Opinion ID: 779105
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Law Applied to the Casado Search

Text: 30 In judging the reasonableness of Investigator Storer's actions, we are mindful of the Terry Court's observation that because [s]treet encounters between citizens and police officers are incredibly rich in diversity, Terry, 392 U.S. at 13, 88 S.Ct. 1868, our determination of reasonableness must be moored to the concrete factual circumstances of the case before us, id. at 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868. We are cognizant of the limitations of the judicial function in controlling the myriad daily situations in which policemen and citizens confront each other on the street. Id. at 12, 88 S.Ct. 1868. And we heed the Supreme Court's admonition that 31 [a] court making [the] assessment [of reasonableness] should take care to consider whether the police are acting in a swiftly developing situation, and in such cases the court should not indulge in unrealistic second-guessing. A creative judge engaged in post hoc evaluation of police conduct can almost always imagine some alternative means by which the objectives of the police might have been accomplished. But [t]he fact that the protection of the public might, in the abstract, have been accomplished by `less intrusive' means does not, by itself, render the search unreasonable. Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 447, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); see also United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 557 n.12, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976). The question is not simply whether some other alternative was available, but whether the police acted unreasonably in failing to recognize or to pursue it. 32 United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686-87, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985) (internal citation omitted; last alteration in original). 33 We assume without deciding that Storer had a reasonable suspicion that Casado was in a position to gain immediate control of weapons. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983). We focus our inquiry on the second Terry requirement: that a search must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place. Terry, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868. And we conclude that Storer's search was not reasonably limited in scope to the accomplishment of the only goal which might conceivably have justified its inception — the protection of the officer [and the backup officers] by disarming a potentially dangerous man. Sibron, 392 U.S. at 65, 88 S.Ct. 1889. 34 Storer confronted Casado and ordered him to remove his hand from his right front pants pocket. For reasons not clear from the record, Casado did not comply, prompting Storer to take other measures. He took Casado's right hand out and away from Casado's pants pocket. There is no indication in the record that once Storer took Casado's hand out of the pocket, Storer could not have patted down the pocket to determine whether his fear of a weapon was justified, and then ... merely reached for and removed any weapon had he found one there. Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Yet Storer took the more intrusive step of reaching inside Casado's pocket and removing everything in it. Storer thus did that which the Supreme Court in Terry credited Officer McFadden for not doing: Storer place[d] his hands in [the suspect's] pocket[ ] ... [before Storer] had felt weapons. Id. at 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868. And he did what the Supreme Court in Sibron indicated was not reasonably limited in scope to the protection of the officer: [W]ith no attempt at an initial limited exploration for arms, [the officer] thrust his hand into [the suspect's] pocket and took from him [evidence of a crime]. Sibron, 392 U.S. at 65, 88 S.Ct. 1889. 35 The government argues that the search was reasonable based on Storer's testimony that Casado's failure to remove his hand from his pocket after repeated commands made Storer suspect that Casado was going to escalate the violence. Gov't Br. at 20 (citing Hr'g Tr. at 102). But this does not distinguish this case from Terry and Sibron in any significant way. It is simply a statement of the reason why Storer might have feared for life and limb and therefore initiated a Terry search. It provides no independent justification for the scope of the search he selected. As the Supreme Court observed in Terry and reaffirmed in Dickerson, a patdown is ordinarily an effective procedure for detecting a weapon even when the person being frisked is reasonably suspected of being armed and dangerous. See Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 376, 113 S.Ct. 2130 (The very premise of Terry, after all, is that officers will be able to detect the presence of weapons through the sense of touch....). The government's proffered justification — Storer's fear of violence — in itself supports no inference that something about Storer's and Casado's positions at the time of the search, or about Casado's clothing, prevented Storer from patting Casado's pocket effectively. Nor does the record indicate that the perceived danger would not admit of the delay required to feel Casado's pocket from the outside before reaching inside it. To the contrary, Casado had made no sudden or violent movements at any point during the encounter. Storer was in control of Casado's right hand, and had support from other officers on the scene. 36 To be sure, [t]he question is not simply whether some other alternative [to reaching inside Casado's pocket] was available [to Storer], but whether [he] acted unreasonably in failing to recognize or to pursue it. Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 687, 105 S.Ct. 1568. To determine whether the search was reasonable, we therefore must consider whether obvious, commonly employed, and effective alternatives were available under the circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Albarado, 495 F.2d 799, 808-09 (2d Cir.1974) (holding that a frisk of a person who set off an airport metal detector was unreasonable in part because of the availability of the common practice of asking the person to remove his metal objects and walk through the detector a second time). We are keenly aware that an analysis of the reasonableness of police conduct must allow for an officer's need to make quick decisions with limited information at the risk of injury or death to himself, other law enforcement officers, and bystanders. But that analysis is nonetheless necessarily informed by the options available to the police officer. The less intrusive alternative of a frisk was obvious, commonly employed, and would have been effective to achieve the sole legitimate purpose for conducting such a search — physical safety. 37 A patdown search of the sort that Storer chose not to employ, moreover, is hardly the type of abstract possibility that arises only in the imagination of [a] creative judge engaged in post hoc evaluation of police conduct. Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 686, 105 S.Ct. 1568. To the contrary, the patting of the suspect's outer clothing is precisely the form of search that the Supreme Court identified as reasonable in Terry and that Storer used routinely in performing his duties as a law-enforcement officer. 38 We acknowledge once again the infinite variety of situations in which a police officer may confront a suspect whom the officer reasonably fears is armed and dangerous. We do not exclude the possibility that in some circumstances a patdown is not required. 4 And we hesitate before criticizing Storer's choice of the means to protect himself in emergent circumstances on the street from the relative calm and safety of chambers. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). But we are not permitted to leave the choice of alternatives for self-protection entirely to Storer's discretion. Terry, Sibron, and their progeny teach that the Fourth Amendment protects Casado against an intrusion into his privacy either by a patdown or by an invasion of his clothing, but that the latter is more serious than the former, and that this difference has constitutional significance. Accord United States v. Vasquez, 638 F.2d 507, 521 (2d. Cir.1980) (asserting in dicta that if a weapon is feared, a `pat down' may suffice, and make unreasonable an actual search of the individual's pockets, citing Sibron, 392 U.S. at 65, 88 S.Ct. 1889). 5 We conclude that, as a matter of law on this record, Storer could have protected his safety and the safety of others by employing the less serious intrusion, a patdown, that the method was obvious and well known to him, and that there is no valid reason apparent on the record for his not using it. We therefore hold that the failure to use the patdown in these circumstances rendered the search unreasonable. 39 Storer's search of Casado's pocket therefore violated the Fourth Amendment, and the fruits of the search, including the contents of the pocket and the defendant's spontaneous statements upon their production, are inadmissable against him.