Word: frisk
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Beyond that, by a vote of 5 to 2, the court specifically upheld New York's controversial "stop and frisk" law, which empowers a policeman not only to "pat down" a suspect for concealed weapons in any public place, but also to seize "any other" illegal objects that he finds in the process...
...policeman may stop, frisk and question any person "observed in circumstances which suggest" that he has been or is about to be involved in criminal activity. After 20 minutes, the person must be freed, or arrested and taken to the station house, or given a summons to appear in court. Every such detention must be fully recorded...
...arrest, some states have invented "pre-arrest detention." This device was designed to permit police to act on "reasonable suspicion" rather than the higher standard of "reasonable belief." Delaware, Rhode Island and New Hampshire have adopted the Uniform Arrest Act, which allows a policeman to stop, question, detain and frisk any person "whom he has reasonable ground to suspect" of having committed a crime. Unless there is probable cause for actual arrest, the person must be released after two hours...
This amounts to "investigative arrest" -already widespread in many states. But knowledgeable lawyers say the practice may flunk a Supreme Court test. As a compromise, New York's new "stop and frisk" law imitates the Uniform Arrest Act-except that suspects may not be detained if the frisk or questioning fails to yield probable cause for actual arrest...
Before the stop and frisk law was passed, a thief could sometimes beat arrest in New York even if a cop caught him carrying concealed loot-unless the cop reasonably believed beforehand that a theft had been committed. But even the new New York law is not necessarily constitutional. If detention really means arrest, then it must meet the standards of probable cause. And recent Supreme Court decisions indicate that state courts must exclude evidence seized during searches accompanying arrests made without probable cause. In short, a search cannot be justified by its fruits alone...