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September 20, 2003

NY to Account for "Stop and Frisks"

A settlement in a New York class action lawsuit will formally require police to report on "stop and frisks." The stop and frisk is a limited search, first approved by the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio. That case involved a police officer who, for very good reasons, thought that suspects he observed were carrying weapons, so he searched the subjects before actually arresting them. Thus, the so called "Terry" stop was born to protect police from suspects who could be armed. It was supposed to be limited to a search of the outside of clothing for concealed weapons when the police officer possessed a "particularly suspicion" that the suspect was armed or dangerous. Since then, the Terry stop and frisk is used by many police to simply harass the public—especially the minority public. As plaintiff Khalil Shkymba explains in a Washington Post article, "No officer would think of pulling a gun and telling an innocent man to pull down his pants on 60th and Lexington."

The civil liberties implications of the justifiable Terry decision come into full focus when one considers how it has been combined with other exceptions to the Fourth Amendment. For instance, under the "plain feel" doctrine, a police officer can reach into the pockets or clothes of a suspect during a Terry stop if the officer can feel the outline of a weapon or contraband concealed in clothes. In practice, this doctrine can give police justification to make a more invasive search if anything at all is within the suspect's pockets. Batteries and camera film feel like containers for crack, pens and markers feel like crack pipes, anything soft feels like marijuana, etc.

Posted by chris at September 20, 2003 11:25 AM

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