Approval to "Stop & Frisk"

It happens almost every day: a policeman catches sight of a suspicious character, stops him and frisks him. But doesn't the Fourth Amendment specifically bar "unreasonable searches and seizures?" It does indeed, said the Supreme Court last week, but the operative word is "unreasonable." Speaking for an 8-to-1 majority, Chief Justice Warren held that the Constitution permits a policeman to accost an individual if there is good reason to suspect that he is up to no good, and to search him for weapons if there is good reason to suspect that he may be armed.

The qualifications are not idle, said the court. "A police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts" that led him to act. "Inarticulate hunches" will not do. And hidden weapons must be the only object of the frisk. "The issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger." The court added, however, that if a properly motivated frisk turns up other incriminating evidence, that evidence may be used in court.

The new test was an effort to set up a standard less demanding than the "probable cause" required to justify an arrest. The court admitted that its test is not as precise as might be wished. But some indication of what is reasonable was given by the three cases that the court decided. In Cleveland, Detective Martin McFadden had watched two men walking back and forth and staring in the window of a store. On the assumption that they were casing the store for a robbery, Detective McFadden stopped them and frisked them. Both were carrying concealed guns and were convicted of that offense. The court was satisfied that McFadden had had good reason to be suspicious and therefore the conviction was affirmed.

In New York City, Police Officer Samuel Lasky heard a noise at his door, then spotted two strange men tiptoeing in the hall outside his apartment. Alerted by their behavior, he grabbed his gun and stepped out. The two fled, and Lasky followed, finally collaring one on the stairs. A frisk turned up burglar tools, possession of which is a crime in New York. Because the court was satisfied that Officer Lasky had acted properly, the conviction that resulted was upheld. In fact, six of the Justices thought that the defendant's actions were suspicious enough to give probable cause for an arrest.

But a line was drawn in the case of a narcotics offender whom Brooklyn Patrolman Anthony Martin had been watching for eight hours. The man had repeatedly been in the company of known addicts, but Officer Martin had not seen or heard anything else suspicious. Nonetheless, he approached the suspect and told him: "You know what I am after." The suspect reached into his pocket and so, simultaneously, did Martin. The policeman grabbed a packet of heroin. In reversing the resulting narcotics conviction, the court ruled that Martin did not have a good reason to stop the man; merely being in the company of known addicts is not sufficiently suspicious. Also, the frisk was illegal. None of the facts should have prompted a "reasonable fear of life or limb. The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person he sees on the street and of whom he makes inquiries."

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