Mekender,
That is why I said “as applied” and referred to what “I have seen applied.” I understand what you are saying, but the fact is that I have never seen an NC court find that the officer did have articulable suspicion of a crime, but lacked a belief that the suspect was armed and dangerous. Officers will receive all of the court’s deference, and if they say “I believed he might be armed (or in Sam’s case definitely
was armed) and I believed he might be dangerous,” that is typically all there is to it. Questioned Terry stops almost always come down to the articulable suspicion, and that bar is VERY low:
“An investigatory stop must be justified by a reasonable suspicion, based on objective facts, that the individual is involved in criminal activity.” In re J.L.B.M., 176 N.C.App. 613, 619, 627 S.E.2d 239, 243 (2006). “The only requirement is a minimal level of objective justification, something more than an unparticularized suspicion or hunch.” Id. “To determine whether this reasonable suspicion exists, a court ‘must consider the totality of the circumstances-the whole picture.’ ” State v. Kincaid, 147 N.C.App. 94, 97, 555 S.E.2d 294, 298 (2001) (quoting State v. Watkins, 337 N.C. 437, 441, 446 S.E.2d 67, 70 (1994)).
State v. Huey, 694 S.E.2d 410, 412 (N.C.App.,2010) See also State v. Morton, 694 S.E.2d 432 (N.C.App.,2010)
The reason that LEOs can’t simply stop and frisk every OCer comes earlier than “dangerous” – if they don’t have articulable suspicion that you have committed a crime, they can’t stop you, and if they do, and they can see that you are armed, they are going to be credited with the reasonableness that you are potentially dangerous regardless of whether you have endangered someone already or expressed an intent to do so.
Smith45acp: “Then what's with all the mail I get after being charged with something? The mail is even tailored to whatever my offense was.”
This is admittedly on the border of solicitation, but is specifically permitted because it is not “contact” with you (i.e. “Hi Mr. Smith, we’re x law firm and we see in the public record that you were in a car accident we’d like to take your case”) it is instead "advertisement" (and must specifically state as such) (i.e. you receive mail from a firm claiming to be personal injury specialists after having been in a wreck.) And yes, accident and police reports are public records, and yes, some attorneys spend a lot of time and money on "targeted advertising." I think if this is to be discussed further it might be better done privately, or elsewhere, as I fear we are highjacking Sam's thread, but NC Rule 7.3 is posted here for those interested:
http://www.ncbar.com/rules/rules.asp?page=3&keywords=advertise