U.S. Supreme Court says car passengers can be frisked by police

This is an important ruling with implications for Canada -- while our Courts do not merely copy what the US Courts do, our judges, especially in constitutional rights cases, are very aware of American precedent.

Below see a newstory summarizing the decision and then details of the case itself with a link to the case.


January 26, 2009
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

The court today unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter. The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Arizona man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana.

The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.

The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.
[Details: see http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Arizona_v._Johnson]

The case involves the actions in April 2002 of a police officer from Oro Valley, Ariz., Maria Trevizo, who was on a gang activity patrol in Tucson in an area near the Sugar Hill neighborhood, known locally for gang-related activity. Gang members in that area were known to wear blue. Seeing a car in the area, an officer accompanying Trevizo did a license plate check and found that the insurance on the vehicle had been suspended. The officers had no suspicious of a specific crime, but they pulled over the vehicle.

Lemon Montrea Johnson was in the back seat. Trevizo noticed that he was wearing clothing that she thought hinted at a gang affiliation – he was dressed all in blue, with a blue bandanna. Trevizo grew concerned when she saw a scanner in Johnson's pocket – something that might be used to track police calls and thus avoid detection of crime. Johnson, questioned by Trevizo, was cooperative; he told her he had done time for burglary, and testified he was from the town of Eloy, which Trevizo remembered was an area frequented by the Trekke Park Crips gang. Seeking to gather intelligence about that gang, she continued to question Johnson.

Johnson got out of the car, and at that point, Trevizo did a pat-down search. She felt the butt of a gun near his waist; he was arrested, and a further search found marijuana. He was charged with possessing a gun without legal authorization, possession of marijuana, and resisting arrest (because he had struggled with her after she discovered the gun). He tried to get the evidence excluded from the trial, claiming Trevizo had no authority to conduct the pat-down search. The challenge was denied, and he was convicted of the gun and marijuana possession counts, but not the resisting arrest charge.