Opinion ID: 2370077
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Terry v. Ohio and Michigan v. Long

Text: The issues, as articulated by McDowell, are based solely on the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and derive principally from two Supreme Court cases Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983). Because encounters between the police and persons whom they suspect may be both armed and engaging in unlawful activity have become so frequent, those cases, like other High Court landmarks dealing with police investigative procedures, have spawned their own jurisprudence. It is important, however, occasionally to go back to the font and take account of the basic governing principles. In Terry, the Court first recognized a limited right of a police officer to stop (seize) and frisk (search) a person for weapons upon a suspicion less compelling than probable cause. In doing so, the Court began by observing that the Fourth Amendment does not ban all warrantless searches and seizures, but only those that are unreasonable, and that the determination of what is reasonable or unreasonable involves balancing the need to search (or seize) against the invasion which the search (or seizure) entails. Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d at 905, quoting from Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 536-37, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1735, 18 L.Ed.2d 930, 940 (1967). See also Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 1805, 114 L.Ed.2d 297, 302 (1991). The precise issues in Terry were whether a search or seizure based on anything less than probable cause could be regarded as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and, if so, what alternative standard would suffice. In focusing on the required balance, the Court looked both to the general substantive nature of the government's interest in conducting the search and to how that interest must be demonstrated in a particular case. In its broadest aspect, the government's interest is in effective crime prevention and detection. Beyond that is the officer's more immediate interest in taking steps to assure himself that the person with whom he is dealing is not armed with a weapon that could unexpectedly and fatally be used against him, for it would be unreasonable to require police officers take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties. Terry, 392 U.S. at 23, 88 S.Ct. at 1881, 20 L.Ed.2d at 907. Thus, the Court confirmed the need for law enforcement officers to protect themselves and concluded that: 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 others, it would appear 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. Id. at 24, 88 S.Ct. at 1881, 20 L.Ed.2d at 908. Because that right must be balanced against the individual's right to be free from unreasonable restraint, the Court made clear that the former right is not unlimited, and that the manner in which the seizure and search were conducted is as vital a part of the inquiry as whether they were warranted at all. Id. at 28, 88 S.Ct. at 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d at 910. Thus, the seizure or search must be reasonably related in scope to the justification for [its] initiation. Id. at 29, 88 S.Ct. at 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d at 910. Because the justification for the search is solely protection of the officer or others and not by any need to prevent the disappearance or destruction of evidence, it must be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer. Id. In Terry, the officer merely patted down the outer clothing of the suspect and did not place his hands under that clothing until he had felt for and discovered weapons. He thus confined his search to what was minimally necessary to learn whether the suspects were armed and did not conduct a general exploratory search for whatever evidence of criminal activity he might find. Id. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d at 911. That all went to describe in general what a police officer may do. In justifying the need for the particular intrusion, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the intrusion and, in assessing whether the officer has done so, the facts must be judged against an objective standard, i.e., whether the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search [would] `warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief' that the action taken was appropriate. Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 906, quoting in part from Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162, 45 S.Ct. 280, 288, 69 L.Ed. 543, 555 (1925). The ultimate holding in Terry was articulated thusly: [W]here a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous ... and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him. Such a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.... Because the search at issue in Terry involved only a pat-down of the suspects' outer clothing, the Court addressed only that situation, leaving open whether, in the absence of probable cause, a protective search for weapons could extend beyond the person. That issue was resolved in Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983). To some extent as here, police officers on patrol late at night in a rural area observed a car being driven erratically. When the car swerved off the road into a shallow ditch and came to a halt, they stopped to investigate. The occupant, Long, exited the car, leaving the driver's door open, and met the officers at the rear of the car. When asked for a second time to produce his vehicle registration card, Long turned and walked toward the open door of his car. The officers followed and, upon noticing a large hunting knife on the floorboard, stopped him and subjected him to a Terry -type pat-down, which revealed no weapon. One of the officers then shined his flashlight into the interior of the vehicle and observed something protruding from under the armrest. He reached in, lifted the armrest, and noticed an open pouch, inside of which he saw a substance that he correctly believed to be marijuana. Long was then arrested. A search conducted incident to the arrest revealed a sizeable stash of marijuana in the trunk. The issue before the Court was whether Terry a protective search for weapons absent probable causeextended to the search of the interior of the car, and the Court held that it did. The Court observed that in Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) and Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), it had already extended Terry to investigative detentions involving suspects in vehicles, holding in Mimms that, during a traffic stop, the police could order persons out of the car and, upon a reasonable belief that they are armed and dangerous, frisk them for weapons, and in Adams that, acting on an informant's tip, they could reach into the passenger compartment and remove a gun from a driver's waistband, even when the gun was not visible from outside the car. Those cases recognized, and the Court again confirmed, that roadside encounters between police and suspects are especially hazardous, and that danger may arise from the possible presence of weapons in the area surrounding a suspect, and thus the Court concluded that: These principles compel our conclusion that the search of the passenger compartment of an automobile, limited to those areas in which a weapon may be placed or hidden, is permissible if the police officer possesses a reasonable belief based on `specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant' the officers in believing that the suspect is dangerous and the suspect may gain control of weapons. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. at 1049, 103 S.Ct. at 3481, 77 L.Ed.2d at 1220. Michigan v. Long is a Terry case; it represents an extension of Terry to areas and things in the interior of an automobile, but it does not enlarge, or lessen the standards for determining, what is permissible under Terry. The Court cited Terry throughout its opinion, and its ultimate conclusion was that: If, while conducting a legitimate Terry search of the interior of the automobile, the officer should, as here, discover contraband other than weapons, he clearly cannot be required to ignore the contraband, and the Fourth Amendment does not require its suppression in such circumstances. Id. at 1050, 103 S.Ct. at 3481, 77 L.Ed.2d at 1220.