I haven't read Terry in a long time, but I remember the holding summarized as this: For officer's safety, a police officer may conduct a brief pat down search for weapons, when based on specific and articulatable facts he has a reasonable suspicion that a person is engaged or about to engage in criminal activity, and that the person is armed. The scope of the search (pat down for weapons) is limited by the basis of the stop (reasonable suspicion).Jusme wrote:It all comes down to the Fourth Amendment. If the police are given Carte Blanc to stop and frisk anyone that they can say looked suspicious, then they can stop almost anyone, because after all people who wear hooded sweatshirts have committed crimes, people wearing traditional Muslim clothing have committed crimes, teenagers have committed crimes, middle aged men in business suits have committed crimes. Where does it stop?
The Terry facts were exactly when I want a police officer to get involved - officer watching thugs case a store in preparation for a robbery. Waiting for the robbery to start is foolish. "Stop and frisk" as defined by Terry is clearly constitutional. However: 1) I feel like Terry has been abused and expanded in ways violent to our right to be secure in our persons, papers, and effects. 2) I agree with the intimation that police inevitably provide the "specific and articulatable facts" after the fact.
IMHO, relying on the court to find something unconstitutional is too late. Not only does the court get things wrong, but it's decisions are based on a dated, misunderstood, document setting the outer limits of legal. We have a right (and a duty?) to set the boundaries of policing at something more restrictive than the broad sweeping outer limit of the constitution.
Acronym 9/28/2016 2:20 PM