For our Fourth Amendment enthusiasts, the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued an interesting decision today regarding whether pulling up a suspect's baggy pants constitutes a "search." Officer Kara Breci observed Frank Wiggins and several other men parked suspiciously in a high drug-activity parking lot. After seeing a bag of marijuana in their car, Officer Breci ordered Wiggins to step out and raise his hands above his head. When he did so, Wiggins's baggy jeans fell to his knees. Before frisking him, Officer Breci pulled his pants up to his waist and felt a .380 caliber pistol (which Wiggins was not allowed to have, given his prior convictions).
Wiggins argued that Officer Breci conducted an illegal frisk by pulling his up his pants, and that to hold otherwise would "encourage officers to trample the privacy of young people who participate in the baggy-pants fashion trend."
Wiggins argued that Officer Breci conducted an illegal frisk by pulling his up his pants, and that to hold otherwise would "encourage officers to trample the privacy of young people who participate in the baggy-pants fashion trend."
The court disagreed:
While the outcome of this case is positive, it seems a little risky for the court to be placing emphasis on Officer Breci's potential motives. An officer's subjective intentions generally have no place in a Fourth Amendment analysis. (See, e.g. Bond v. United States; Brendlin v. California; Whren v. United States; Michigan v. Chesternut.) A more solid approach, perhaps, would have been for the court to find no search because Wiggins did not have a a "subjective" and "reasonable expectation of privacy" in preventing an officer from covering his half naked lower body, especially during a police stop (which the court deemed lawful).
Hat tip to commenter "federalist" for sending us the link.
"Officer Breci's adjusting Wiggin's pants was not a search. Her contact with his pants may have been a precursor to her pat-search, but it was not itself the search...
We emphasize that the officer's conduct was objectivley reasonable despite its arguably invasive nature. We acknowledge that one might be offended by an officer's realigning of his pants: it is the sort of thing that one usually prefers to do for himself. But Officer Breci's action arose from her legitimate concerns about her own safety and about potential unnecessary embarassment to Wiggins. By prohibiting Wiggins from raising his own pants, she prevented him from accessing the handgun she reasonably and correctly suspected he possessed. And by refusing to leave the pants hanging at his knees, she avoided potential claims that she unreasonably humiliated Wiggins by public exposure or by incidentially groping his inadequately covered genitalia during the planned pat-frisk."
While the outcome of this case is positive, it seems a little risky for the court to be placing emphasis on Officer Breci's potential motives. An officer's subjective intentions generally have no place in a Fourth Amendment analysis. (See, e.g. Bond v. United States; Brendlin v. California; Whren v. United States; Michigan v. Chesternut.) A more solid approach, perhaps, would have been for the court to find no search because Wiggins did not have a a "subjective" and "reasonable expectation of privacy" in preventing an officer from covering his half naked lower body, especially during a police stop (which the court deemed lawful).
Hat tip to commenter "federalist" for sending us the link.
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