Supreme Court Says Passengers Can Be Frisked

The Associated Press



WASHINGTON --

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

The court on Monday unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter.

The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Eloy, Ariz., man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana.

The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.

The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

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The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.

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Domestic Security Investigations
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Anti-Moral Majority Club President
"Fear not the unknown, Fear the person who controls the unknown" Gene 7:14

This is a scary decision.

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN

I agree with the decision as far as officer safety but I also have to disagree with the decision. I disagree with it because I feel it can give the officer too much leeway to search the passenger just because he thinks the passenger may be armed.

That is nothing more than a Terry Pat. That has been going on for many moons. I dont see why it took a SCOTUS ruling? An officer has leeway to perform a Terry Pat anytime they come in contact with you.

I dont agree with it, but nothing has really changed any.

I don't know. There was another ruling by the Supreme Court not long ago that allowed anything found from a traffic stop that was made without probable cause could be used against the person(s) in the vehicle. I think that slowly but surely our rights are being taken away from us "for the greater good."

I haven't tested this theory, but heard it many years ago, about frogs, crawfish, lobsters, etc. If you drop them in a pot of boiling water, they will fight to get out. If you put them in a pot of cold water and heat it gradually, they will let themselves get boiled and not fight the death. I feel this is what is happening to our country. By taking away our rights slowly, we aren't fighting against losing them. Once we have no rights, we will no longer have the ability to fight for them. That right will have been taken away as well.

My state law states that there has to be "cause" for an initial contact. Further, an officer cannot initiate contact for the purpose of finding evidence to use against a suspect. In other words, I can't be harassed solely for the purpose of trying to find something to use against me. They can only make contact if I am doing something illegal or suspicious.

It is always a good thing to take a bad person off the streets, but it leads more and more to corruption and abuse. As our rights are taken away, innocent people will be made to suffer anytime one in power wants to make them. Read the news. Consider your own experiences.

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Kathy Blackshear
Blackshear Investigations
Blackshear Bail Bonds
Sales Associate, Prepaid Legal Services, Inc.
Walsenburg, CO

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club

Crabs, lobsters, and crawfish will grab onto each other. If one tries to break away or get out, the rest will hold that one back. This is like todays society, also. Anyone that tries to "rise above" will get bashed, slammed, trashed, and spoken about, negatively. Then my grandfather used to say "It is impossible for anyone to take pop shots at those that do not rise above the croud". So, between these two, it explains the mentality of "the haters" when dealing with go getters and other motovated people.

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Thomas SnoWolf
FRN# 1999
GAPB 20120726
NSIS ST0707
http://www.rocksolidrg.com
"The hero is not the man that acts without fear,
He is the man that acts inspite of fear"

Scott,
NEVER let the short sided-ness of others hamper your goals. To achieve greatness, one must endure the sacrifices that force weaker individuals to quit, including denying oneself the vacations, etc. that are nothing but distractions to the type "A" over achievers.

NEVER measure yourself by the accomplishments of others. Be pure in your ambitions and accept detractors as a compliment from a weaker individual. They know their quality of work better than anyone and are easily threatened by a better person.

Remember, nothing real is painted and mirrors lie sometimes. It is lonely at the top. You are the target for people who chose an easier path, believing it is easier to build themselves up by taking you down, then applying the tenacity and integrity that will allow you to reach the pinnacle. There is no short cut to success. It is wrought with failure. The winner is the individual that finds it in himself to dig deep and produce one more round. If you have the intestinal fortitude to always find "One more round" you will never be defeated. Learn from your mistakes, and consider them a cost of doing business...and don't make them a second time.

The hard part is staying at the top. Like an old west gunfighter, there is always someone hunting you down, younger, maybe wiser, with different skill sets and you are always on that tread mill to stay there. When you want to relax and survey your success, deny yourself and go one more round. Remember to remain humble and reverent to those that cleared the path before you, it makes the fall back down just a little softer.

Reflections of an old, tired fart...

Scott

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R.E. "Scott" MacLean III

"Leaders are like Eagles, you never see them in a flock, but one at a time"

Chesapeake Group Investigations, Inc.
Chesapeake Bail Bonds
877-574-0500
301-392-1100 (fax)
301-392-1900 (Office)

Thanks, Scott. All I can say is "NEVER!!!!! I know who I am and what I stand for. No one can change me, due to that"

Wow, That was really short, coming from me. I must be slipping.

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Thomas SnoWolf
FRN# 1999
GAPB 20120726
NSIS ST0707
http://www.rocksolidrg.com
"The hero is not the man that acts without fear,
He is the man that acts inspite of fear"

Kathy, unless Im mistaking, the Terry Pat is federal and does exist in your state as well. It takes nothing more than a LEO making sure you dont have a weapon when any contact is made, no matter who initiates it. Leaves the door wide open.

Im not sure how this ruling really changes anything.

I dont agree with it, like I said. I dont agree with anything that gives the government more control over me.

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and searches him without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

For their own protection, police may perform a quick surface search of the person’s outer clothing for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is armed. This reasonable suspicion must be based on “specific and articulable facts” and not merely upon an officer's hunch. This permitted police action has subsequently been referred to in short as a “stop and frisk”, or simply a “Terry stop”. The Terry standard was later extended to temporary detentions of persons in vehicles, known as traffic stops.

The rationale behind the Supreme Court decision revolves around the understanding that, as the opinion notes, “the exclusionary rule has its limitations”. The meaning of the rule is to protect persons from unreasonable searches and seizures aimed at gathering evidence, not searches and seizures for other purposes (like prevention of crime or personal protection of police officers).

The Case In Part:

On October 31, 1963, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden saw two men (John W. Terry and Richard Chilton) standing on a street corner and acting suspiciously. One man would walk past a certain store window, stare in, walk on a short distance, turn back, stare in the store window again, and walk back to the other man and converse for a short period of time. The two men repeated this ritual alternately between five and six times apiece—in all, roughly a dozen trips. Each completion of the route was followed by a conference between the two on a corner, at one of which they were joined by a third man who left swiftly. Suspecting the two men of casing the store for a robbery, McFadden followed them and saw them rejoin the third man a couple of blocks away. The officer approached the three men, identified himself as a policeman, and asked their names. When they “mumbled something” in response, McFadden patted them down for weapons and discovered that Terry and Chilton were armed. He removed their guns and arrested them for carrying concealed weapons. When the trial court denied his motion to suppress, Terry pleaded not guilty, but the court adjudged him guilty and sentenced him to one to three years in prison.

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case, claiming that no “substantial constitutional question” was involved. The U.S. Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case.

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Domestic Security Investigations
P.O. Box 4462
Rockville, MD 20849
Tel: 1-800-387-0787
Anti-Moral Majority Club President
"Fear not the unknown, Fear the person who controls the unknown" Gene 7:14