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Mr. Beat presents
Supreme Court Briefs
Cleveland, Ohio October 31, 1963
That’s right, Halloween
Martin McFadden, a Cleveland detective with 39 years of experience, gets suspicious when
he sees two men pacing back and forth in front of a jewelry store. The two men, John Terry
and Richard Chilton, would go back and forth, according to various reports, between 12 and
24 times. They took turns starting a block or two away, and then would routinely walk
up to the jewelry store window to peek in, and return back to chat about it. Soon, a
third man, named Carl Katz, approached Terry and Chilton and talked with them and then left.
McFadden had seen enough. After the three men rejoined in front of Zucker’s, a clothing
store, McFadden decided to approach them. McFadden was in street clothes, but identified
himself as a police officer and asked them for their names. After the men “mumbled
something” in response, McFadden frisked them. Frisk, by the way, means patting someone
down to search for hidden weapons or illegal stuff.
Well after McFadden frisked the men, he found a .38-caliber automatic pistol in Terry’s
overcoat pocket and a .38-caliber revolver in Chilton’s pocket. Later McFadden would
argue he only did a pat-down before reaching into their pockets for the guns. Although,
he never reached into the pockets of Katz. McFadden arrested all three men, but since
Katz didn’t have a weapon on him, the police released him and only charged Terry and Chilton
with carrying concealed weapons.
At the trial, Terry and Chilton’s lawyer argued the evidence of the guns couldn’t
be used in court since McFadden’s frisk of them went against the Fourth Amendment.
It was an illegal search and seizure. You see, there was this law called the exclusionary
rule. The exclusionary rule said you couldn’t use evidence if the police got it illegally.
The Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court disagreed, finding Terry and Chilton guilty. They ruled
that, due to both the suspicious nature of their behavior and McFadden’s concern for
his own safety, the “stop-and-frisk,” as it’s now commonly known, was reasonable.
Terry appealed to the Ohio District Court of Appeals, which agreed with the lower court.
So he appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court of Ohio, but it dismissed the appeal
saying that it involved “no constitutional question.”
By the time Terry had tried to appeal his case to the United States Supreme Court, it
was 1967, a time when more and more Americans were losing their trust in the police. Especially
African Americans. Oh, by the way, here is what Terry looked like. Here is what Chilton
looked like. Here is what Katz looked like.
The Supreme Court did hear arguments on December 12, 1967. The big question: was the stop and
frisk of Terry and the other men a violation of the Fourth Amendment?
The Court said no. On June 10, 1968, it announced it had sided with Ohio. It was 8-1. They said
that the police could stop-and-frisk suspects as long as there was a “reasonable suspicion”
that the suspect was actually about to commit a crime. So the search and seizure was reasonable
in Terry and the others’ case since it did seem like they were gonna rob that jewelry
store. After all, McFadden had 39 years of police experience, so he would know better
than about anyone what an armed robbery was about to look like.
Since this case remains so controversial today, I should bring up the one dissenting opinion
by Justice Douglas. He strongly disagreed with the decision, saying “We hold today
that the police have greater authority to make a 'seizure' and conduct a 'search' than
a judge has to authorize such action. We have said precisely the opposite over and over
again.” Adding: “To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long
step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms
of lawlessness. But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through
a constitutional amendment.”
Terry v. Ohio expanded police authority in crime investigations, but like I said it’s
very controversial today as the decision had unintended consequences. Today, police departments
across the country regularly practice stop-and-frisk, aka “Terry stops,” but many have called
for a ban on them, arguing that Terry stops have in fact not contributed to a decline
in the crime rate but instead made systemic racism worse.
How many times have you been stopped and frisked?
7 times. 7 times?
Yes sir. And you're how old?
Seventeen
New York City probably has the most visible and notorious stop-and-frisk program, but recently the New York City Police
Department reassigned its 600 plainclothes officers in response to systemic racism after
the recent nationwide protests after the killing of George Floyd. Still, last year 59% of the
suspects stopped and frisked by New York City Police were African American, despite the
fact that African Americans make up 24% of the New York City population.
I’ll see you for the next Supreme Court case, jury!
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So what do you think? Do you agree with the Court in this case? Let me know in the comments below.
Also, if you want a case that's related to this one I've put a video below that I've released about Graham v. Connor.
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does not do as well as some of my other videos
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