What is the significance of terry v ohio

In the first place, if the frisk is justified in order to protect the officer during an encounter with a citizen, the officer must first have constitutional grounds to insist on an encounter, to make a forcible stop. Any person, including a policeman, is at liberty to avoid a person he considers dangerous. If and when a policeman has a right instead to disarm such a person for his own protection, he must first have a right not to avoid him but to be in his presence.

That right must be more than the liberty again, possessed by every citizen to address questions to other persons, for ordinarily the person addressed has an equal right to ignore his interrogator and walk away; he certainly need not submit to a frisk for the questioner's protection. I would make it perfectly clear that the right to frisk in this case depends upon the reasonableness of a forcible stop to investigate a suspected crime. Where such a stop is reasonable, however, the right to frisk must be immediate and automatic if the reason for the stop is, as here, an articulable suspicion of a crime of violence.

Just as a full search incident to a lawful arrest requires no additional justification, a limited frisk incident to a lawful stop must often be rapid and routine. There is no reason why an officer, rightfully but forcibly confronting a person suspected of a serious crime, should have to ask one question and take the risk that the answer might be a bullet. The facts of this case are illustrative of a proper stop and an incident frisk.

Officer McFadden had no probable cause to arrest Terry for anything, but he had observed circumstances that would reasonably lead an experienced, prudent policeman to suspect that Terry was about to engage in burglary or robbery. His justifiable suspicion afforded a proper constitutional basis for accosting Terry, restraining his liberty of movement briefly, and addressing questions to him, and Officer McFadden did so. When he did, he had no reason whatever to suppose that Terry might be armed, apart from the fact that he suspected him of planning a violent crime.

McFadden asked Terry his name, to which Terry 'mumbled something. I would affirm this conviction for what I believe to be the same reasons the Court relies on.

I would, however, make explicit what I think is implicit in affirmance on the present facts. Officer McFadden's right to interrupt Terry's freedom of movement and invade his privacy arose only because circumstances warranted forcing an encounter with Terry in an effort to prevent or investigate a crime.

Once that forced encounter was justified, however, the officer's right to take suitable measures for his own safely followed automatically. I join the opinion of the Court, reserving judgment, however, on some of the Court's general remarks about the scope and purpose of the exclusionary rule which the Court has fashioned in the process of enforcing the Fourth Amendment. Also, although the Court puts the matter aside in the context of this case, I think an additional word is in order concerning the matter of interrogation during an investigative stop.

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. In my view, it is temporary detention, warranted by the circumstances, which chiefly justifies the protective frisk for weapons.

Perhaps the frisk itself, where proper, will have beneficial results whether questions are asked or not. If weapons are found, an arrest will follow. If none are found, the frisk may nevertheless serve preventive ends because of its unmistakable message that suspicion has been aroused. But if the investigative stop is sustainable at all, constitutional rights are not necessarily violated if pertinent questions are asked and the person is restrained briefly in the process.

I agree that petitioner was 'seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. I also agree that frisking petitioner and his companions for guns was a 'search.

The opinion of the Court disclaims the existence of 'probable cause. But the crime here is carrying concealed weapons; 2 and there is no basis for concluding that the officer had 'probable cause' for believing that that crime was being committed. Had a warrant been sought, a magistrate would, therefore, have been unauthorized to issue one, for he can act only if there is a showing of 'probable cause.

We have said precisely the opposite over and over again. In other words, police officers up to today have been permitted to effect arrests or searches without warrants only when the facts within their personal knowledge would satisfy the constitutional standard of probable cause. At the time of their 'seizure' without a warrant they must possess facts concerning the person arrested that would have satisfied a magistrate that 'probable cause' was indeed present.

The term 'probable cause' rings a bell of certainty that is not sounded by phrases such as 'reasonable suspicion. As we stated in Henry v.

The general warrant, in which the name of the person to be arrested was left blank, and the writs of assistance, against which James Otis inveighed, both perpetuated the oppressive practice of allowing the police to arrest and search on suspicion. Police control took the place of judicial control, since no showing of 'probable cause' before a magistrate was required.

And as the early American decisions both before and immediately after its adoption show, common rumor or report, suspicion, or even 'strong reason to suspect' was not adequate to support a warrant for arrest.

And that principle has survived to this day. If the officer acts with probable cause, he is protected even though it turns out that the citizen is innocent.

The infringement on personal liberty of any 'seizure' of a person can only be 'reasonable' under the Fourth Amendment if we require the police to possess 'probable cause' before they seize him. Only that line draws a meaningful distinction between an officer's mere inkling and the presence of facts within the officer's personal knowledge which would convince a reasonable man that the person seized has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a particular crime.

These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. 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.

Until the Fourth Amendment , which is closely allied with the Fifth, 4 is rewritten, the person and the effects of the individual are beyond the reach of all government agencies until there are reasonable grounds to believe probable cause that a criminal venture has been launched or is about to be launched. There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand.

That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today. Yet if the individual is no longer to be sovereign, if the police can pick him up whenever they do not like the cut of his jib, if they can 'seize' and 'search' him in their discretion, we enter a new regime. The decision to enter it should be made only after a full debate by the people of this country.

Ohio Rev. Terry and Chilton were arrested, indicted, tried and convicted together. They were represented by the same attorney, and they made a joint motion to suppress the guns. After the motion was denied, evidence was taken in the case against Chilton. This evidence consisted of the testimony of the arresting officer and of Chilton.

It was then stipulated that this testimony would be applied to the case against Terry, and no further evidence was introduced in that case. The trial judge considered the two cases together, rendered the decisions at the same time and sentenced the two men at the same time. They prosecuted their state court appeals together through the same attorney, and they petitioned this Court for certiorari together.

Following the grant of the writ upon this joint petition, Chilton died. Thus, only Terry's conviction is here for review.

Both the trial court and the Ohio Court of Appeals in this case relied upon such a distinction. See also, e.

Rivera, 14 N. The stopping of the individual to inquire is not an arrest and the ground upon which the police may make the inquiry may be less incriminating than the ground for an arrest for a crime known to have been committed.

Ultimately the validity of the frisk narrows down to whether there is or is not a right by the police to touch the person questioned.

The sense of exterior touch here involved is not very far different from the sense of sight or hearing—senses upon which police customarily act. See L. Tiffany, D. This sort of police conduct may, for example, be designed simply to help an intoxicated person find his way home, with no intention of arresting him unless he becomes obstreperous.

Or the police may be seeking to mediate a domestic quarrel which threatens to erupt into violence. They may accost a woman in an area known for prostitution as part of a harassment campaign designed to drive prostitutes away without the considerable difficulty involved in prosecuting them.

Or they may be conducting a dragnet search of all teenagers in a particular section of the city for weapons because they have heard rumors of an impending gang fight. The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found that ' i n many communities, field interrogations are a major source of friction between the police and minority groups. It was reported that the friction caused by ' m isuse of field interrogations' increases 'as more police departments adopt 'aggressive patrol' in which officers are encouraged routinely to stop and question persons on the street who are unknown to them, who are suspicious, or whose purpose for being abroad is not readily evident.

This is particularly true in situations where the 'stop and frisk' of youths or minority group members is 'motivated by the officers' perceived need to maintain the power image of the beat officer, an aim sometimes accomplished by humiliating anyone who attempts to undermine police control of the streets. 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.

A through search must be made of the prisoner's arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and entire surface of the legs down to the feet. We have noted that the abusive practices which play a major, though by no means exclusive, role in creating this friction are not susceptible of control by means of the exclusionary rule, and cannot properly dictate our decision with respect to the powers of the police in genuine investigative and preventive situations.

However, the degree of community resentment aroused by particular practices is clearly revelant to an assessment of the quality of the intrusion upon reasonable expectations of personal security caused by those practices. These dangers are illustrated in part by the course of adjudication in the Court of Appeals of New York.

Although its first decision in this area, People v. Pugach, 15 N. However, in acknowledging that no valid distinction could be maintained on the basis of its cases, the Court of Appeals continued to distinguish between the two in theory.

It still defined 'search' as it had in Rivera—as an essentially unlimited examination of the person for any and all seizable items—and merely noted that the cases had upheld police intrusions which went far beyond the original limited conception of a 'frisk. Read the decision. Terry v. Ohio U. Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Print. Date filed October 31, Status Historic. The three men were taken to the police station, where Terry and Chilton were arrested for carrying a concealed weapon.

Terry and Chilton were found guilty, but appealed the case all the way up to the federal Supreme Court. The Terry v. He identified that he was a police officer and asked for their names. During the pat down, McFadden felt a weapon through the clothing of John Terry, which he then removed.

He performed a pat down of the other two men and found that Richard Chilton was also carrying. Both men were charged with the illegal possession of a concealed firearm. During the subsequent trial, attorneys for Terry and Chilton argued that the weapons were obtained by Officer McFadden illegally via an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

They further argued that the weapons were inadmissible as evidence in the case due to the exclusionary rule.