AZ Supreme Court rules per se 'Stop & Frisk' illegal -- national implications

Police cannot frisk someone they stop and question absent some “reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot,’’ the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In their unanimous decision affirming the right to carry a gun without interference, the justices rejected arguments by prosecutors that a simple belief someone is armed and dangerous is enough to justify a frisk, even without any evidence of criminal activity. They said the U.S. Constitution dictates otherwise.

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¶20 The State urges us to follow United States v. Orman, 486 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir. 2007) …

¶21 We disagree and conclude that Terry allows a frisk only if two conditions are met: officers must reasonably suspect both that criminal activity is afoot and that the suspect is armed and dangerous. See, e.g., Johnson, 555 U.S. at 326. Because the analysis in Orman ignores one prong of Terry, we disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning.

¶22 We also disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s determination that mere knowledge or suspicion that a person is carrying a firearm satisfies the second prong of Terry, which itself involves a dual inquiry; it requires that a suspect be “armed and presently dangerous.” See Terry, 392 U.S. at 30 (emphasis added); see also Johnson, 555 U.S. at 326–27 (observing that “to proceed from a stop to a frisk, the police officer must reasonably suspect that the person stopped is armed and dangerous”). In a state such as Arizona that freely permits citizens to carry weapons, both visible and concealed, the mere presence of a gun cannot provide reasonable and articulable suspicion that the gun carrier is presently dangerous.

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But when officers consensually engage citizens on the street without having any evidence of wrongdoing, the mere presence of a weapon does not afford officers constitutional permission to search weapons-carrying individuals. To conclude otherwise would potentially subject countless law-abiding persons to patdowns solely for exercising their right to carry a firearm.

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Nightmare said:

Beggars the meaning of consensual. In law: Existing, or made, by the mutual consent of two or more parties.

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