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Stop was justified, but it did not evolve into justification for a frisk

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

While defendant's stop was based on [tenuous] reasonable suspicion, the officer's detention thereafter was unreasonable because there was no showing of justification. Grandberry v. State, 2008 Ga. App. LEXIS 143 (February 7, 2008): Meanwhile, the police were detaining Grandberry based solely on the word of the complainant, whose identity could not be confirmed and whose reliability had become an issue. Under these circumstances, law enforcement's detention of Grandberry for 40 minutes exceeded the scope of the brief investigatory stop authorized by Terry. See Schmidt, supra, 188 Ga. App. at 87; United States v. Dortch, 199 F.3d 193, 200 (II) (A) (5th Cir. 1999) (justification for suspect's detention ceased when computer check came back negative, and the subsequent discovery of drugs following a canine search was the product of a Fourth Amendment violation)...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).