Addition Rule Of Probability Independent Practice Worksheet: Fill & Download for Free

It remains the law.BackgroundThe Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents, including police. It mandates a warrant based on probable cause before police can stop a person or search him or his possessions. It is the constitutional sentry to protect a person’s privacy from invasion by the government.The Fourth Amendment has spawned more litigation than any other part of the Constitution and is often defined by its exceptions. For example, while police must secure a warrant to arrest a suspect in his home, they may arrest him outside his home without a warrant so long as they have probable cause he committed a crime. Likewise, a warrant is not required to search a person incident to his arrest, or for car searches, police searches of inventoried property, and where police encounter exigent circumstances involving danger or loss of evidence.In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the U.S. Supreme Court carved out another exception to the Fourth Amendment. Terry acknowledged a stop is a seizure and a frisk is a search, but held a police officer may stop and question an individual without a warrant for a “brief investigatory detention,” provided the officer reasonably suspects criminal activity is afoot, and additionally, may frisk the person stopped for weapons if he reasonably believes the suspect is armed and dangerous.In short, Terry permits police to stop, question, and frisk without a warrant on “reasonable suspicion,” a less demanding standard than probable cause. Terry justified this Fourth Amendment exception on the need to insure police safety.The Shield Becomes a SwordThe Terry stop, justified as a shield, later turned into a sword. Over the years, Terry stops expanded exponentially and police employed aggressive use of such stops to proactively target select populations, primarily racial minorities.New York City became the flash point after the NYPD adopted its “Broken Windows” program in the 1980s under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Beat cops began making arrests for petty offenses like simple trespass, subway turnstile jumping, littering, and jaywalking to instill respect for law and order. In the 1990s, the program was ramped up. While it was effective in reducing crime, it had a terrible impact on racial minorities who were routinely stopped and frisked for no reason except their color. Hence, the cynical reference to the crimes of “walking while black” and “driving while black.”Terry's brief investigatory detention on less than probable cause made stops easy to justify and therefore, had the unintended consequence of expanding racial profiling because reasonable suspicion is an easy standard to meet. Police can target individuals based solely on race, frisk them, and after the fact, justify the decision to stop on race-neutral grounds.Daniels v. City of New York, Davis v. City of New York, Ligon v. City of New York and Floyd v. City of New YorkRampant stop-and-frisk profiling gave rise to a set of related class actions, all assigned to the Hon. Shira Scheindlin. New York City settled the Daniels case and agreed to cease racial profiling and reform its stop-and-frisk policies and procedures. However, it violated the settlement which precipitated the subsequent cases.Data presented at the Floyd trial revealed NYPD cops selectively targeted racial minorities, and aggressive use of Terry stops was ineffective in rooting out crime or weapons in any event.The NYPD employs a UF-250 form, also known as the “Stop, Question and Frisk Report Worksheet.” Cops must complete it after each Terry stop. A plaintiffs' expert in the Floyd trial, Dr. Jeffrey Fagan, examined millions of these forms over many years. His analysis revealed the following:The number of Terry stops significantly increased from 314,000 in 2004 to a high of 685,000 in 2011Between January 2004 and June 2012, the NYPD conducted over 4.4 million Terry stopsOnly 12% of the 4.4 million stops resulted in an arrest or issuance of a summons, and 88% of the people stopped suffered no further police action or prosecutionNew York City is roughly 23% black, 29% Latino, and 33% whiteYet, blacks and Latinos were the subjects of 83% of the 4.4 million stops, while whites were the subjects of only 10% of 4.4 million stopsNYPD cops frisked 52% of the people they stoppedNYPD cops found weapons on 1% of the blacks, on 1.1% of Latinos, and on 1.4% of whites, i.e., blacks and Latinos were disproportionately stopped and frisked, even though whites were more likely to have illegal weaponsNYPD cops did not find weapons on 98.5% of the roughly 2.3 million people friskedNYPD cops conducted a full search, i.e, reached into a suspect’s clothing, in 8% percent of the people stopped, based on the claim they they felt a weapon during the friskBut, they found a weapon in only 9% of all full searches, i.e., 91% of the time, the person searched was unarmed, revealing the “I felt a weapon” justification was usually bogusRacial demographics predicted the rate of NYPD stops, even when controlling statistics for the crime rate in the area or precinct involved.Judge Scheindlin found NYPD officers simply did not take seriously that Terry mandates separate justifications to stop (seize) and frisk (search). She correctly found the NYPD engaged in a wholesale violation of the Fourth Amendment. As a result, she ordered:the NYPD cease its illegal practice of making stops and frisks without reasonable suspicionappointment of an independent monitor to insure NYPD compliance with her injunctionthe NYPD institute a pilot project for body cameras, andthe NYPD adopt a formal written policy specifying the limited circumstances under which cops may stop a person on suspicion of trespass.ConclusionAlthough her decision generated much controversy, in fact, she did nothing more than hold the Terry line on reasonable suspicion and make clear it cannot be based solely on race. The Floyd litigation was not intended to overturn Terry. Both the judge and litigants assumed its legitimacy. The case focused on whether the NYPD violated Terry's reasonable suspicion standard on a wholesale basis. The evidence proved it did.As a result, NYPD was compelled to reform its policies and Judge Scheindlin's injunction brought about a remarkable change. Terry stops fell from 685,000 in 2011 to a mere 10,800 in 2017. Stop-and-Frisk Data