Court Opinion

ID: 9480788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:58:16.265492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:54.212353
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I would also remand this case to the District Court for reconsideration of the locked-suitcase search issue, but my reasons for the remand and my theory of the case are somewhat different from the Court’s. I do not see the pat-down search of the defendant’s person by the female officers as an illegal search. I would attribute no significance to the fact that the female officers did not search the defendant’s genital area. The breakdown of Victorian values notwithstanding, I would not fault a female officer for failing to touch a male suspect’s groin in conducting a search of the person. Social sensitivity about ster-eognosis of the male groin should not been seen as sexual “stereotyping,” as the Court suggests. Nor would I suggest that compunctions about the stereognosis of the breasts and genital area of a female suspect “stereotypes” the male officer. Officers should continue to have some sense of “delicacy,” as the Court calls it.
With this out of the way, it seems to me standard procedures for officers to pat down suspects where there are grounds for a stop. Terry v. Ohio allows a “stop and frisk” in these circumstances. Many officers have been injured or killed in the past because they have failed to frisk suspects for concealed guns and knives. I find nothing unreasonable about the pat-down search which instead of turning up a weapon turned up marijuana.
*268Therefore, I conclude that the pat-down search was legal and that the arrest based upon the marijuana was lawful. I would, therefore, remand the case to the District Court for reconsideration in light of the lawfulness of the search and the arrest, reversing the District Court’s conclusion that the search and arrest were unlawful.