{"id":4147,"date":"2010-10-01T18:10:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T11:36:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T11:36:00","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=4147","title":{"rendered":"TX14: Patdown of “‘more than average’ size” bust was unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patdown of female breasts was unreasonable. Overly intensive search was suppressed. State v. Williams<\/a>, 312 S.W.3d 276 (Tex. App.\u2014Houston (14th Dist.) 2010):<\/p>\n

Here, the trial court concluded that Officer Duncan would have been justified in conducting a pat-down of Williams. The distinction between Sheppard and Carmouche and the case at bar is that Officer Duncan did not conduct a Terry pat-down before employing more intrusive means of searching Williams. If a pat-down had been conducted, and if a weapon or other contraband had been detected as a result, then either Officer Duncan or the female officer could have attempted to extract the item or could have conducted a more intrusive search.<\/p>\n

Additionally, although Officer Duncan had been told that Williams had a knife, he was not told, nor was there any other indication, that Williams had hidden the knife in her bra. Furthermore, there is nothing to show that a pat-down would have been dangerous or ineffective. Officer Duncan stated that he did not want to pat-down a female, but the State has not cited any authority to show that he was therefore justified in conducting a more intrusive search. And the “more than average” size of Williams’s bust, as Officer Duncan described it, did not constitute a reasonable circumstance that would allow officers to conduct an overly broad search. See Balentine, 71 S.W.3d at 770. Because the State has not presented us with a situation justifying a search exceeding the scope of a pat-down, we cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in suppressing the evidence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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