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hey just wondering if somebody can explain the terry doctrine to me

I thought that you can only stop and frisk for search of a weapon, but there are all these cases about narcotics at the airport and now I am thoroughly confused.

my understnading is you can stop for reasonable suspision of criminal activity,

you can frisk is reasonable suspision of subject being armed and dangerous,

anything that is found, is fair game as long as it could have possibly been a weapon when the officer was frisking

eaglemuncher wrote:my understnading is you can stop for reasonable suspision of criminal activity,

you can frisk is reasonable suspision of subject being armed and dangerous,

anything that is found, is fair game as long as it could have possibly been a weapon when the officer was frisking

so bag of powder, no good. but keys good

so when they stop ppl at the airport on the basis of reasonable suspicion, that just falls under the first power that terry gives them, which is the power to seize temporarily for investigative purposes?

I believe so. However, I dont know of any cases where courts said that initial stop was good but subsequent frisk was not justified

full disclosure, i have not taken con law yet.

Edited for misleading phrasing

The Police must have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. If this is satisfied, the police can "stop and frisk" a perp for weapons. However! The police can only be searching for weapons.

If the police come across any other contraband that is immediately apparant upon touch (the plain touch doctrine), the police can seize that contraband.

The most important things to keep in mind for Terry stops:

1) The police, with reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, can only pat down a perp in search of weapons.
2) Anything that isnt a weapon can be seized only if it was immediately apparant upon touch that it was contraband. Any time an officer squeezes the mystery item or even reaches into the perp's pocket and takes it out, this is probably a 4th amendment violation.

Good luck!

gdane wrote:The Police must have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. If this is satisfied, the police can "stop and frisk" a perp for weapons. However! The police can only be searching for weapons.

If the police come across any other contraband that is immediately apparant upon touch (the plain touch doctrine), the police can seize that contraband.

The most important things to keep in mind for Terry stops:

1) The police, with reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, can only pat down a perp in search of weapons.
2) Anything that isnt a weapon can only be seized if it was immediately apparant upon touch that it was contraband. Any time an officer squeezes the mystery item or even reaches into the perp's pocket and takes it out, this is a 4th amendment violation.

Good luck!

my understanding is that suspision of crimianl activity alone is not enough for the frisk, there must be reasonable suspision that subject is armed and dangerous. but that often these two things merge as if there is suspision of criminal activity it follows that someone may be armed and dangerous.

Yea usually a police officer can say something like "In all my years of experience, anytime I notice someone walking around a store at 2 am, I've found that they have had a firearm on them."

Reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is needed to perform an brief investigative stop (a "Terry stop").

Reasonable suspicion that the suspect (who was stopped above) is armed and dangerous is needed to perform a preventative frisk/pat-down of that suspect's external clothing for weapons (a "Terry frisk").

Keep a look out for a situation where an officer finds an item during a Terry frisk and then inspects it and determines it's coke or something. This is not OK without probable cause under the Terry doctrine, because, as mentioned earlier, the officer must realize right away (plain touch). This doesn't really matter in real life because officers will just lie about it, but it might come up on an exam.

eaglemuncher wrote:However, I dont know of any cases where courts said that initial stop was good but subsequent frisk was not justified

At the suppression hearing, Officer Lewis indicated that he searched the petitioner to “[c]heck for weapons,” but did not provide any basis for his suspicion that the petitioner was armed and dangerous. Officer Lewis did not testify as to any factors that would lead to a suspicion that the petitioner was carrying a weapon. Further, there are no objective factors in the record that indicate that the petitioner was armed and dangerous. Although the encounter took place at nighttime, the petitioner was alone and the officer “could visibly see his hands,” which, presumably because the officer did not indicate otherwise, were empty. There is no indication in the record that the petitioner made any threatening movements, or any movements at all, [...] Officer Lewis had no basis to conduct a protective frisk.

Bailey v. State, 412 Md. 349, 368 (2010)

istara wrote:

eaglemuncher wrote:However, I dont know of any cases where courts said that initial stop was good but subsequent frisk was not justified

At the suppression hearing, Officer Lewis indicated that he searched the petitioner to “[c]heck for weapons,” but did not provide any basis for his suspicion that the petitioner was armed and dangerous. Officer Lewis did not testify as to any factors that would lead to a suspicion that the petitioner was carrying a weapon. Further, there are no objective factors in the record that indicate that the petitioner was armed and dangerous. Although the encounter took place at nighttime, the petitioner was alone and the officer “could visibly see his hands,” which, presumably because the officer did not indicate otherwise, were empty. There is no indication in the record that the petitioner made any threatening movements, or any movements at all, [...] Officer Lewis had no basis to conduct a protective frisk.

Bailey v. State, 412 Md. 349, 368 (2010)

As I wrote that i knew somebody would cite one very soon. sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about.. I just read this thread and went.. "ooh, I remember that one!" and had to look it up on westlaw quick..

Property tomorrow, and then I have to remember all this Crim Pro stuff for a 25.5 hour MC + take home

Don't worry about the airport. The 4th amdt. is basically off limits at the borders and airports. Just understand reasonable suspicion in the context of automobiles and terry stops.

sambeber wrote:Reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is needed to perform an brief investigative stop (a "Terry stop").

Reasonable suspicion that the suspect (who was stopped above) is armed and dangerous is needed to perform a preventative frisk/pat-down of that suspect's external clothing for weapons (a "Terry frisk").

ah, this is the gold i was looking for.

thanks! and thanks to everyone else too, it makes more sense now.

goosey wrote:

sambeber wrote:Reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is needed to perform an brief investigative stop (a "Terry stop").

Reasonable suspicion that the suspect (who was stopped above) is armed and dangerous is needed to perform a preventative frisk/pat-down of that suspect's external clothing for weapons (a "Terry frisk").

ah, this is the gold i was looking for.

thanks! and thanks to everyone else too, it makes more sense now.

The above rule is the rule they fashion of a weapon-frisk, like in terry. But terry stops are by no means limited to a search for weapons. Instead, you have to be able to balance the interest in other factual contexts. Its all about tailoring the nature and scope of the intrusion to the government's need for the intrusion. Many of the Terry cases have nothing to do with a search for weapons. You also have to be able to tell when the cops have crossed the line from a lesser intrusion (Terry) to a full blown 4th amendment event (which requires probable cause). Here is what I have in my outline (mostly verbatim from the Terry Case).

i) Reasonableness → In determining whether the seizure and search were unreasonable, our inquiry is a dual one--(1) whether the officer's action was justified at its inception and (2) whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.

ii) Justification → there is no ready test for determining reaosnableness other than by balancing the need to search against the the invasion which the search or seizure entials. And in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." In other words, would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate.

iii) Scope → must be strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation. Thus it must be limited by what is necessary for [those exigencies].

iv) OTHER KEY LANGAUGE → "where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity is afoot

I'd definitely throw in "reasonable suspicion" depends on the “totality of the circumstances." See Cortez. Totality of the circumstances is a buzz phrase in crim pro.

I.P. Daly wrote:I'd definitely throw in "reasonable suspicion" depends on the “totality of the circumstances." See Cortez. Totality of the circumstances is a buzz phrase in crim pro.

QFT and also to tag it to remind myself of this for my upcoming crim pro exam.