![]() It is clear from the cases that the officer’s order still makes the emptying of the pockets a search. The question is, does the Fourth Amendment allow police officers to order suspects to empty their pockets in lieu of conducting the frisks directly? That is, can the officer order the suspect to do what the officer cannot himself do? ![]() Rather, Terry requires officers to pat down the suspect from the outside and then only retrieve what may be a weapon. Terry doesn’t allow the police to just reach in and empty a suspect’s pockets, exposing all of its contents to plain view. A police order to a suspect to empty his pockets can allow an officer to do indirectly what he can’t do directly. Police orders to empty pockets potentially go far beyond that power. But there is at least some scrutiny of the searches, with at least a theoretical limit on an officer’s ability to find drugs when he is supposed to be searching for weapons. They just say that they are looking for guns, and that the drugs they pulled out from the suspect’s pocket really felt like a gun, not drugs. In reality, officers routinely flout this limitation. If an officer feels something through clothing and he suspects that the “something” is drugs, not a gun, he can’t pull out the something and open it to look for drugs. ![]() ![]() The cases say that this has to be a search for weapons, not drugs. Ohio and its progeny, the police can “pat down” a suspect for weapons if they have specific and articulable facts that the suspects are armed and dangerous. I thought that it was interesting enough that I’m going to excerpt it liberally, then add a couple of comments that are specific to North Carolina law.įirst, some background. ![]() Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, has a post up at the Volokh Conspiracy that considers the propriety of such an order. Can a police officer order a suspect to empty his or her pockets during a Terry stop? The New York Times reports on claims that New York officers do so regularly:Ĭritics say that as part of the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy, officers routinely tell suspects to empty their pockets and then, if marijuana is displayed, arrest them for having the drugs in public view, thereby pushing thousands of people toward criminality and into criminal justice system ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |