Opinion ID: 390190
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Distinguishing Between An Investigatory Stop and An Arrest

Text: 15 The Supreme Court first recognized the legitimacy of an investigatory stop in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Terry defined such a stop to include an entire rubric of police conduct necessarily swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat which historically has not been, and as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure. Id. at 20, 88 S.Ct. at 1879. In such situations, the Court held, police actions must be tested by the Fourth Amendment's general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures, id., rather than by the strict probable cause standard traditionally applied to judge arrests. See also Bailey v. United States, 389 F.2d 305, 314 (D.C.Cir.1967) (Leventhal, J., concurring) (citing Dorsey v. United States, 372 F.2d 928, 931 (D.C.Cir.1967)) (If policemen are to serve any purpose of detecting and preventing crime by being out on the streets at all, they must be able to take a closer look at challenging situations as they encounter them.). 16 The Court has frequently reminded us since, however, that the Terry exception was meant to be of narrow scope, Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93, 100 S.Ct. 338, 343, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979), and not a means by which to legalize otherwise illegal arrests. Indeed, in Terry's companion case, Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917, (1968), the Court reversed the conviction of a defendant 19 because it found the challenged search to be incident to an illegal arrest 20 rather than part of a valid investigatory stop. See also Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979) (detention of suspect at police station for interrogation indistinguishable from traditional arrest and not a valid Terry stop). Terry authorizes no more than (a) brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), and permits a limited search not to discover evidence of a crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence. Id. The initial stop cannot be a random exercise, see Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) (reversed drug conviction based on evidence obtained in purely random search), but must be justified by specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). 21 17