MS: Lifting def’s shirt during a Terry stop was reasonable; drugs revealed

Lifting defendant’s baggy shirt during a virtual felony stop, but characterized as a Terry stop, was not unreasonable because a weapon could have been there [although the court admits that there was no belief there was a gun]. Instead, drugs were validly found. Parks v. State, 2015 Miss. App. LEXIS 27 (January 20, 2015):

P9. Regarding the lifting of Parks’s shirt, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated in Reyes that “the raising of a suspect’s shirt by a law enforcement officer does not violate the boundaries established in Terry.” Reyes, 349 F.3d at 225 (citing United States v. Hill, 545 F.2d 1191, 1193 (9th Cir. 1976)). “[W]hile a search incident to a Terry stop ordinarily is confined to a pat-down of the outer clothing of a suspect, ‘Terry does not in 6 terms limit a weapons search to a so-called pat-down search.'” State v. Taveras, 39 A.3d 638, 649 (R.I. 2012) (quoting Commonwealth v. Flemming, 76 Mass. App. Ct. 632, 925 N.E.2d 39, 43 (Mass. Ct. App. 2010)). In Hill, 545 F.2d at 1193, the Ninth Circuit also held: “Terry does not in terms limit a weapons search to a so-called ‘pat[-]down’ search. Any limited intrusion designed to discover guns, knives, clubs or other instruments of assault are permissible. The raising of the shirt in the instant case is well within the boundaries established by Terry.”