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In another thread, I said:

Whether or not Terry stops are a good idea, I'm not the definitive opinion. I'm uncomfortable with them, because I can see how that authority can easily be abused......but I also can see the utility of the practice from the law enforcement side well enough to understand that as long as it isn't abused, it can be another good tool in the LEO toolbox.........as long as it isn't abused and heavy handed.

I suppose that I should define that more clearly....

As I stated, I am generally speaking uncomfortable with the whole idea of it for 4th Amendment reasons; but I can also understand how, if legitimately applied, a Terry stop can be a useful tool in the law enforcement "armatorium" (a word taken from pharmaceuticals to describe an array of possible pharmaceutical choices in the treatment of certain diseases/symptoms). But it is also ripe for abuse, and whether or not it is abused depends entirely on the integrity of the officer using the tool..........just like an officer's use of his firearm, or his authority to drive Code 3, etc.

Unfortunately, I think that the temptation to abuse the authority is too prevalent. Someone above mentioned how on the "Cops" TV show, officers frequently use the "I smell marijuana" excuse to conduct a search. Well that is kind of under the "he who smelt it dealt it" fart accusation. I can claim that I smell a fart, that doesn't mean that the other person farted. It could just as easily mean that I farted........if I had ever even done such a vile thing in my entire life......and it could just as easily mean "there's no fart, but I'm going to falsely claim I smell one so that I can manufacture an excuse to search all up in your.....uh.....car's trunk. The "I smell marijuana" excuse to conduct a search just isn't something that qualifies as empirical evidence of anything at all. The "Cops" program only shows the stops where the officer did indeed actually smell marijuana. It's safe to say that they never show the episodes where a less than honorable cop used it as a phony excuse to conduct a search. And what can happen with a false claim of smelling marijuana when the cop doesn't find anything? Well, if he's really crooked, he'll plant some weed in your car to backup his phony claim. that way, you can't file a complaint against him.

So what does a "legitimate" Terry stop look like? "See that? There's a joint on your front seat, so I'm going to search your car. Take a seat on the curb."

The thing is, I honestly don't believe that most LEOs are that crooked. In fact, I would venture to say that the bad apples are outnumbered 500 to 1. But the ill will that just ONE bad officer can generate in a community is what I would call a force-multiplier for evil. Good law enforcement is too important to a just society to allow the one bad apple to stay employed on the taxpayer dime.

So while Terry may be a good tool in the honest cop's armatorium, maybe it is better to simply eliminate it so that it can't be abused by the bad ones. I don't claim to actually know if that would be a good idea or not. But what I do know is that it's too easy to abuse, and so it shouldn't be as easy to use as it is.

thatguyoverthere wrote:I voted for "unconstitutional" but I'm really more half-and-half. How's that for sitting on the fence!

Seriously, if a person is stopped ("temporarily detained" I think is the phrase?) then under certain conditions, the LEO may need to do a "frisk" for his own safety. I don't have too much of a problem with that.

However, the LEO better have a REAL good, clearly defined reason to stop that person in the first place. That's where I get the heartburn.

My problem with it is that "I smell marijuana" is too easy to make up as a phony excuse to search. It's not quantifiable. It's not empirical. What if a cop claims that he smells marijuana, and uses that as the excuse to search your vehicle.......and finds nothing......because there is nothing to find? It invites two things, neither of which is good: (1) it invites an examination of a clean cop's reliability as an expert and "friend of the court"; and (2) it invites a crooked cop to plant something in your car to account for his untruthful claim of smelling marijuana (or crack, or gunpowder, or whatever).

I agree that there are situations where an officer should have the ability to temporarily detain someone, even frisk them, if it is for their own safety. The problem is, where is the bright line that distinguishes the legitimate application from the illegitimate? There isn't one, and it is far too easy for a bad cop to get away with this stuff, particularly when a lot of the people whom they will abuse this way have neither the education, resources, or inclination to confront a bad cop on his home turf (his chain of command at the police station) through the process of filing complaints and/or pursuing litigation - the only two forms of redress that will both correct a bad cop AND provide redress to the innocent citizen whose rights have been violated.

I absolutely believe in "backing the blue". It is a hard and sometimes dangerous job which, in my personal opinion, is underpaid. But good policing is an absolute necessity underpinning a just and orderly society, and so there can be ZERO tolerance for abusing the rights of a citizen under the color of authority conferred by a badge. If that means that sometimes a guilty party gets away without charges for some relatively minor infraction, like possession of weed, that is better than the wholesale disregard for the constitutional rights of the population at large. So if a cop smells marijuana - or at least thinks he smells marijuana - unless he sees the physical evidence laying there in plain sight, or actually sees the subject smoking a joint, he should just let it go. After all, how does he know that the smell isn't comin from the nearby bushes or houses where somebody IS smoking weed, having nothing at all to do with the subject in the vehicle he has stopped? And even if it is obvious that the smell is coming from inside the subject's car, unless he sees marijuana smoke drifting out the window at the time of the stop, how does he know that the smell isn't coming from someone else having smoked a joint in that car two days prior? The fact is, he doesn't. And finally, how much of a danger is someone who has a mild buzz on to an investigating officer? Heck, I used to smoke that stuff 45 years ago, and I was never a danger to any cop.....because like most people, including most people who smoke weed, I am not nor have I ever been predisposed to violence against anybody, let alone against police.

So I am uncomfortable with that kind of thing because it is ripe for abuse. Not saying that most cops abuse it. I'm just saying that it is too easy to abuse if a cop were so inclined. So when a fellow citizen is given that much authority by virtue of the badge, the standards of acceptable behaviors need to be tighter, not looser. I say pay the police better, hire only those who have a decent education with good grades, subject them to very high standards of evidence gathering, provide them with counseling without stigma attached to help them handle the job stresses AND to remind them that the people with whom they interact are, for the most part, their fellow citizens, train them to have a due reverence for what the rights and guarantees of citizenship means, and then come down like a ton of bricks on those officers who violate the standards.

It can be difficult to be a good cop, but it is not impossible, as demonstrated by the literally hundreds of thousands of good cops who go to work every day to make our world a better place. God love them for it. But this nation BADLY needs to return to a due reverence for our most basic rights, because the bad apples in the police barrel are a direct reflection of the society we live in, and the gov't under which we labor. I won't say we deserve better, because we get what we vote for. But I will say that we should deserve better......because we should vote better.