Terry v.
Ohio 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968) permits limited pat down searches
only where the police have reasonable belief that the person "may be armed
and presently dangerous
The
Supreme Court 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 frisks him or her 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 and has a
reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently
dangerous."[1
A
Cleveland detective (McFadden), on a downtown beat which he had been patrolling
for many years, observed two strangers (petitioner and another man, Chilton) on
a street corner. He saw them proceed alternately back and forth along an
identical route, pausing to stare in the same store window, which they did for
a total of about 24 times.
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 (Katz) who left swiftly.
Suspecting the two men of "casing a job, a stick-up," the officer
followed them and saw them rejoin the third man a couple of blocks away in
front of a store. The officer approached the three, identified himself as a
policeman, and asked their names. The men "mumbled something,"
whereupon McFadden spun petitioner around, patted down his outside clothing,
and found in his overcoat pocket, but was unable to remove, a pistol. The officer
ordered the three into the store.
He
removed petitioner's overcoat, took out a revolver, and ordered the three to
face the wall with their hands raised. He patted down the outer clothing of
Chilton and Katz and seized a revolver from Chilton's outside overcoat pocket.
He did not put his hands under the outer garments of Katz (since he discovered
nothing in his pat-down which might have been a weapon), or under petitioner's
or Chilton's outer garments until he felt the guns. The three were taken to the
police station. Petitioner and Chilton were charged with carrying [p2] concealed
weapons. The defense moved to suppress the weapons. Though the trial court
rejected the prosecution theory that the guns had been seized during a search
incident to a lawful arrest, the court denied the motion to suppress and
admitted the weapons into evidence on the ground that the officer had cause to
believe that petitioner and Chilton were acting suspiciously, that their
interrogation was warranted, and that the officer, for his own protection, had
the right to pat down their outer clothing having reasonable cause to believe
that they might be armed. The court distinguished between an investigatory
"stop" and an arrest, and between a "frisk" of the outer
clothing for weapons and a full-blown search for evidence of crime. Petitioner
and Chilton were found guilty, an intermediate appellate court affirmed, and
the State Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on the ground that "no
substantial constitutional question" was involved.
Held:
1. The
Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, made
applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, "protects people,
not places," and therefore applies as much to the citizen on the streets
as well as at home or elsewhere.
2. The
issue in this case is not the abstract propriety of the police conduct, but the
admissibility against petitioner of the evidence uncovered by the search and
seizure.
3. The
exclusionary rule cannot properly be invoked to exclude the products of
legitimate and restrained police investigative techniques, and this Court's
approval of such techniques should not discourage remedies other than the
exclusionary rule to curtail police abuses for which that is not an effective
sanction.
4. The
Fourth Amendment applies to "stop and frisk" procedures such as those
followed here.
(a)
Whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to
walk away, he has "seized" that person within the meaning of the
Fourth Amendment.
(b) A
careful exploration of the outer surfaces of a person's clothing in an attempt
to find weapons is a "search" under that Amendment
5. Where a
reasonably prudent officer is warranted in the circumstances of a given case in
believing that his safety or that of others is endangered, he may make a
reasonable search for weapons of the person believed by him to be armed and
dangerous [p3] regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest
that individual for crime or the absolute certainty that the individual is
armed.
(a) Though
the police must, whenever practicable, secure a warrant to make a search and
seizure, that procedure cannot be followed where swift action based upon
on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat is required.
(b) The
reasonableness of any particular search and seizure must be assessed in light of
the particular circumstances against the standard of whether a man of
reasonable caution is warranted in believing that the action taken was
appropriate.
(c) The
officer here was performing a legitimate function of investigating suspicious
conduct when he decided to approach petitioner and his companions.
(d) An
officer justified in believing that an individual whose suspicious behavior he
is investigating at close range is armed may, to neutralize the threat of
physical harm, take necessary measures to determine whether that person is
carrying a weapon.
(e) A
search for weapons in the absence of probable cause to arrest must be strictly
circumscribed by the exigencies of the situation.
(f) An
officer may make an intrusion short of arrest where he has reasonable
apprehension of danger before being possessed of information justifying arrest.
6. The
officer's protective seizure of petitioner and his companions and the limited
search which he made were reasonable, both at their inception and as conducted.
(a) The
actions of petitioner and his companions were consistent with the officer's
hypothesis that they were contemplating a daylight robbery and were armed.
(b) The
officer's search was confined to what was minimally necessary to determine whether
the men were armed, and the intrusion, which was made for the sole purpose of
protecting himself and others nearby, was confined to ascertaining the presence
of weapons.
7. The
revolver seized from petitioner was properly admitted into evidence against
him, since the search which led to its seizure was reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment.
Affirmed.
