Opinion ID: 392708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: a stop and detention of appellants

Text: 12 Admittedly, the agents had a well founded suspicion that the appellants were engaged in drug trafficking, thus justifying, at least, a momentary detention of them for investigative purposes. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). 13 Based upon the same reasons, the officers likewise had a well founded suspicion that the suitcases contained the narcotics; therefore, they were justified in detaining the suitcases for further investigation. United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U.S. 249, 90 S.Ct. 1029, 25 L.Ed.2d 282 (1970). Such a detention in both instances was a seizure to be judged by fourth amendment standards, for it was apparent from the moment the agents announced that a narcotic investigation was underway, they would not have permitted either the appellants to leave or their luggage to be removed during the brief investigation. 14 As the Terry Court points out, for fourth amendment purposes, whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has 'seized' that person. 392 U.S. at 16, 88 S.Ct. at 1877. After referring to the difficulties other courts have experienced in attempting to distinguish between a stop not requiring probable cause, and an arrest which does, the Supreme Court said: 15 In our view the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, and to make the scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central element in the analysis of reasonableness. 16 392 U.S. n.15 at 18, 88 S.Ct. at 1878. 17 The Court then proceeded to balance the minimal intrusions which a momentary stop and frisk detention would cause a citizen, against the necessity of protecting the police in their law enforcement endeavors, and held that a momentary stop for the purpose of making brief inquiry and for frisking for weapons was a reasonable seizure within the fourth amendment. 18 Some twelve years after Terry, the Supreme Court decided Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), in which it recognized Terry as an exception to the well established prohibition of arrests without probable cause, and held that because any detention by a police officer is such a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment, the Terry exception must be narrowly construed allowing only momentary stops for on-the-spot questioning. In Dunaway, the Court specifically disapproved a detention of approximately twenty minutes, which became an in-custody interrogation. 19 In our view, however, Terry and Dunaway and their progeny relate to detention of persons and not inanimate objects. The rationale relied upon by the Court in those cases is inappropriate as applied to things, a seizure of which constitutes a substantially less serious intrusion upon rights of the individual. 2