{"id":57929,"date":"2024-05-20T13:57:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T18:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=57929"},"modified":"2024-05-20T13:57:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T18:57:03","slug":"d-d-c-here-rs-was-thin-and-frisking-under-jacket-was-unreasonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=57929","title":{"rendered":"D.D.C.: Here, RS was thin, and frisking under jacket was unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The reasonable suspicion here is thin at best, but, even if there was enough for a stop, there wasn\u2019t for a frisk. Going under defendant\u2019s \u201cjacket to feel his waist and groin area\u201d was unreasonable because there wasn\u2019t suspicion he was armed. United States v. Jones<\/a>, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89734 (D.D.C. May 17, 2024):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

Upon reviewing the evidence and the legal framework, the court concludes that Officer Wilson exceeded the permissible scope of a Terry frisk. At the evidentiary hearing, Officer Wilson was asked “you reached underneath Mr. Jones’ jacket to feel his waist and groin area. Is that correct?” He responded “Yes.” Feb. 8 Tr. at 60:3-5. Officer Wilson further testified that he “lifted it up”-referring to the jacket-and that it was only once he did so that he “felt a firearm.” Id. at 60:6-14. By placing his hands “under the outer surface of [Jones’] garments” before feeling a weapon, Officer Wilson’s actions contravened the plain letter of Terry, 329 U.S. at 29-30. Nor was his search “reasonably related in scope to the justification for [its] initiation.” Id. at 29. The search was not targeted to a specific area where he had reason to believe Jones was hiding a weapon, see Adams, 407 U.S. at 147-49, nor was it confined to simply exploring a pocket for weapons, see Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378. Rather, Officer Wilson “physically penetrate[d] the outer surface of the jacket” and reached under Jones’ outer clothing-a more severe intrusion not justified under the circumstances. See Askew, 529 F.3d at 1133.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reasonable suspicion here is thin at best, but, even if there was enough for a stop, there wasn\u2019t for a frisk. Going under defendant\u2019s \u201cjacket to feel his waist and groin area\u201d was unreasonable because there wasn\u2019t suspicion he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stop-and-frisk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57930,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57929\/revisions\/57930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}