Most police encounters involve someone being ordered out of a car or stopped on the street and then patted down by the police officer. This happens far more often than it should. While it is legal in some situations, more often than not, this is an illegal search.
Are Police Allowed to Pat Me Down?
The United States Supreme Court ruled that a police officer may conduct a pat-down search of you as long as the officer has reasonable suspicion that you are armed. The officer must be able to point at specific facts as to why he gave you a pat down. if the officer simply pats down every driver he pulls out of the car or every person he speaks with on the street than he has violated the law. The case that establishes this law is Terry v Ohio, 392 US 1 (1968), which is why this type of police activity is often referred to as a Terry stop.
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Are Police Allowed to Search Me?
Often times, during a Terry stop the police will find other items that could not reasonably be used to assault an officer, but could be used to charge you with a crime, such as marijuana, prescription drugs or even a pipe if the police officer decides to accuse you of the pipe being illegal drug paraphernalia.
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If police are performing a legal pat down while looking for a weapon on a person they believe to be dangerous, and feel something that is immediately apparent to be incriminating they could arrest you for the illegal object. The officer may not manipulate that object in any way or move it around in the person’s pocket to try to see what it is. It is also illegal for an officer to just stick his hands in someone’s pocket without first performing a legal pat down.
Obtaining police video can have a major impact on an illegal search scenario.
Illegal Search By Police
If a judge determines that the pat down or the search was illegal then any evidence recovered as a result of the illegal stop would be suppressed. If the evidence is suppressed than the charges would likely be dropped because the evidence is no longer admissible and the prosecutor will not be able to go forward.
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