CHAPTER 4 CP

A stop and frisk provides the legal framework for brief investigative detentions that are less intrusive than a full custodial arrest.
The foundational legal authority for investigative field stops is established in Terry versus Ohio.
Governed primarily by the Fourth Amendment Reasonableness Clause, which regulates searches and seizures.
Key Constitutional Amendments in criminal procedure:
- Fourth Amendment: Governs searches, seizures, and investigative stops.
- Fifth Amendment: Governs Miranda warnings, interrogations, grand juries, self-incrimination, and equal protection.
- Sixth Amendment: Guarantees the right to counsel.
- Eighth Amendment: Prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
- Fourteenth Amendment: Ensures due process and equal protection against unlawful discrimination.
Field interrogations are recognized as essential tools for detecting and investigating street crimes without triggering immediate custodial arrests or Miranda warnings.

Reasonable suspicion is defined as a reasonable articulable suspicion based on objective facts, distinct from an unarticulated hunch or whim.
Functions as a balancing test between the need for swift law enforcement action to investigate crime and the modest intrusion on individual privacy.
Evaluated under an objective standard: whether facts available to an officer at the moment of seizure warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe the action taken was appropriate.
Key factors establishing reasonable suspicion under the totality of circumstances:
- Type of criminal activity, time, and location.
- Suspect's criminal record or known involvement in illegal activity.
- Evasive maneuvers, uncooperativeness, nervousness, shakiness, or sweating.
- Police officer experience and specialized training.
In Terry versus Ohio, Justice Warren emphasized that an officer with 30 years experience observing suspicious behavior was justified in investigating based on the totality of circumstances.

An investigative stop and a frisk are legally separate procedures requiring distinct legal justification:
- Investigative Stop: A brief detention requiring reasonable suspicion that an individual has committed or is about to commit a crime.
- Frisk: A brief pat-down of outer clothing for weapons intended solely for officer safety, requiring independent reasonable suspicion that the individual is armed and dangerous.
Legal Seizure Doctrines:
- Plain Feel Doctrine: Contraband felt during a frisk may be seized without a warrant only if its illegal identity is immediately apparent without manipulation (Minnesota versus Dickerson).
- Plain Sight Doctrine: Allows seizure of weapons or contraband coming into plain view during a lawful stop or frisk.
Constitutional Limitations on Terry Stops:
- Duration: Must be brief (often referenced around a 20 minute guideline) and no longer than necessary to confirm or dispel suspicion.
- Movement: Involuntary, significant movement of a suspect is prohibited unless required for safety and security reasons.
- Techniques: Must utilize the least intrusive means reasonably available.

Informant Tips: Reasonable suspicion can rely on direct observation or secondhand hearsay information (informants, victims, eyewitnesses, dispatch bulletins).
- Adams versus Williams: Upheld reliance on a tip from a credible informant carrying sufficient indicia of reliability.
- Alabama versus White: Established that an anonymous tip corroborated with indicia of reliability can provide reasonable suspicion.
- Navarret or Navretti maybe versus California: Addressed specific circumstances under which anonymous tips satisfy reasonable suspicion standards.
- Factors evaluating tips include informant reliability, basis of knowledge, police corroboration, contemporaneous reporting, and ongoing dangerous acts.
Drug Courier Profiles and Criminal Interdiction:
- Profiles are based on behavioral analyses of past arrestees.
- Matching a profile alone without individualized suspicious conduct is insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion (Reed versus Georgia).
Racial Profiling Prohibition:
- Sole reliance on race, ethnicity, or gender to initiate a stop violates Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment protections.
- Demographic characteristics may only be considered when tied to a specific, relevant suspect description connected to a crime.

Vehicle traffic stops function as investigative detentions under Terry versus Ohio principles.
Expanding the scope or duration of a traffic stop requires independent reasonable suspicion (such as required under Minnesota law).
Officers may order drivers or passengers out of a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop based on jurisdiction rules and officer safety needs.
Passenger compartments may be searched for weapons if reasonable suspicion exists that occupants could immediately gain control of weapons.