Stop and frisk

SIGNIFICANCE: To protect the police from potentially armed suspicious persons during initial street encounters, police officers are permitted to conduct limited detentions and conduct limited searches for weapons.

Under the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution police officers are permitted to conduct warrantless searches incidental to a lawful arrest provided that the arrest and subsequent search is reasonable and is based on probable cause. Probable cause has been defined by the courts as enough information to make a police officer believe that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed and that the person arrested is the suspect in the crime.

Most suspicious activities observed by the police during routine patrols, however, do not present enough elements of suspicion to reach the probable cause requirements for arrests. Therefore, the justification for a search incidental to an arrest does not exist. This situation presents a serious constitutional dilemma for police officers who are concerned for their safety while initially investigating suspicious persons in a patrol environment.

The police are sworn to respond to suspicious activities within their jurisdictions, all of which present potential dangers, yet many do not result in arrests upon initial investigation. To alleviate all doubts as to the nature of suspicious activities, however, the police must make an initial contact with the suspicious person. Such encounters may be viewed by suspicious persons as illegal invasions of their privacy and therefore an abuse of police power. To balance the police’s right to investigate suspicious activities with less than probable cause while protecting the suspicious person’s rights against police abuse, the US Supreme Court established a legal doctrine that clarified and balanced these competing interests. This doctrine has come to be known as the “stop and frisk” doctrine.

In Terry v. Ohio (1968) the US Supreme Court established a number of procedural rules that apply to initial police investigatory contacts on the street when the police have less than probable cause to arrest. The Court, in defining the parameters of constitutionally permitted police contacts, established that contacts based on reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause are permissible under certain limited circumstances. Reasonable suspicion is defined as information based on more than a mere hunch or intuition that criminal activity is afoot but less than the information needed to make a probable cause arrest. Reasonable suspicion contacts are commonly referred to as “stops” and are generally short-term in duration. Particularly concerned with the safety of police officers engaged in reasonable suspicion stops, the courts have allowed the police to conduct limited, nonintrusive, outer garment searches of suspicious persons for potential weapons that could be used against the police. Such limited searches are known as “frisk” or “pat down” searches. If the “frisk” reveals that the suspicious person is carrying an illegal weapon, probable cause to arrest is then established and a full search incidental to a lawful arrest is allowed.

In 2008, several Black American and Latino citizens of New York filed a class action lawsuit against the state of New York, claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD)'s stop-and-frisk policies were unconstitutionally steeped in a pattern of racial profiling. The plaintiffs argued that they had been stopped on the street by police officers without any reasonable cause. In April 2013, the judge overseeing the case of Floyd v. City of New York ruled that the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices were indeed unconstitutional violations of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments because, based on statistics and testimony, they were racially discriminatory; the number of people stopped without objective cause were more likely to be Black or Latino than White, she found. Therefore, she ordered that while the NYPD did not have to halt its stop-and-frisk program, it would need to incorporate a number of changes to rectify this issue. These included a pilot program that involved officers in at least five precincts wearing body cameras, community meetings to discuss necessary reforms, and the assignment of a federal monitor to oversee the reforms of the practice.

According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), in 2013 alone, 56 percent of the total New Yorkers stopped by the police were Black and another 27 percent were Latino. Though the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to appeal the ruling and delayed reforms, the NYPD was able to begin instituting the reforms in 2014 after Bill de Blasio became mayor and officially dropped the appeal. However, commentators were divided on whether the administration had actually succeeded in fulfilling its obligations to reform the stop-and-frisk practice, especially since the data compiled by the NYCLU did not show a decrease in the percentage of stops involving Black Americans and Latinos. During Eric Adam's ensure as mayor, more stops were made than in the past year; however, Black Americans continued to be pulled over more than Americans of other races. In 2023, 16,971 stops were made. Fifty-nine percent of those stopped were Black, 30 percent were Latinx, 7 percent were White, 2 percent were Asian Pacific Islander, and 1 percent were Middle Eastern or Southwest Asian. However, stop and frisk was not used often, especially in comparison to the years when Bloomberg was mayor.

Bibliography

Bergner, Daniel. "Is Stop-and-Frisk Worth It?" Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group, Apr. 2014. Web. 30 May 2016.

Bloom, Robert M. Searches, Seizures, and Warrants. Westport: Praeger, 2003. Print.

Goldstein, Joseph. "Judge Rejects New York’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy." New York Times. New York Times, 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 May 2016.

Katersky, Aaron, and Teddy Grant. "NYPD Safety Team Making High Number of Unlawful Stops, Mostly People of Color: Report." ABC News, 5 June 2023, abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-safety-team-making-high-number-unlawful-stops/story?id=99850699. Accessed 10 July 2024.

LaFave, W. R. Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment. 3rd ed. St Paul: West, 1995. Print.

McWhirter, Darien A. Search, Seizure, and Privacy. Phoenix: Oryx, 1994. Print.

"Stop-and-Frisk Data." New York Civil Liberties Union, 2023, www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data. Accessed 10 July 2024.

Wetterer, Charles M. The Fourth Amendment: Search and Seizure. Springfield: Enslow, 1998. Print.