Court Opinion

ID: 9491413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:13:26.825284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:43.520964
License: Public Domain

BEAM, Circuit Judge,
concurring.'
I concur in the result reached by the court and I agree that Glenn’s weapon would have been “inevitably discovered.” However, I would not reach that issue because I believe that Officer Thompson did not violate Glenn’s Fourth Amendment rights in the first instance. We deal here with a protective frisk described in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). This security “pat down” was conducted just before Glenn, a legally detained traffic violator, was placed in the rear seat of the police vehicle so that Thompson could turn his attention toward checking Glenn’s licenses, registrations, warrants and other relevant information.
While the . constitutional analysis under Terry is necessarily fact specific, it is essentially an objective test. Cf. Klingler v. United States, 409 F.2d 299, 304 (8th Cir.1969). It is my view that anytime the circumstances surrounding a traffic stop allow, as here, the placing of a detainee inside a police car with a lone officer, the so-called Terry doctrine permits an out-side-the-clo.thing security search. Thus, under the facts of this case, a reasonable police officer was constitutionally entitled to carry out the protective frisk conducted by Thompson. Accordingly, I would affirm Glenn’s conviction on that basis.