Terry v.

Ohio

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terry v. Ohio

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued December 12, 1967
Decided June 10, 1968
Full case
John W. Terry v. State of Ohio
name
392 U.S. 1 (more)
Citations
88 S. Ct. 1868; 20 L. Ed. 2d 889; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1345; 44 Ohio Op. 2d 383
Defendant's motion to suppress evidence denied, 32 Ohio Op. 2d 489
(1964); defendant convicted, 95 Ohio L. Abs. 321 (Court of Common
Prior history Pleas of Cuyahoga County 1964); affirmed, 214 N.E.2d 114 (Ohio Ct.
App. 1966); review denied, Ohio Supreme Court, November 19, 1966; cert. granted,
387 U.S. 929 (1967)
Holding
Police may stop a person if they have a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed or is about
to commit a crime, and may frisk the suspect for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the
suspect is armed and dangerous, without violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable
searches and seizures. Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Earl Warren
Associate Justices
Hugo Black · William O. Douglas
John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan, Jr.
Potter Stewart · Byron White
Abe Fortas · Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
Majority Warren, joined by Black, Brennan, Stewart, Fortas, Marshall
Concurrence Harlan
Concurrence White
Dissent Douglas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Terry v. Ohio
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 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]
For their own protection, after a person has been stopped, 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 frisk".
The Terry standard was later extended to temporary detentions of persons in vehicles, known
as traffic stops; see Terry stop for a summary of subsequent jurisprudence.

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).

Contents

[show]

Case[edit]
On October 31, 1963, while on a downtown beat which he had been patrolling for many
years, Cleveland Police Department Detective Martin McFadden, age 62,[2] saw two men, John
W. Terry and Richard Chilton, standing on a street corner at 1276 Euclid Avenue and acting in
a way the officer thought was suspicious. Detective McFadden, who was well known on the
Cleveland police force for his skill in apprehending pickpockets, [2] observed the two proceed
alternately back and forth along an identical route, pausing to stare in the same store
window. Each completion of the route was followed by a conference between the two on a
corner. The two men repeated this ritual alternately between five and six times apiece—in all,
roughly a dozen trips. After one of these trips, they were joined by a third man (Carl Katz) who
left swiftly after a brief conversation. Suspecting the two men of "casing a job, a stick-up",
detective McFadden followed them and saw them rejoin the third man a couple of blocks away
in front of a store.
The plainclothes officer approached the three, identified himself as a police officer, and asked
their names. The men "mumbled something", whereupon McFadden spun Terry around, patted
down his outside clothing, and felt a pistol in his overcoat pocket. He reached inside the
overcoat pocket, but was unable to remove the gun. The officer ordered the three into the
store. He removed Terry'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 Terry's or Chilton's outer garments until he felt the guns. The three were
taken to the police station. Terry and Chilton were subsequently charged with carrying
concealed weapons.

The defense of the charged individuals moved to suppress the use of the seized weapons as
evidence on grounds that the search and subsequent seizure were a violation of the Fourth
Amendment to the United States Constitution. 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 Terry 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
trial court made a distinction 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.

Terry and Chilton were found guilty, an intermediate appellate court affirmed the conviction,
and the Ohio State Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on the ground that "no substantial
constitutional question" was involved.

Majority opinion[edit]
Chief Justice Warren's opinion for the Court began by reciting first principles. The Fourth
Amendment protects "people, not places", against "unreasonable searches and seizures". The
question the Court confronted was whether "in all the circumstances of this on-the-street
encounter", Terry's reasonable expectation of privacy had been impermissibly invaded.

The procedure called "stop and frisk" was controversial. Police argue that they require a
certain flexibility in dealing with quickly evolving and potentially dangerous situations that
arise during routine patrol of the streets. On the other hand, those suspicious of giving the
police broad investigatory power contended that the police should not be able to assert their
authority over citizens without some specific justification upon intrusion into protected
personal security, coupled with judicial oversight to ensure that the police do not routinely
abuse their authority. For the Court, however, the question was not the propriety of the police
actions in the abstract but the admissibility of the evidence obtained through that police
action. "In our system evidentiary rulings provide the context in which the judicial process of
inclusion and exclusion approves some conduct as comporting with constitutional guarantees
and disapproves other actions by state agents." For this purpose the exclusionary
rule of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), had evolved and been applied against both state
and federal agents.

Thus the question was not whether the stop-and-frisk procedure was proper by itself, but
whether the exclusionary rule was an appropriate deterrent of police misconduct during such
encounters.

Proper adjudication of cases in which the exclusionary rule is invoked demands a

constant awareness of these limitations. The wholesale harassment by certain
elements of the police community, of which minority groups, particularly Negroes,
frequently complain, will not be stopped by the exclusion of any evidence from any
criminal trial. Yet a rigid and unthinking application of the exclusionary rule, in
futile protest against practices which it can never be effectively used to control,
may exact a high toll in human injury and frustration of efforts to prevent crime.

— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 14–15

In view of these concerns, the Court next asked whether it is "always unreasonable for a
policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is
probable cause for an arrest."
When is a person seized and what constitutes a search? [edit]
The Supreme Court first had to determine, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, when is a
person "seized" and what constitutes a "search". The Court rejected the idea that a "stop and
frisk" could categorically never be a search or seizure subject to the protection of the Fourth
Amendment. Instead, it made room for the idea that some police action short of a traditional
arrest could constitute a seizure—that is, "whenever a police officer accosts an individual and
restrains his freedom to walk away, he has 'seized' that person." The Court also noted that "...
it is nothing less than sheer torture of the English language to suggest that a careful
exploration of the outer surfaces of a person's clothing all over his or her body in an attempt
to find weapons is not a 'search.' "

Thus, when the police detective took hold of Terry and patted him down on that Cleveland
street, the detective "seized" Terry and subjected him to a "search" within the meaning of the
Fourth Amendment. But the Fourth Amendment protects only against unreasonable searches
and seizures, so the Court next had to determine whether Terry’s seizure and search were
"reasonable".

What is reasonable?[edit]
The Court assessed the reasonableness of the police activity here by comparing it to activity
that would ordinarily require a warrant. "[I]n 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 the intrusion." In a situation where
the police obtained a warrant, they would have brought these facts and inferences to the
attention of a judicial officer (e.g., judge or magistrate) before embarking on the actions in
question. Post hoc judicial review of police activity is equally facilitated by these facts and
inferences.

The Court also emphasized that the test standard courts should employ is an objective one.
"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?" Lesser
evidence would mean that the Court would tolerate invasions on the privacy of citizens
supported by mere hunches—a result the Court would not tolerate. Moreover,

simple " 'good faith on the part of the arresting officer is not enough.' ... If subjective good
faith alone were the test, the protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the
people would be 'secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,' only in the discretion
of the police." — quoting Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (1964)
The reasonableness inquiry takes into account the "nature and extent of the governmental
interests involved", including the general interest in crime prevention, the officer's specific
concern for his own safety, the citizen's interest in his own privacy and dignity, and the extent
to which the particular search in question intruded upon those interests. "Our evaluation of
the proper balance that has to be struck in this type of case leads us to conclude that there
must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the
protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an
armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the
individual for a crime."

Even searches that start out as reasonable may "violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of
their intolerable intensity and scope." Thus, the scope of the search must be justified by the
circumstances that led the police to undertake it in the first place.

The stop and frisk of Terry was reasonable[edit]

These principles led the Court to conclude that the evidence found on Terry's person was
properly admitted because the search was reasonable. The detective had observed Terry and
his companions acting in a manner he took to be a preface to a stick-up. A reasonable person
in the detective's position would have thought that Terry was armed and thus presented a
threat to his safety while he was investigating the suspicious behavior he was observing. The
events he had witnessed made it reasonable for him to believe that either Terry or his cohorts
were armed. "The record evidences the tempered act of a policeman who in the course of an
investigation had to make a quick decision as to how to protect himself and others from
possible danger, and took limited steps to do so."

The police detective here limited his search to the outer surfaces of Terry's clothing. Thus, the
search was reasonably related in scope to the concern for his own safety that justified the
stop from the beginning. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the revolver found on Terry's
person was properly admitted into evidence.

The sole justification for the search is protection of the officer

and public[edit]
The Ohio Court of Appeals allowed the search, but made it clear that such a search was
limited to discovering dangerous weapons that could be used against the officer, as Chief
Justice Warren noted:
"In this case, for example, the Ohio Court of Appeals stated that 'we must be careful to
distinguish that the "frisk" authorized herein includes only a "frisk" for a dangerous weapon. It
by no means authorizes a search for contraband, evidentiary material, or anything else in the
absence of reasonable grounds to arrest. Such a search is controlled by the requirements of
the Fourth Amendment, and probable cause is essential.' " (392 U.S. 1, at 16, Fn 12,
quoting State v. Terry, 5 Ohio App. 2d 122, at 130)

Chief Justice Warren later made it clear that this was also the opinion of the Court:

"The sole justification of the search ... is the protection of the police officer and others nearby,
and it must therefore be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover
guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer." [3]

Is such a search a "petty indignity"?[edit]

"... it is simply fantastic to urge that such a procedure performed in public by a policeman
while the citizen stands helpless, perhaps facing a wall with his hands raised, is a 'petty
indignity.' It is a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great
indignity and arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly." [4]

Concurring opinion of Justice White[edit]

Justice White joined the opinion of the Court but suggested that

"There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to
anyone on the streets. Absent special circumstances, the person approached may not be
detained or frisked but may refuse to cooperate and go on his way. However, given the proper
circumstances, such as those in this case, it seems to me the person may be briefly detained
against his will while pertinent questions are directed to him. Of course, the person stopped is
not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no
basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation." [5]

With regard to the lack of obligation to respond when detained under circumstances of Terry,
this opinion came to be regarded as persuasive authority in some jurisdictions, and the Court
cited these remarks in dicta in Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984), at 439. However,
in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), the Court held that
neither of these remarks was controlling in a situation where a state law required a detained
person to identify himself.

Dissenting opinion of Justice Douglas[edit]

Justice Douglas strongly disagreed with permitting a stop and search absent probable cause:
"We hold today that the police have greater authority to make a 'seizure' and conduct a
'search' than a judge has to authorize such action. We have said precisely the opposite over
and over again."[6]

"To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long step down the
totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness.
But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a constitutional
amendment."[7]

Subsequent jurisprudence[edit]
Terry set precedent for a wide assortment of Fourth Amendment cases. The cases range from
street stop-and-frisks to traffic stops in which pat-down searches could be conducted on the
driver or passengers. Relevant cases are Ybarra v. Illinois, Minnesota v. Dickerson, Florida v. J.
L., Muehler v. Mena, Alabama v. White, Pennsylvania v. Mimms, Maryland v. Wilson, Brendlin
v. California and "Heien v. North Carolina." In Michigan v. Long,[8] the Supreme Court ruled
that car compartments could be constitutionally searched if an officer had reasonable
suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous. Thus the compartments are viewed as an
extension of the suspect's person. This is known as "frisking the lunge area," as an officer
may protect himself by searching any areas from which the suspect could grab a weapon.
The Terry doctrine was markedly extended in the 2004 case of Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District
Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), in which the Supreme Court held that a state law
requiring the suspect to identify himself during a Terry stop did not violate the Fourth
Amendment prohibitions of unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth
Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The Court did not legalize this process in all
states but instead left it up to the states to decide whether they would pass such laws. So far
24 states have passed such laws.

The Court most recently cited Terry v. Ohio in Arizona v. Johnson. In that 2009 case, the Court
ruled 9–0 in favor of further expanding Terry, granting police the ability to frisk an individual in
a stopped vehicle if there is reasonable suspicion to believe the individual is armed and
dangerous. This fulfills only the second prong of Terry (the first prong—reasonable suspicion
that a crime has, is, or will be committed—is fulfilled by whatever traffic violation prompted
the pull-over). According to Whren v. United States, any traffic violation, no matter how small,
is legitimate basis for a traffic stop.

In Heien v. North Carolina, on a 8–1 decision in December 2014, the Supreme Court of the
United States expanded the reasonable suspicion factor of the Terry stop to cover a police
officer’s reasonable mistake of law that gives rise to "reasonable suspicion" that justifies a
traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment.[9][10]

See also[edit]