The following two cases will come before the United States Supreme Court during the current term.
Search incident to arrest: Arizona v. Grant
Officers, already suspicious that defendant Rodney Grant was involved in drug dealing, ran a records check and learned that he had an outstanding warrant for driving under suspension. The officers waited outside defendant's house one afternoon, until he drove up and parked in the driveway. As the defendant was getting out of his car, an officer summoned him. The defendant walked eight to ten feet toward the officer, who immediately arrested and handcuffed him. The other two occupants of the defendant's vehicle were then removed and handcuffed as well. Within minutes, all three were locked in the back of a police car, surrounded by officers. There were no unsecured civilians in the area. At this point, police searched the defendant's car, finding a weapon and a bag of cocaine.
The Supreme Court of Arizona ruled that this was not a valid search incident to arrest, reasoning that by the time the search began, the defendant and his companions were handcuffed, locked in the back of a police car, and under police supervision there was no reason for police to believe that anyone could gain access to the vehicle. Therefore, there was no evidence that officer safety was at risk, so a search was not justified.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in this case on October 7, and will likely release an opinion addressing the following question: "Does the Fourth Amendment require law enforcement officers to demonstrate a threat to their safety or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime of arrest in order to justify a warrantless vehicular search incident to arrest conducted after the vehicle's recent occupants have been arrested and secured?"
Stop and Frisk: Arizona v. Johnson
An Arizona officer, on assignment with a state gang task force, was on patrol in the "Sugar Hill" section of Tucson, an area associated with the Crips gang. The officer randomly decided to run a check on the license plate of a car, and learned that the vehicle had a "mandatory insurance suspension." She then stopped the vehicle. Defendant Lemon Johnson was a back seat passenger in the car. Johnson was dressed entirely in blue, and had a blue bandanna members of the Crips gang typically wear blue, while bandannas are often used "to show…allegiance or…affiliation with a certain gang." In addition, Johnson had a scanner in his jacket pocket although not illegal in Arizona, the officer found this "out of the ordinary," and noted people normally do not carry one "unless they're going to be involved in some kind of criminal activity or going to try to evade police[.]" Johnson was cooperative during an ensuing conversation with the officer, but said he did not have any identification on him. He said he was from Eloy, a city the officer knew to be home to a "predominant gang called the Trekkie Park Crips." When asked, Johnson admitted to doing time in prison for burglary, saying he had been released a year and half earlier.
Although the officer did not suspect Johnson of any crime, she "wanted to gather intelligence about the gang [he] might be in" because "gather[ing] intelligence" was one of her "main missions in the task force." She hoped to learn about how big his possible gang was, where it was located, who its leaders were, and "what kind of crimes they're involved in." Therefore, in an attempt isolate Johnson in the hope he would say more, she asked him to step out of the vehicle, and he did so willingly. Once he was out, the officer frisked him; she felt a gun (obviously illegal for a convicted felon) in his waistband.
Johnson sought to suppress the evidence the officer found, arguing that the frisk was unconstitutional because this was a consensual encounter, not a Terry stop. The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed. The Court noted that the officer had no reason to believe Johnson was involved in any criminal activity her request that Johnson step out of the car to discuss gang activity was part of a consensual encounter, not for officer safety purposes. Therefore, she had no right to pat him down for weapons, even if she had reason to suspect he was armed and dangerous. "[W]hen an officer initiates an investigative encounter with a passenger that was consensual and wholly unconnected to the original purposes of the routine traffic stop of the driver, that officer may not conduct a Terry frisk of the passenger without reasonable cause to believe 'criminal activity may be afoot'."
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review this case and decide whether during a vehicle stop for a minor traffic infraction an officer may pat-down a passenger believed to be armed and dangerous even when the officer lacks reasonable grounds to believe that the passenger is committing, or has committed, a criminal offense. Oral arguments are scheduled for December 9.
