In other words, not only must the officer have a reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual is armed with a weapon, but must also have a reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual may use that weapon. The United States Supreme Court has held that a police officer must have additional reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual to be searched is armed with a dangerous weapon and is presently dangerous. That would satisfy the reasonable articulable suspicion requirement that I spoke of earlier, but the officer would not then be justified in frisking you subsequent to the stop based on the speeding violation alone. For example, a police officer can stop your car because he witnessed you speeding. Just because a police officer has a lawful basis to make a Terry Stop does not mean that they are thereby justified in frisking that individual. That same case also laid down the rules for when an officer can pat down, frisk, or otherwise search an individual’s person subsequent to a Terry Stop. Ohio by the United States Supreme Court in 1968. So when is a police officer lawfully justified in doing so?Īs was discussed in my prior post, the principles and rationales for when a police officer can make an investigatory stop were laid down in Terry v. As can reasonably be expected, the guilty and the innocent are not comfortable with a stranger feeling up and down their body, to say the least. As part of my “when can a police officer (fill in the blank)” series, today I am addressing the issue of when a police officer can search your person, or as it’s more crudely referred to as, frisking.įrisking is a technique frequently used by the police of running his or her hands up and down the suspect’s outer clothing to detect weapons or other contraband. In my last blog post I addressed the issue of when a police officer can stop your car.
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