concluding an officer who “was alone early in the morning on car patrol duty in a high-crime area” and investigating a reliable tip that a suspect “was carrying narcotics and had a gun at his waist” acted reasonably when he reached into the suspect’s open car window and removed a loaded weapon from the suspect’s waistband without first conducting a pat down
How later courts described this case
- concluding an officer who “was alone early in the morning on car patrol duty in a high-crime area” and investigating a reliable tip that a suspect “was carrying narcotics and had a gun at his waist” acted reasonably when he reached into the suspect’s open car window and removed a loaded weapon from the suspect’s waistband without first conducting a pat down
- concluding that a forcible stop of suspect was justified based on face-to-face tip from informant known to police officer, noting that "[t]his is a stronger case than obtains in the case of an anonymous telephone tip. The informant here came forward personally to give information that was immediately verifiable at the scene.”
- holding that the officer lawfully reached into the suspect’s clothing without performing a pat-down where the suspect’s failure to comply with the officer’s command to exit the vehicle made it impossible for the officer to pat down the suspect without the officer placing himself in a more dangerous position
- holding that an officer performed a legal Terry stop when he acted on an anonymous tip that a man in a car had narcotics and a gun by approaching the car and grabbing the gun that had not been visible from outside the car from the man’s waistband where the informant had stated the gun would be
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by State v. Anderson, 258 Mont. 510 (1993)
We conclude that the facts of both Adams and Sharp are distinguishable from the facts in the present case and that the informant’s tip in the present case did not give rise to a particularized suspicion of criminal activity.
Distinguished by People v. Stewart, 41 N.Y. 65 (1976)
Williams is distinguishable in that the predicate was greater by virtue of Officer Glennan’s personal handling of the tip and his recognition of Donald Williams together with the precision of the description.
Distinguished by United States v. Charles Davis AKA Marcus Anderson, 482 F.2d 893 (1973)
along with its companion case Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968), and the more recent Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), is also inapposite to the validity of pre-boarding screening searches of passengers and luggage.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs, dissenting.
My views have been stated in substance by Judge Friendly, dissenting, in the Court of Appeals. 436 F. 2d 30, 35 . Connecticut allows its citizens to carry weapons, concealed or otherwise, at will, provided they have a permit. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. §§ 29-35, 29-38. Connecticut law gives its police no authority to frisk a person for a permit. Yet the arrest was for illegal possession of a gun. The only basis for that arrest was the informer’s *150 tip on the narcotics. ■ Can it be said that a man in possession of narcotics will not have a permit for his gun? Is that why the arrest for possession of a gun in the free- and-easy State of - Connecticut becomes constitutional?
The police problem is an acute one not because of the Fourth Amendment, but because of the ease with which anyone can acquire a pistol. . A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment, which reads, “A well régulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted. There is no reason- why pistols-may not be barred from anyone with a police record. There, is no, reason why a State may not require a purchaser of a pistol to pass a psychiatric test. There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police:
. The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there, being no evidence that .a sawed-off shotgun had “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Id., at 178 . The Second Amendment, it was held, “must be interpreted and applied” with the view of maintaining, a . “militia.”
“The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be *151 secured through the Militia — civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” Id., at 178-179 .
Critics say that proposals like this water down the Second Amendment. . Our decisions belie that argument, for the Second Amendment, as noted, was designed to keep alive the militia. But if watering-down is the mood of the day, I would prefer to water down the Second rather than' the Fourth Amendment. I share with Judge Friendly a concern that the easy extension of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 , to “possessory offenses” is a serious intrusion on Fourth Amendment safeguards. “If it is to be extended to the latter at all, this should be only where observation by the officer himself or well authenticated information shows ‘that criminal activity may be afoot.’ ” 436 F. 2d, at 39 , quoting Terry v. Ohio, supra, at 30 .