{"id":7883,"date":"2012-10-27T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T12:10:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T12:10:11","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7883","title":{"rendered":"CO: A pat down solely for officer safety was unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pat down solely for officer safety was unreasonable. People v. Berdahl<\/a>, 2012 COA 179, 2012 Colo. App. LEXIS 1734 (October 25, 2012):<\/p>\n

[*P27] Nevertheless, the trial court appears to have applied a bright-line rule that an officer can conduct a pat-down search whenever he or she has an obligation to transport a person in a patrol car. The court found that the trooper had no real choice but to transport defendant, and “[t]he fact that defendant was not intoxicated did not eliminate or diminish a danger to [the trooper] if in fact the defendant was armed with a weapon.” The court concluded that requiring the trooper to transport defendant without first verifying that defendant was not armed would require the trooper to take unnecessary risks in performing his duties and, therefore, the search was reasonable.<\/p>\n

[*P28] While we recognize that the trooper faces risks in performing his duties, we fail to see how such risks justify the search in this case. The trooper did not know if defendant or defendant’s girlfriend was armed with a weapon. Thus, the trooper faced the same risk transporting defendant as he did transporting defendant’s girlfriend. Despite this, the trooper subjected defendant to a pat-down search for weapons but did not search defendant’s girlfriend. Furthermore, as noted, the trooper had no reasonable and articulable suspicion to believe defendant was intoxicated or otherwise a threat and there was no departmental policy requiring the pat down.<\/p>\n

[*P29] Under these circumstances \u2014 and where Colorado law has not recognized an officer safety exception absent a reasonable and articulable suspicion that an individual may be armed and dangerous or intoxicated \u2014 we conclude that the trooper’s pat-down search of defendant, conducted under his own “officer safety practice,” was not a constitutionally reasonable search.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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