indicated that Smith had been lawfully released 
from custody, despite the fact that he was a felon who had been 
arrested twice in eleven months, the officers did not have the 
right to search him without observing something about his person 
or behavior or having some additional information that would 
lead them to believe he was engaged in criminal activity or 
armed and presently dangerous at the time of the frisk.  The 
decision of the majority results in the ironic situation in 
which individuals deemed by the legal system to be safe enough 
to be released into society can be regarded by police officers 
as inherently dangerous to the point that they can be frisked 
solely based upon an officer’s knowledge that they have been 
charged and lawfully released. 
For these reasons, and the reasons stated by the Court of 
Appeals in its decision, I respectfully dissent.  I would affirm 
the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
 
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