Assignment 5 Criminal Procedure

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Renee Delgado 23SP-CJ205-48A - Criminal Procedure and Process Assignment Number 5 5/13/23 Professor Diana Dykes A stop and a frisk are forms of searches and seizures and therefore come under the Fourth Amendment. But because they are less intrusive than arrests, searches, or seizures, all the police need to conduct them is reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause (DelCarmen, 119). According to New York Criminal Procedure, Article 140, § 140.50 Temporary Questioning of Persons in Public Places; Search for Weapons, these are the elements of stop and frisk (DelCarmen, 120): 1. In addition to the authority provided by this article for making an arrest without a warrant, a police officer may stop a person in a public place located within the geographical area of such officer's employment when he reasonably suspects that such person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit either ° (a) a felony or ° (b) a misdemeanor defined in the penal law, and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his conduct. 2. Any person who is a peace officer and who provides security services for any court of the unified court system may stop a person in or about the courthouse to which he is assigned when he reasonably suspects that such person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit either
° (a) a felony or ° (b) a misdemeanor defined in the penal law, and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his conduct. 3. When upon stopping a person under circumstances prescribed in subdivisions one and two a police officer or court officer, as the case may be, reasonably suspects that he is in danger of physical injury, he may search such person for a deadly weapon or any instrument, article, or substance readily capable of causing serious physical injury and of a sort not ordinarily carried in public places by law-abiding persons. If he finds such a weapon or instrument, or any other property possession of which he reasonably believes may constitute the commission of a crime, he may take it and keep it until the completion of the questioning, at which time he shall either return it, if lawfully possessed, or arrest such person. Stop and frisk laws allow an officer to stop a person in a public place based on reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause, ask questions to determine if the person has committed or is about to commit an offense, and frisk the person for weapons if the officer has a reasonable concern for his or her safety (DelCarmen, 120). These stop and frisk laws differ by state, which is why I wanted to add New York's statute explicitly because it is the state in which we live. Terry v. Ohio (1968), a landmark decision that deemed stop and frisk lawful, is one of the most important cases in police enforcement. In this decision, the Court determined that the Fourth Amendment did not preclude police from stopping a person they have reasonable suspicion of having committed a crime and frisking that person if they have reasonable suspicion that person is armed. Terry v. Ohio (1968) established the standards for determining a legal stop and frisk (DelCarmen, 122). A legitimate stop must satisfy two requirements (DelCarmen, 122).
The requirement is a set of conditions. The officer must witness unusual behavior that leads him or her to reasonably infer, based on his or her experience, that criminal activity is about to or has just occurred, and the individual with whom he or she is dealing may be armed and now dangerous (DelCarmen, 122). The second requirement is that the police take immediate action. The officer must act like a police officer and conduct reasonable inquiries (DelCarmen, 122). If the two previous requirements are met, the officer may undertake a carefully circumscribed search (called a pat-down) of the person's outer clothes in an attempt to uncover weapons that may be used to assault the officer and others in the area. If an officer discovers a dangerous weapon during a frisk under these conditions, he or she may seize it, and the weapon may be used against the person from whom it was seized (DelCarmen, 122). To stop and detain someone under the Fourth Amendment, a law enforcement official must justify the stop with more than a suspicion or hunch, according to the United States Constitution (DelCarmen, 123). The arrest must be justified by a reasonable suspicion. Although the term "stop and frisk" suggests that the frisk follows the stop, they are two different activities with their own legal requirements (DelCarmen, 124). A stop is only permissible if the officer has a reasonable suspicion, based on his or her experience, that criminal behavior is going to or has occurred. A halt for any other reason is prohibited. A pat-down for weapons is a frisk. It can occur after a stop, but only if nothing in the opening phases of the contact dispels legitimate worries for the safety of the police officer or others (DelCarmen, 136). A frisk serves just one purpose, the officer's or others' safety. The legal need that an officer has reasonable suspicion that his or her own safety is in danger before frisking someone applies exclusively to a frisk, not a stop (DelCarmen, 136). This implies that an officer does not have to have reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous to stop them. All the officer needs to make a legal stop is
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