legal case Laws

Terry V Ohio

Legal justification for a Terry Stop and Frisk- A law enforcement officer may frisk the exterior clothing of someone lawfully detained if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person is about to commit a crime, has committed a crime, or is committing a crime, and may be armed.

Mackey V state

determined that simply seeing a partially concealed firearm does not, standing alone, constitute reasonable suspicion or justify a frisk, since many people may lawfully possess a concealed firearm

Whren v. US

Pretext stops exist when an officer stops a vehicle due to something such as an equipment violation but really wants to investigate other, more serious criminal activity.

Illinois V gates

Established the totality of circumstances standard of probable cause

Carroll doctrine

Named for the case Carroll v. US. The scope of search extends to the entire vehicle and to all containers where evidence could be easily found.

U.S v. Ross

Justifies provable cause in the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle to include the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents

Hornblower v. State

Justifies probable cause and search and seizure without warrants including entering a home when there is detection of noise and scurrying activity and destruction of evidence

Seibert v state

Officers justified entering a home of someone who was believed in committing suicide

Georgia v Randolph

A vehicles passenger must not consent to the search of a drivers vehicle

U.S. V. Robinson

noted two rationales for search incident to arrest exception: (1) The need to disarm the suspect to take them into custody and (2) the need to preserve evidence for later use at a trial.

Chimel v. California

defined the scope of a search incident to arrest as the arrestees person and the areas “within the arrestees reach” at the time of the arrest.

New York v. Belton

the scope of a vehicle search incident to arrest includes the entire passenger compartment and all containers located therein, locked or unlocked. The trunk of a sedan is not considered part of the passenger compartment, but the rear area of a van or SUV id included in the search area.

Arizona v. Grant

has a further refined the scope of search incident to arrest situations involving vehicles. Officers may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle only when the arrestee is unsecured, and the passenger compartment is within reaching distance of the arrestee or if it is “reasonable” to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the crime for which the subject was arrested.

Graham v Connor

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of force did not violate Graham’s Fourth Amendment rights under these facts and circumstances. The court held that the use of force by an officer is examined under the objective reasonableness standard of the Fourth Amendment. The use of force is to be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer under the same circumstances without the benefit of hindsight.

Tennessee v. Gardner

Restricting the use of DEADLY force on an individual fleeing from arrest

Harlow v Fitzgerald

The defense of qualified immunity protects “government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”