Law Commons^™

Police Shootings After Torres V. Madrid: Suspects Eluding Capture Are Seized Under Fourth Amendment, Travis R. Thickstun

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In Torres v. Madrid, the Supreme Court held that the application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued. Because this new rule brings even the slightest touches within the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, it allows more claims against police officers for violations of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Until the Torres decision though, only when someone shot by police was actually taken into custody could that person sue the police officers …

Dear Courts: I, Too, Am A Reasonable Man, Marvel L. Faulkner

Pepperdine Law Review

There has been an ongoing debate regarding police-on-Black violence since the dawn of the United States police force. At every stage, the criminal justice system has had a monumental impact on the plight of the Black American community. The historical roots of racism within the criminal justice system have had adverse effects on the Black American psyche. Emerging research suggests that the upsurge in reporting police-on-Black violence—including videos shot from pedestrian camera phones and uploaded to multimedia platforms and historical accounts of the agonizing treatment Black Americans have experienced beginning with Slave Patrols—has affected individualized behavior during interactions with police …

Gang Policing: The Post Stop-And-Frisk Justification For Profile-Based Policing, K. Babe Howell

University of Denver Criminal Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Remain Armed, Jeffrey Bellin

Jeffrey Bellin

The laws governing gun possession are changing rapidly. In the past two years, federal courts have wielded a revitalized Second Amendment to invalidate longstanding gun carrying restrictions in Chicago, the District of Columbia, and throughout California. Invoking similar Second Amendment themes, legislators across the country have steadily deregulated public gun carrying, preempting municipal gun control ordinances in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland.

These changes to substantive gun laws reverberate through the constitutional criminal procedure framework. By making it lawful for citizens to carry guns even in crowded urban areas, enhanced Second Amendment rights trigger Fourth Amendment protections that could …

The Inverse Relationship Between The Constitutionality And Effectiveness Of New York City "Stop And Frisk", Jeffrey Bellin

Jeffrey Bellin

New York City sits at the epicenter of an extraordinary criminal justice phenomenon. While employing aggressive policing tactics, such as “stop and frisk,” on an unprecedented scale, the City dramatically reduced both violent crime and incarceration – with the connections between these developments (if any) hotly disputed. Further clouding the picture, in August 2013, a federal district court ruled the City’s heavy reliance on “stop and frisk” unconstitutional. Popular and academic commentary generally highlights isolated pieces of this complex story, constructing an incomplete vision of the lessons to be drawn from the New York experience. This Article brings together all …

What Caused The 2016 Chicago Homicide Spike? An Empirical Examination Of The 'Aclu Effect' And The Role Of Stop And Frisks In Preventing Gun Violence, Paul Cassell, Richard Fowles

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Homicides increased dramatically in Chicago in 2016. In 2015, 480 Chicago residents were killed. The next year, 754 were killed–274 more homicide victims, tragically producing an extraordinary 58% increase in a single year. This article attempts to unravel what happened.

This article provides empirical evidence that the reduction in stop and frisks by the Chicago Police Department beginning around December 2015 was responsible for the homicide spike that started immediately thereafter. The sharp decline in the number of stop and frisks is a strong candidate for the causal factor, particularly since the timing of the homicide spike so perfectly coincides …

Law Enforcement And Criminal Law Decisions, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

No abstract provided.

Warning: Stop-And-Frisk May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Josephine Ross

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that the increasingly prevalent critiques of the War on Drugs apply to other areas of criminal law. To highlight the broader relevance of these critiques, the Article uses as its test case the criminal regulation of gun possession. The Article identifies and distills three lines of drug-war criticism, and argues that they apply to possessory gun crimes in much the same way that they apply to drug crimes. Specifically, the Article focuses on: (1) race- and class-based critiques; (2) concerns about police and prosecutorial power; and (3) worries about the social costs of mass incarceration. Scholars have …

The Right To Remain Armed, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

The laws governing gun possession are changing rapidly. In the past two years, federal courts have wielded a revitalized Second Amendment to invalidate longstanding gun carrying restrictions in Chicago, the District of Columbia, and throughout California. Invoking similar Second Amendment themes, legislators across the country have steadily deregulated public gun carrying, preempting municipal gun control ordinances in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland.

These changes to substantive gun laws reverberate through the constitutional criminal procedure framework. By making it lawful for citizens to carry guns even in crowded urban areas, enhanced Second Amendment rights trigger Fourth Amendment protections that could …

Following The Script: Narratives Of Suspicion In Terry Stops In Street Policing, Jeffery Fagan, Amanda Geller

Faculty Scholarship

Regulation of Terry stops of pedestrians by police requires articulation of the reasonable and individualized bases of suspicion that motivate their actions. Nearly five decades after Terry, courts have found it difficult to articulate the boundaries or parameters of reasonable suspicion. The behavior and appearances of individuals combine with the social and spatial contexts in which police observe them to create an algebra of suspicion. Police can proceed to approach and temporarily detain a person at a threshold of suspicion that courts have been unable and perhaps unwilling to articulate. The result has been sharp tensions within Fourth Amendment …

The Inverse Relationship Between The Constitutionality And Effectiveness Of New York City "Stop And Frisk", Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

New York City sits at the epicenter of an extraordinary criminal justice phenomenon. While employing aggressive policing tactics, such as “stop and frisk,” on an unprecedented scale, the City dramatically reduced both violent crime and incarceration – with the connections between these developments (if any) hotly disputed. Further clouding the picture, in August 2013, a federal district court ruled the City’s heavy reliance on “stop and frisk” unconstitutional. Popular and academic commentary generally highlights isolated pieces of this complex story, constructing an incomplete vision of the lessons to be drawn from the New York experience. This Article brings together all …

Preempting The Police, David Jaros

All Faculty Scholarship

Fighting crime requires that we vest police with extensive discretion so that they can protect the public. Unfortunately, the nature of police work makes it difficult to ensure that law enforcement authority is not abused. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that a great deal of questionable police activity exists in the legal shadows — unregulated practices that do not violate defined legal limits because they have generally eluded both judicial and legislative scrutiny. Local law enforcement strategies, like the maintenance of unauthorized police DNA databases and the routine practice of initiating casual street encounters, threaten fundamental notions of …

Law Enforcement And Criminal Law Decisions, Erwin Chemerinsky

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Interest(S) And Fourth Amendment Enforcement, Alexander A. Reinert

Faculty Articles

Fourth Amendment events generate substantial controversy among the public and in the legal community. Yet there is orthodoxy to Fourth Amendment thinking, reflected in the near universal assumption by courts and commentators alike that the amendment creates only tension between privately held individual liberties and public-regarding interests in law enforcement and security. On this account, courts are faced with a clear choice when mediating Fourth Amendment conflicts: side with the individual by declaring a particular intrusion to be in violation of the Constitution or side with the public by permitting the intrusion. Scholarly literature and court decisions are accordingly littered …

Constitutional Law--Stop And Frisk--Reasonableness Under The Fourth Amendment, John Michael Anderson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

68/06/11 Police Won't Abuse Frisk Power Upheld By High Court, Says Blackwell, Cleveland Press

Newspaper Coverage

Cleveland Police Chief Michael J. Blackwell says police won't abuse new stop-and-frisk authority granted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Terry v. Ohio decision. Cleveland ACLU representative Bernard A. Berkman disagrees with the Court decision saying "I think to rummage a person for evidence and to convict him without probable cause is offensive to the Constitution."

68/06/10 Right To Frisk Gets Supreme Court Ok, Cleveland Press

Newspaper Coverage

Summarizes the Court's opinion in Terry v Ohio, including quotes from the majority opinion. Also include quotes from Detective Marty McFadden, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor John T. Corrigan as well as Bernard A. Berkman, Cleveland representative of the ACLU.

68/02/14 High Court Decision Awaited In Police "Stop And Frisk" Case, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Newspaper Coverage

Recaps the events of the case and describes how "police, prosecutors, and others concerned with rising crime rates fear that the Supreme Court may ban or drastically curtail 'stop and frisk,' depriving police of an invaluable investigative tool." Also describes the NAACP brief in which expresses concern that "inhabitants of our inner cities, racial minorities and the underprivileged" will be targeted disproportionately by police.

68/02/01 Brief For The United States As Amicus Curiae, Erwin N. Griswold, Fred M. Vinson, Jr., Ralph S. Spritzer, Beatrice Rosenberg, Mervyn Hamburg

United States Supreme Court

"In sum, we believe that it is consistent with the Fourth Amendment to recognize a power in law enforcement officers to detain and question under circumstances amounting to less than probable cause for a formal arrest, and that, in exercising such power, the officer may legitimately protect himself by a frisk for dangerous weapons" -- from page 18.

67/12/12 Oral Arguments Before The Us Supreme Court, Louis Stokes, Reuben M. Payne, Earl Warren, Hugo L. Black, William O. Douglas, John M. Harlan, William J. Brennan Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron R. White, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall

United States Supreme Court

Tuesday, December 12, 1967 oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court.

67/12/12 Supreme Court Hears Stop-Frisk Case, Cleveland Press

Newspaper Coverage

Reports on Louis Stokes argument that upholding Terry's frisking by Detective Martin McFadden would signal the relaxing of the Fourth Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure. Reuben Payne, assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor, contended that the McFadden had the right to search Terry whom he suspected was planning a robbery and probably was armed.

67/12/11 High Court To Eye Frisk Case, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Newspaper Coverage

Reports how the Court is hearing Terry v. Ohio along with 3 others cases with stop-and-frisk issues. The Court will explore:

How much right does a policeman have to stop and question a suspicious person he has no legal reason to arrest?

If a policeman frisks a person he does not have a reason to arrest and finds incriminating evidence, can that evidence be used against the person in court.

67/11/17 Brief Of Americans For Effective Law Enforcement, As Amicus Curiae, James R. Thompson

United States Supreme Court

"Despite the evidence which has been found of cases in which some police have abused field interrogation in some instances - evidence upon which the amicus relies so heavily - the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice unanimously recommends its adoption and use :

"The Commission believes that there is a definite need to authorize the police to stop suspects and possible witnesses of major crimes, to detain them for brief questioning if they will not voluntarily cooperate, and to search such suspects for dangerous weapons when such precaution is necessary."

This Amicus Curiae requests that the …

67/11/13 Brief Of National District Attorneys Assocation Amicus Curiae, In Support Of Respondent, Harry Wood, Harry E. Sondheim, Brenden T. Byrne, Charles Moylan Jr., Evelle T. Younger

United States Supreme Court

No abstract provided.

67/11/03 Brief Of Respondent, Reuben M. Payne, John T. Corrigan

United States Supreme Court

No abstract provided.

67/10/25 Brief Of Attorney General Of The State Of New York As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Appellees, Louis J. Lefkowitz, Samuel A. Hirshowitz, Maria L. Marcus, Brenda Soloff

United States Supreme Court

New York Attorney General Amicus Curiae brief argues that police should be able to stop and question suspects whom they reasonably believe have or are planning to commit a felony.

67/10/18 Brief For Petitioner, Terry, Louis Stokes, Jack G. Day

United States Supreme Court

No abstract provided.

67/09/27 Brief Of American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Of Ohio, And New York Civil Liberties Union, Amici Curiae, Thomas H. Barnard, Irwin M. Feldman, Lewis R. Katz, Bernard A. Berkman, Lewis A. Stern, Melvin L. Wulf, Alan H. Levine

United States Supreme Court

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of New York and New York Civil Liberties Union's Amici Curiae Brief arguing against the "stop-and-frisk" practice as seen in Terry v. Ohio and Chilton v. Ohio, Peters v. New York, and Sibron v. New York.

67/08/31 Brief For The N.A.A.C.P Legal Defense And Educational Fund, Inc., As Amicus Curiae, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit Iii, Michael Meltsner, Melvyn Zarr, Anthony G. Amsterdam, William E. Mcdaniels Jr.

United States Supreme Court

"The Court should hold that neither stops nor frisks may be made without probable cause. In each of these cases, the judgment of conviction should be reversed" -- conclusion, p. 69.