Opinion ID: 769380
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Controlling Fourth Amendment Principles.

Text: 35 In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the Supreme Court held that a police officer may conduct a reasonable search for weapons for his or her own protection without violating the Fourth Amendment where he[/she] has reason to believe that he[/she] is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual. Id. at 27. However, a pat-down for weapons can occur only where the police officer is able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. Id. at 21. The test is whether a reasonably prudent [person] in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his[/her] safety or that of others was in danger. Id. at 27. 36 There is testimony here that Kithcart was searched after the car he was riding in ran a red light. A traffic stop is lawful under the Fourth Amendment where a police officer observes a violation of state traffic regulations. United States v. Moorefield, 111 F.3d 10, 12 (3d Cir. 1997)(citing Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109 (1977). In order to minimize the dangers police officers routinely face, the reasoning of Terry has been extended to traffic stops. Id. at 13 (citations omitted). In Moorefield we held that, under Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997), police can conduct a limited weapons pat-down of a passenger of a lawfully stopped car so long as the constitutional requirements of Terry are met. Moorefield, at 13-14. In Moorefield, the police officer pointed to `specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,' reasonably warranted the pat-down. Id. at 14. We also stressed that an officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed so long as the officer's concern was objectively reasonable. Id. Thus, a police officer can, as a matter of course, order the driver, Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977), and the passengers, Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997), out of a lawfully stopped car. 37 The same Terry/Moorefield analysis would apply here even if the district court concluded that Green did not run a red light, and that Officer Nelson stopped his car based solely upon the radio transmissions she had heard, and her observations of the car and its occupants. However, we need not determine whether the district court erred in its analysis under Terry and Moorefield because we conclude that, under the circumstances here, the district court erred in allowing the government to reopen the suppression hearing and relitigate the suppression motion. 38