Opinion ID: 390190
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: supreme court decisions defining the stop and frisk doctrine

Text: 100 As the majority opinion recognizes, appellants White and Anderson were seized by the police well before they were formally placed under arrest at the hood of the car. Assuming that probable cause for arrest existed after Detective Hill examined the tinfoil that fell from the car, the issue for this court is whether any seizure that took place before that moment offended the Constitution. The questions before the court are whether the initial detention amounted to an arrest without probable cause, and if not, whether it nonetheless constituted an unreasonable seizure. 101 The starting point for any discussion of an unconstitutional detention must be the Fourth Amendment, which provides in part that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, against unreasonable seizures, shall not be violated. 6 Because the amendment does not use the word arrest, but refers to seizures, any discussion of arrest and lesser seizures derives entirely from the case law. Consequently, a brief review of the Supreme Court's holdings on seizures is useful to set out a doctrinal framework. 102 The seminal Supreme Court case discussing seizures, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), 7 dealt with the role of the Fourth Amendment in the confrontation on the street between the citizen and the policeman investigating suspicious circumstances. Id. at 4, 88 S.Ct. at 1871. In Terry a detective observed three men apparently casing a store for a robbery. The detective approached the men, identified himself, asked for their names and, fearing that the would-be robbers may have had guns, patted their outer clothing for weapons. The detective discovered that two of the three men were carrying guns. 103 The Supreme Court affirmed the petitioner's conviction for carrying a concealed weapon. The Court reasoned that since the Fourth Amendment does not forbid all searches and seizures, but only unreasonable ones, the issue is whether in all the circumstances of this on-the-street encounter, (the petitioner's) right to personal security was violated by an unreasonable search and seizure. Id. at 9, 88 S.Ct. at 1873. 104 The reasoning in Terry made clear that a stop and frisk is a seizure and is thus governed by the Fourth Amendment. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has 'seized' that person. Id. at 16, 88 S.Ct. at 1877. However, the Court made clear that a seizure occurs only when some police coercion is used: Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves 'seizures' of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a 'seizure' has occurred. Id. at 19 n.16, 88 S.Ct. at 1879 n.16. 8 105 The Court held that the weapons search, which of necessity involved a seizure of the petitioner, was legitimate so long as the 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. Id. at 24, 88 S.Ct. at 1881. The officer's belief would be justified only if 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 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. Id. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883 (footnote and citations omitted). At another point, the Court in Terry stated that the officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879 (footnote omitted). 106 As a later case noted, Terry departed from traditional Fourth Amendment analysis in two respects. First, Terry defined a special category of Fourth Amendment 'seizures' so substantially less intrusive than arrests that the general rule requiring probable cause to make Fourth Amendment 'seizures' reasonable could be replaced by a balancing test. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 208, 210, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2255, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). Second, the Court approved this narrowly defined less intrusive seizure on grounds less rigorous than probable cause, but only for the purpose of a pat-down for weapons. Id. 107 In a companion case to Terry, Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968), the Court applied the new stop and frisk rule. In Sibron an officer watched the appellant as he spoke with several narcotics addicts in a restaurant. 9 The officer approached Sibron and asked him to step outside, telling Sibron you know what I'm after. Sibron mumbled something in reply and reached into his pocket. The officer also reached into Sibron's pocket, discovering several packets of heroin. 108 The Court reversed Sibron's conviction for unlawful possession of heroin on the basis of the newly announced Terry rule: If Patrolman Martin lacked probable cause for an arrest, however, his seizure and search of Sibron might still have been justified at the outset if he had reasonable grounds to believe that Sibron was armed and dangerous. Id. at 63, 88 S.Ct. at 1903. Holding that the officer never had reasonable grounds to believe Sibron to be armed, 10 the Court found it unnecessary to decide at what point a seizure had taken place i. e., whether at the request to go outside or during the search of the appellant's pocket. 109 The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person whom he sees on the street or of whom he makes inquiries. Before he places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. 110 Id. at 64, 88 S.Ct. at 1903. 111 The Supreme Court elaborated on the Terry stop and frisk rule in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). In that case, a person approached a police officer he knew and told the officer that the petitioner, who was seated in a nearby car, was carrying drugs and had a gun in his waistband. The officer approached the petitioner's car and asked him to open the door. When the petitioner rolled down the window, the officer reached inside the car and removed a gun from petitioner's waistband. The officer then arrested the petitioner for unlawful possession of a gun. 112 In discussing the meaning of Terry, the Court stated that a brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time. Id. at 146, 92 S.Ct. at 1923. Furthermore, the policeman making a reasonable investigatory stop should not be denied the opportunity to protect himself from attack by a hostile suspect. Id. Thus, the Court identified two legitimate purposes behind a forcible stop, short of an arrest: to maintain the status quo and to protect the officer during the brief investigation. Nothing in Adams permits even a brief search except a need, based on articulable facts, to protect the officer. 113 The Court in Adams affirmed the petitioner's conviction, finding that the officer had acted reasonably. First, the informant was known to him personally and had provided him with information in the past. This is a stronger case than obtains in the case of an anonymous telephone tip. Id. (emphasis added). 11 Second, the informant here came forward personally to give information that was immediately verifiable at the scene. Id. 12 The Court explicitly distinguished tips completely lacking in indicia of reliability from reliable ones for example, when the victim of a street crime seeks immediate police aid and gives a description of his assailant, or when a credible informant warns of a specific impending crime. Id. at 147, 92 S.Ct. at 1923. 13 When the petitioner rolled down his window instead of stepping out of his car, the threat of the gun was even greater, and the policeman's limited intrusion designed to insure his safety was reasonable. Id. at 148, 92 S.Ct. at 1924. 14 114 United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975), involved a pure stop that is, a seizure not involving a protective search like the one in Terry. In that case, federal Border Patrol officers stopped a car sixty-five miles from the Mexican border because the occupants of the car looked like Mexican nationals. The officers asked the occupants to indentify themselves and to justify their presence in this country. After discovering that some of the occupants were Mexican nationals not legally in this country, the officers arrested the occupants of the car. 115 The Supreme Court struck down the driver's conviction for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, holding that the officers did not have sufficient grounds to stop the car in the first place. The Court reaffirmed the principles set forth in Terry, stating that whenever  'a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has seized that person' and the Fourth Amendment requires that the seizure be 'reasonable.'  Id. at 878, 95 S.Ct. at 2578, quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). 15 The test of reasonableness depended on a balancing of the public interest and the interference with individual liberty that results when an officer stops an automobile and questions its occupants. Id. at 879, 95 S.Ct. at 2579. Although the Court found this intrusion to be modest, such a stop was permissible only if (the officers) are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the vehicles contain aliens who may be illegally in the country. Id. at 884, 95 S.Ct. at 2581 (footnote omitted). 16 In short, such a stop even absent the search for a weapon can be made only if the Terry standards are met. As the Court noted in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979), absent a reasonably warranted suspicion of criminal activity, the balance between the public interest and (the individual's) right to personal security and privacy tilts in favor of freedom from police interference. 116 Two conclusions can be drawn from Brignoni-Ponce. First, the police can stop a vehicle if they have reasonable suspicion to believe criminal activity is afoot, even though the person stopped presents no danger to the officer or anyone else. Second, the scope of legitimate police activity during a stop is narrowly limited to brief questioning. 17 Consequently, Brignoni-Ponce implicitly reenforces the Terry holding that frisks which are an additional intrusion beyond the stop are not permitted unless the officer reasonably fears for his safety. 18 117 A very recent Supreme Court case, United States v. Cortez, -- U.S. --, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981), has reaffirmed the principles set forth in Brignoni-Ponce. In Cortez, Border Patrol officers found several sets of human footprints in the desert near the Mexican border. The footprints, plus other evidence, indicated to the officers that several groups of people had travelled north from the Mexican border to a U.S. Highway on weekend nights during clear weather. In each set of prints was a distinctive shoeprint of a chevron design. From this consistent marking, the officers concluded that an individual wearing shoes making those markings had been illegally leading Mexican nationals across the international border. 118 Based on their own direct observations of likely criminal activity, the officers set up surveillance of the area on the next clear weekend night. Having calculated the approximate transit time of a vehicle from their vantage point to the suspected pickup point (where the footprints ended), the officers observed vehicles traveling toward the pickup point and returning at a later time. Since the footprints had indicated that groups of eight to twenty people were illegally crossing the border, the officers focused their attention on vans, campers and the like. 119 After waiting for several hours, the officers observed one vehicle that aroused their suspicion because of its transit time, travel route and size. They stopped the vehicle, and after a consent search of the truck, discovered Mexican nationals illegally in this country. The sole issue before the Supreme Court was whether the stop was legal under Terry standards. 120 Citing Brignoni-Ponce, the Court held that (b)ased upon (the totality of the circumstances) the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. Id. at --, 101 S.Ct. at 694. While the police may rely on their training and experience in reaching reasonable inferences from the facts before them, the facts must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing. Id. As Justice Stewart stated in a concurring opinion, the Border Patrol Officers had discovered an abundance of 'specific and articulable facts' which, 'together with rational inferences from them' entirely warranted a 'suspicion that the vehicle( ) contain(ed) aliens who (might) be illegally in the country. Id. at 4103 (Steward, J., concurring) (quoting United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 884, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2581, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975)). 121 A significant development in the Fourth Amendment law covering citizen-police confrontations occurred in Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977). In Mimms, an officer stopped Mimms' car after he noticed it was being operated with an expired license plate. After approaching the car, the officer demanded that Mimms get out of the vehicle. Once Mimms was out of the automobile, the officer saw a bulge at Mimms' waist, frisked him, and discovered a loaded revolver. Mimms was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and an unlicensed firearm. 122 The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, basing its per curiam opinion on the Terry and Brignoni-Ponce standards of reasonableness. Since there was no issue that the initial stop was reasonable no one disputed that the car was being operated unlawfully the Court's analysis focused on whether the order to get out of the car, issued after the driver was lawfully detained, was reasonable and thus permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 109, 98 S.Ct. at 332. Even though there was nothing suspicious about the driver's behavior, the Court considered the safety of the officer weighty enough to justify the incremental intrusion in ordering the driver out of the car. The Court expressly noted that 123 we do not hold today that whenever an officer has an occasion to speak with the driver of a vehicle, he may also order the driver out of the car. We hold only 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. Id. at 111 n.6, 98 S.Ct. at 333 n.6. 19 124