![handle is hein.journals/jclon14 and id is 1 raw text is:
THE MYTH OF THE TERRYFRISK
Annie Fisher
Both the United States and the Pennsylvania Constitutions protect
against unreasonable searches and seizures.' These protections have
been further honed through case law that works to define what sort
of search is deemed to be unreasonable. However, as the Pennsyl-
vania courts require more detailed justification for a frisk of a person,
police are countering with increasingly vague and amorphous de-
scriptions of suspicious behavior that work to justify an invasion of
privacy. What starts as an investigation quickly devolves into a police
officer going into the pockets of an otherwise law-abiding citizen on a
fishing expedition that results in the officer retrieving small packets
of drugs. Because the justifications given are vague and hard to chal-
lenge, defendants' rights against unreasonable searches and seizures
continue to erode.
In Terry v. Ohio,2 the United States Supreme Court carved out a
new category of inspection that fell somewhere between a mere en-
counter and a search. Balancing the need for police officers to
protect themselves, and the privacy rights of individuals, the Supreme
Court came up with the frisk. The frisk is a limited search of the
outer clothing that can be done for the protection of [the officer]
and others in the area.3 In order to stop someone in the first place,
Terry requires that there be a reasonable suspicion that criminal activ-
ity is afoot.4 In order to then conduct a frisk of that person, the frisk
may be done when the persons with whom [the officer] is dealing
may be armed and presently dangerous and where nothing in the
initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel [the officer's] reasona-
ble fear for his own or others' safety.5 Pennsylvania adopted this
same law in Commonwealth v. Hicks.
It is one thing when a Terry frisk is done and a weapon is actually
recovered, but in tens of thousands of misdemeanor cases in Phila-
1 U.S. CONST. amend. IV; PA. CONST. art. I, § 8.
2 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
3 Id. at 30.
4 Id.
5 Id.
6 253 A.2d 276 (Pa. 1969).
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jclon14&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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