Supreme Court affirms police right to stop-and-frisk searches
1/27/2009
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously to overturn an Arizona Court of Appeals opinion limiting the power of police to conduct physical searches of citizens during routine encounters.
The appeal to the nation’s highest court stems from a 2007 split decision by a Tucson appellate panel that found police did not have sufficient reason to conduct a “pat-down” search of Lemon Montrea Johnson after he agreed to get out of a vehicle during a traffic stop for an unrelated matter in 2002.
In writing the Court of Appeals 2-to-1 majority opinion, Judge J. William Brammer noted Johnson’s interaction with police was cooperative, “wholly unrelated to the purpose of the traffic stop” and that no one in the vehicle was suspected of criminal activity during the stop.
Harold
