CA6: “Frisk” of a suspected bank robber’s duffle bag for the gun they reasonably believed he had was reasonable

Frisking defendant’s duffle bag that was partly unzipped for a weapon that the officers reasonably believed was in there was reasonable. He was wanted for bank robbery, and there was reason to believe he was armed. United States v. Walker, 615 F.3d 728, 2010 FED App. 0244P (6th Cir. 2010):

The directive to steer clear of “unreasonable” searches cannot be reduced to a “frisk first” or any other one-size-fits-all command, which is presumably why courts of appeals have declined to adopt a “frisk first” requirement for Terry searches. See, e.g., United States v. Shranklen, 315 F.3d 959, 963-64 (8th Cir. 2003); United States v. Thomson, 354 F.3d 1197, 1200-01 (10th Cir. 2003); United States v. Rhind, 289 F.3d 690, 693-94 (11th Cir. 2002); United States v. Brown, 133 F.3d 993, 998-99 (7th Cir. 1998). Other courts likewise have recognized that non-frisk search methods may be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Landry, 903 F.2d 334, 337 (5th Cir. 1990) (grabbing a bag and looking inside); People v. Jackson, 79 N.Y.2d 907, 590 N.E.2d 240, 241, 581 N.Y.S.2d 655 (N.Y. 1992) (shining a flashlight through a plastic bag). The courts’ job is to ask what was reasonable under the circumstances, not to poke and prod for lesser-included options that might not occur to even the most reasonable and seasoned officer in the immediacy of a dangerous encounter.

If it is a loaded gun that concerns the officer, moreover, it is by no means clear that poking and prodding the outside of a duffel bag is the most sensible way to find it. No doubt, the frisking of the outside of a bag intrudes less on the privacy of the suspect. But at what cost? Who looks for a gun by aimlessly grabbing and manipulating the outside of a large bag that may or may not contain the gun–and a loaded gun at that? That, we suspect, is not what gun-safety programs recommend. If Terry permits officers to open a closed container located in a car after a stop and after the officers have removed the passengers from the car, see Long, 463 U.S. at 1050-51, it surely permits an officer to unzip a duffel bag, one that is already partially unzipped, to see what is lying on top of it.