Talk:Terry v. Ohio/Archive 1

Race

What about the race of the two suspects? They were both black men. (See 72 St. John's L. Rev. 727; linked at: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3735/is_199807/ai_n8787005#continue).

I wasn't sure where to put this, because it isn't an 'official' part of the supreme court's opinion. However the line of cases and the Criminal Procedures that have followed Terry, touch heavily on race. I can't really edit the main page right now because I'm procrastinating from studying for my crim pro final! But discussion of race should definitely be a part of the case that defined the 'investigatory stop' which has made grounds for so many driving while black or brown stops.

A quote from the LR article above:

"When I put [Detective McFadden] on as my witness on the motion to suppress, I, of course, did not know what he would say. All I could rely upon was what my clients had told me. I could not believe his testimony as it came out of his mouth on the stand. He said to us that he had seen these two fellows standing across the street from him, and he described them as being two Negroes, and then he talked of the white fellow who came up to them and talked with them. Then he went on down the street. Mac then admitted to us they weren't doing anything, except one of the black fellows would leave the other one, walk down the street a little bit, turn around, peer into the window at either the United Airlines or the jewelry store window, then walk back up to where the other fellow was. Then the other fellow would take a walk in a similar manner."

PBF 01:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is misleading as it suggests that a reasonable suspicion that a crime is or is about to be committed is all that is needed for a weapons frisk. Terry vs. Ohio requires a reasonable suspicion that the subject is armed and dangerous and can pose a threat to officer safety. Therefore, an officer pulling someone over for a traffic infraction would not automatically have the right to do a weapons frisk, unless he had further specific and articulable facts, combined with his or her totality of experience, that would lead to a reasonable suspicion that the subject was armed and dangerous.

In Terry vs. Ohio these suspicions were consistent with the crime the officer suspected was about to be committed, which is why these points are often confused.

From V[34]:

We merely hold today that where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot *and* that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and **1885 others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.

Notice the *and* in the above (my emphasis). This goes to prove the point of the last discussion entry.

Justice White in his affirming opinion voiced something like the present (incorrect) article, but this is not part of the official ruling.

Illiana Montez Love Ramiro Senteno

Edit of 31 May 2007

This edit was mine--Wikipedia somehow lost track of me before I saved the changes. JeffConrad 02:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Arizona v. Gant

the Supreme Court decision on 4/21 has altered certain aspects of terry v ohio (indirectly) through altering the bright line rule searches for vehicles. I am wondering if and when this should be changed. It reinterpreted (i believe) NY v. Belton and is more affecting of searches of vehicles incident to arrest however it should still be looked at for relevance for Terry. i'd do ir myself but i'm at work and thought I'd just mention it. 69.23.137.224 (talk) 21:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

WL to Authoritarianism

Is this link really indicated? It seems to me that we approach authoritarianism when police detain people under circumstances not authorized by Terry. JeffConrad (talk) 07:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Edits of 14 April 2010

Under the "Case" portion, I took information from the Supreme Court (http://www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/cases/terry%20v%20ohio.html) to better explain the details behind the event. —Preceding unsigned comment added by C.rivera11 (talk • contribs) 03:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this article really best served by including extensive passages of the opinion text? Or is it better to have judiciously selected excerpts? If the former, what's the purpose of even including more than just a link to an authoritative source of the opinion? The great advantage of concise summary with carefully chosen excerpts is that the key points aren't lost in a sea of information. The revised section is now about twice as long, and I would argue that it doesn't provide anything close to twice as much usable information.

It would seem to me if the opinion text is to be copied and pasted, it would be far preferable to obtain it from a source such as those listed at the end of the article (e.g., Findlaw, Justia, LII) rather than the relatively obscure (and less presumptively reliable) source that was used here.

Finally, direct quotations from the opinion text should be indicated as such rather than presented as if paraphrased.

I think this edit should be reverted, and the previous text be augmented only to include significant material that is thought to be missing. JeffConrad (talk) 03:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This is NOT an opinion text. This is the testimony of the Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio. It is important to know this detailed information because it better explains the reasoning behind the Fourth Amendment. Terry v. Ohio established two rules for law enforcement, which you learn from the details of the event behind this case. First being that police can detain people that arouse reasonable suspicion and second that permission for police to conduct a protective weapons search. Also, it is important to know that background behind why Detective McFaddon did what he did, based off his many years of experience. This is valuable information to better understand the impact that this case has on the Fourth Amendment.

“Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.”

You clearly do not understand the difference between an opinion and testimony.

I also don't think you understand what's meant by summarize; most of the material you added in the second edits add nothing to the understanding of the important issues (which I think were adequately covered before). If you disagree, please discuss here.

You've now been reverted twice (Postdlf beat me by a few seconds); I would consider any further similar edits disruptive. Again, please discuss here what you think is important that has been left out. It might be reasonable to make it more clear that McFadden acted from considerable experience. But many of the other details in the opinion are essentially irrelevant. JeffConrad (talk) 04:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) It's text from the opinion of the Court, which is what this article is about. He didn't mean it was an "opinion" in the sense of being an editorial, as you seem to have taken it. And it's not "testimony" (at least not directly); the Court doesn't hear testimony, it reviews the record from the lower courts and reads the briefs of the parties. The Court's summary of facts in its opinion is its understanding of those sources and what it considers relevant and significant. You should probably learn such basics before trying to substantially change an article in this area.

You can make the points you want to make without dumping large blocks of text from the opinion into the article. Wikisource is the place for uploading the full text of source material; Wikipedia articles summarize information. I'd recommend discussing here first what you think is lacking in the article, and then we can come to a consensus about how to revise the article. Can you provide specifics? postdlf (talk) 04:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As I reread the first sentence under Case, it seems to me that “while on a downtown beat which he had been patrolling for many years” speaks adequately to McFadden's experience. But if that's not quite enough, perhaps we could include some of the specifics from

“However, he [McFadden] testified that he had been a policeman for 39 years and a detective for 35 and that he had been assigned to patrol this vicinity of downtown Cleveland for shoplifters and pickpockets for 30 years. He explained that he had developed routine habits of observation over the years and that he would ‘stand and watch people or walk and watch people at many intervals of the day.’ He added: ‘Now, in this case when I looked over they didn't look right to me at the time.’” (392 U.S., at 5)

JeffConrad (talk) 07:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Additional quotation of search limitations

Perhaps I'm failing to follow what I just preached, but I've added some material stressing that the frisk is limited to a search for dangerous weapons that could be used against an officer. The previous quote probably also made this clear, but the one I added is slightly more extensive, and suggests that the Ohio appellate court was of essentially the same mind as U.S. Supreme Court. The footnote was also cited in a California Appellate case, People v. Garcia (2006), 145 Cal.App.4th 782, at 787–88. As that opinion notes, the restriction was apparently overlooked in several state court decisions, including State v. Flynn (Wis., 1979), State v. Wilcox (N.J., 1981), and People v. Long and People v. Loudermilk (Ca., 1987). It would seem that this position was reiterated in Arizona v. Gant (2009); this probably could be mentioned under Subsequent jurisprudence if it's thought important.

Revise or remove if I've gone too far. JeffConrad (talk) 05:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Section implications today

This section, added 16 March 2011, covers material that may be appropriate somewhere in Wikipedia (perhaps Terry stop?), but I don’t think it belongs here. Moreover, it strikes me as more of a personal op-ed than an encyclopedic treatment. There also are several stylistic and factual errors; they’re easily corrected, but I think the greater issue is whether this belongs at all. Anyone else? JeffConrad (talk) 21:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I’ve removed this section because it has nothing to do with Terry v. Ohio or subsequent jurisprudence. The unsourced personal opinion cannot stand anywhere in Wikipedia, but the topic of the article, that some Terry stops may not be supported by articulable reasonable suspicion, and may represent racial profiling, is legitimate. I’ve placed the usable part of what I deleted in Talk:Frisking; it may be appropriate to include in that article, or perhaps in Terry stop, because the stops as well as the frisks may have been questionable. JeffConrad (talk) 08:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC)