Opinion ID: 2444991
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: connecticut precedents

Text: A review of this court's precedents indicates that we never before have adopted the broadly permissive approach to the scope of Terry stops, including routine traffic stops, championed by the state and suggested by the United States Supreme Court's recent decisions. This court consistently has concluded that, under our state constitution, a Terry stop must be both justified at inception and reasonably circumscribed. See State v. Wilkins, supra, 240 Conn. at 507, 692 A.2d 1233 ([a]rticle first, §§ 7 and 9, of our state constitution permit a police officer in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner to detain an individual for investigative purposes even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest [emphasis added]); State v. Lamme, 216 Conn. 172, 184, 579 A.2d 484 (1990) (circumscribed nature of Terry stop minimizes risk of due process violation under Connecticut constitution); State v. Edwards, 214 Conn. 57, 72, 570 A.2d 193 (1990) ([a] Terry stop that is justified at its inception can become constitutionally infirm if it lasts longer or becomes more intrusive than necessary to complete the investigation for which that stop was made [internal quotation marks omitted]); State v. Carter, 189 Conn. 611, 618, 458 A.2d 369 (1983) (The results of the initial stop may arouse further suspicion or may dispel the questions in the officer's mind. If the latter is the case, the stop may go no further and the detained individual must be free to go. If, on the contrary, the officer's suspicions are confirmed or are further aroused, the stop may be prolonged and the scope enlarged as required by the circumstances.  [Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.]). This court never has adopted the purely temporal analysis set forth in Caballes, Muehler and Johnson, and, in fact, has yet to cite to these cases. Therefore, our precedents weigh in favor of a more exacting analysis of the scope of a Terry stop than the purely temporal approach endorsed by the majority. Our jurisprudence also supports the specific rule that the defendant asks us to adoptthat an officer conducting a routine traffic stop must have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity unrelated to the initial traffic stop before asking for consent to search a vehicle. This court has required that a Terry stop be grounded upon reasonable and articulable suspicion that the individual has committed or is about to commit a crime; (internal quotation marks omitted) State v. Nash, 278 Conn. 620, 632, 899 A.2d 1 (2006); while a Terry frisk requires that the officer has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a suspect is armed and dangerous before [he] may commence a protective patdown search during an investigative stop. Id., at 633, 899 A.2d 1. Indeed, we have cautioned that, [b]efore [a police officer] places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. In the case of the self-protective search for weapons, he must be able to point to particular facts from which he reasonably inferred that the individual was armed and dangerous. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 631, 899 A.2d 1. Like the transition from a Terry stop to a Terry frisk, the transition from a routine traffic stop to a consent search involves a shift in purpose and procedure. As such, our precedents suggest this shift must be grounded in reasonable suspicion relevant to the police encounter's new direction, namely, reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity unrelated to the initial routine traffic violation.