Opinion ID: 1284985
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Stop-and-Frisk

Text: This court, like virtually every court in the country, has struggled with the problems of consistency in applying the legal standards for stop-and-frisk or investigatory stops to the infinite variety of factual situations encountered by law-enforcement officers. [7] In Terry v. Ohio, supra , the Supreme Court recognized that the police are in need of an escalating set of flexible responses, graduated in relation to the amount of information they possess. This need was balanced against the fact that [I]t is nothing less than sheer torture of the English language to suggest that a careful exploration of the outer surfaces of a person's clothing all over his or her body in an attempt to find weapons is not a `search.' In resolving these interests, the Terry Court concluded that: [W]e deal here with 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. Instead, the conduct involved in this case must be tested by the Fourth Amendment's general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. (Footnotes omitted.) Finally, the Terry Court concluded that reasonableness must necessarily be based upon specific information rather than mere hunches: [I]n justifying 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 that intrusion. In applying the analysis of Terry to cases arising in this jurisdiction, we have predictably been faced with a variety of fact situations. Using the rubric of reasonableness in analyzing these factual circumstances, we have refined a series of guiding principles, most of which were expressed or implied in Terry v. Ohio, supra , or its companion case, Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968). First, there must exist some legitimate basis for making a stop, or confronting the citizen in the first place. See People v. McPherson, supra ; People v. Branin, supra ; People v. Burley, 185 Colo. 224, 523 P.2d 981 (1974); People v. Martineau, supra ; Stone v. People, 174 Colo. 504, 485 P.2d 495 (1971); People v. Bueno, supra ; People v. Severson, Colo.App., 561 P.2d 373 (announced March 3, 1977). Generally, such stops have been upheld only when they have been based upon some articulable suspicion that the citizen was recently engaged, or was about to engage in criminal conduct. [8] The stops were, thus, investigatory in nature and based upon some specific information rather than a naked hunch. Compare People v. McPherson, supra , and People v. Corbett, Colo., 547 P.2d 1264 (1976), with People v. Martineau, supra . Cases have, however, recognized that other legitimate official purposes exist for brief detentions. See Terry v. Ohio, supra (assisting intoxicated person with no intention of arrest; mediation of domestic quarrel); People v. Davis, Colo.App., 565 P.2d 1347 (announced February 24, 1977) (traffic control, accident investigation, rendering firstaid, assisting disabled motorist). [9] Second, as a condition to the reasonableness of a frisk or pat-down of the citizen who is stopped, there must exist some specific facts in the citizen's reaction, or the circumstances surrounding the stop, which give the officer a rational basis for suspecting that the citizen may be armed. See Finley v. People, 176 Colo. 1, 488 P.2d 883 (1971); People v. Navran, supra (articulable factors in citizen's reaction to stop or in surrounding circumstances give rise to reasonable suspicion that the person is armed); People v. Shackelford, Colo.App., 546 P.2d 964 (1976). Balanced against this concern for a demonstrably rational basis for the frisk has, of course, been a recognition that these situations do not occur in an analytical vacuum. Officers are not required to precisely weight their observations before acting for a protective purpose. The root function of the articulable suspicion requirement has not been to ham-string officers facing dangerous street situations. Rather, it has been to establish a basis for post-hac judicial review to insure that the weapons frisk is not used as a substitute for a search incident to arrest or as a means of evading the normal warrant and probable cause requirements of the state and federal constitutions. See People v. McPherson, supra ; People v. Corbett, supra ; People v. Noreen, 181 Colo. 327, 509 P.2d 313 (1973); Finley v. People, supra ; see also People v. Stevens, 183 Colo. 399, 517 P.2d 1336 (1973). [10] Third, when an officer legitimately confronts a citizen, and has an articulable and reasonable basis for suspecting that the citizen is armed, he may act to protect himself by conducting a limited search of the person's clothing. [11] See People v. Navran, supra . Generally, this amounts to a frisk or pat-down of the exterior of the clothing. Only when some reasonable basis for believing that a weapon may be contained in the clothing, or that an exterior frisk will not be availing in detecting some specific weapon, is the further intrusion of reaching into the pockets or other areas of clothing permitted. Compare People v. Navran, supra (no basis for further intrusion where only small lump in shirt pocket felt); People v. Bueno, supra ; People v. Shackelford, supra . Again, the crux of this careful scrutiny of the weapons search is not to place the officer at a dangerous disadvantage, but to insure that the intrusion was truly based upon a protective purpose. We have condemned the nominal weapons search which, on the facts, can only have been aimed at procuring evidence. See People v. Branin, supra ; People v. Burley, supra ; People v. Noreen, supra ; Finley v. People, supra ; People v. Navran, supra ; People v. Shackelford, supra . Stated in other terms, the permissible scope of the weapons search is limited by its purpose. See People v. Corbett, supra ; People v. Taylor, supra (test is whether scope of frisk is limited to that which is necessary to the discovery of weapons); People v. Branin, supra (search not justified under Terry where it was a full-fledged exploratory search); People v. Burley, supra (brief search of car floorboard was one in which the scope of the search was reasonably related to the officers' fear that the defendant might have a weapon concealed beneath the car seat.). Finally, while the principles discussed above must not be mechanically imposed as rigid abstractions, they, likewise, cannot be ignored in given cases merely because of extraneous factual circumstances. The proper analytical method for evaluating stop-and-frisk cases abandons neither principles nor facts. The facts of this case indicate that the actions of Officer Cinquinta did not violate the defendant's rights. There was a legitimate basis for initially confronting the defendantthe service of the search warrant. In People v. Lujan, 174 Colo. 554, 484 P.2d 1238 (1971), we analyzed the longstanding principle that, subject to certain well-defined exceptions, prior notice of the execution of a search warrant is required. Officer Cinquinta correctly apprised the defendant that the officers were there to execute the search warrant. [12] When confronted with two officers about to engage in a search of his premises, the defendant suddenly made a motion to place his hand in his pocket. What may objectively appear to be furtive gestures are, of course, a common occurrence when a citizen is suddenly confronted with policemen asking questions. Accordingly, we have given careful scrutiny to this claim as a basis for suspecting that the citizen may be armed. A mere furtive gesture alone is often insufficient: A mere furtive gesture is subject to such varied interpretations, that it would be folly to allow great weight to be afforded such actions without more specific knowledge on the part of the officer. People v. McPherson, supra (emphasis added), citing People v. Goessl, 186 Colo. 208, 526 P.2d 664 (1974) (It is normal for lawabiding persons, as well as persons guilty of criminal activity, to be nervous when stopped by a policeman for a traffic offense.). When the person has been detained upon a legitimate basis amounting to more than mere general suspicion, sudden movements in reaction to the confrontation may take on more significance. See People v. Burley, supra (upholding search of floorboard where defendant was repeatedly reaching down as officers approached pursuant to traffic stop); People v. Martineau, supra (suspect ran, then hid in prone position as officers approached); Cowdin v. People, 176 Colo. 466, 491 P.2d 569 (1971) (warrantless auto search invalidated, noting we do not perceive a `furtive' gesture, absent prior underlying information which would form a basis for probable cause to believe the defendant possessed narcotics, as being a proper standard.); People v. Noreen, supra (remanding for findings on frisk where police had no background information on suspect, but who made unusual hand movements to his left rear pocket). Under the facts of this case, the officers had abundant background information on the defendant's activities. In addition to the facts contained in the affidavit supporting the search warrant, there was undisputed testimony by Officer Cinquinta that he was familiar with the defendant's rap sheet, which included prior charges of assault with a deadly weapon. In effect, the officers reasonably believed that they were telling a heroin dealer that he was about to be arrested. A sudden gesture to the effect of possibly pulling a weapon in that context was an ample basis for immediately taking protective action. Compare People v. McPherson, supra (absence of background information, no furtive gesture), and People v. Corbett, supra (same), with People v. Martineau, supra (suspicious presence of defendant earlier in evening near store break-in; defendant later ran and hid as officers approached at 4:00 a.m.). Officer Cinquinta's protective response in pulling the defendant's hand out of his pocket and then reaching into it also was not unreasonable. He suspected not only that the defendant was armed, but that he was actually reaching for a weapon. In that situation, to politely conduct a formal, exterior frisk and risk the defendant again reaching into his pocket would have been to court the possibility of disaster. See People v. Nefzger, supra (defendant suddenly placed hands in pocket when advised that police would frisk him); People v. Shackelford, supra (... when the defendant was asked to put his hands to his sides, he turned his left hand away so that the officers could not tell what, if anything, the defendant was holding in that hand. This surreptitious reaction to the frisk caused the officers to worry that the defendant might be palming a weapon or contraband.).