Terry v. Ohio
Terry v. Ohio | |
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Argued December 12, 1967 Decided June 10, 1968 | |
Full case name | John W. Terry v. State of Ohio |
Citations | 392 U.S. 1 (more) 88 S. Ct. 1868; 20 L. Ed. 2d 889; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1345; 44 Ohio Op. 2d 383 |
Case history | |
Prior | Defendant's motion to suppress evidence denied, 32 Ohio Op. 2d 489 (1964); defendant convicted, 95 Ohio L. Abs. 321 (Cuyahoga Common Pleas 1964); affirmed, 214 N.E.2d 114 (Ohio Ct. App. 1966); review denied, Ohio Supreme Court, Nov. 19, 1966; cert. granted, 387 U.S. 929 (1967) |
Holding | |
Law enforcement officers may stop and frisk someone for weapons if they have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken or is about to take place and the subject is armed and dangerous without violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Warren, joined by Black, Brennan, Stewart, Fortas, Marshall |
Concurrence | Harlan |
Concurrence | White |
Dissent | Douglas |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amend. IV |
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 searches him 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.
For their own protection, 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 stop”. The Terry standard was later extended to temporary detentions of persons in vehicles, known as traffic stops.
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).
Case
On October 31 1963, while on a downtown beat which he had been patrolling for many years, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden saw two men, John W. Terry and Richard Chilton, standing on a street corner and acting suspiciously. Detective McFadden observed the two proceed alternately back and forth along an identical route, pausing to stare in the same store window, which they did for a total of about 24 times. Each completion of the route was followed by a conference between the two on a corner, at one of which they were joined by a third man (Katz) who left swiftly. 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 officer approached the three, identified himself as a policeman, and asked their names. The men "mumbled something," whereupon McFadden spun John W. Terry around, patted down his outside clothing, and found in his overcoat pocket, but was unable to remove, a pistol. 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 John W. 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 under the ground that the search and subsequent seizure were a violation of the 4th Amendment of 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
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 not uncontroversial. 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 rather 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?
The 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?
The Court assessed the reasonableness of the police activity here by comparing it to activity that would ordinarily require a warrant. “... 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 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 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 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,
- And 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
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."
In situations such as the one presented in this case,
- “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.” (392 U.S. 1, at 29)
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.
Is such a search a “petty indignity”?
- “... 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.” (392 U.S. 1, at 16–17)
Concurring opinion
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.” (392 U.S. 1, at 34).
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
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.” (392 U.S. 1, at 37).
- “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.” (392 U.S. 1, at 38).
Subsequent jurisprudence
Terry set the precedent for Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983). In an opinion citing Terry written by Justice O'Connor, the Supreme Court ruled that car compartments could be constitutionally searched if an officer had reasonable suspicion.
The scope of Terry was extended in the 2004 Supreme Court case Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), which 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.
See also
External links
- Text of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) is available from: Findlaw LII
- OYEZ project, Northwestern University
- Transcript of the oral argument