Terry v.

Ohio
392 U.S. 1 (1968)

U.S. Supreme Court

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)

Terry v. Ohio

No. 67

Argued December 12, 1967

Decided June 10, 1968

392 U.S. 1

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the

Court.

This case presents serious questions concerning the role of the

Fourth Amendment in the confrontation on the street between
the citizen and the policeman investigating suspicious
circumstances.

Petitioner Terry was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon

and sentenced to the statutorily prescribed term of one to three
years in the penitentiary. [Footnote 1] Following

[5]

the denial of a pretrial motion to suppress, the prosecution

introduced in evidence two revolvers and a number of bullets
seized from Terry and a codefendant, Richard Chilton,
[Footnote 2] by Cleveland Police Detective Martin McFadden.
At the hearing on the motion to suppress this evidence, Officer
McFadden testified that, while he was patrolling in plain clothes
in downtown Cleveland at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon
of October 31, 1963, his attention was attracted by two men,
Chilton and Terry, standing on the corner of Huron Road and
Euclid Avenue. He had never seen the two men before, and he
was unable to say precisely what first drew his eye to them.
However, he testified that he had been a policeman for 39 years
and a detective for 35, and that he had been assigned to patrol
this vicinity of downtown Cleveland for shoplifters and
pickpockets for 30 years. He explained that he had developed
routine habits of observation over the years, and that he would
"stand and watch people or walk and watch people at many
intervals of the day." He added: "Now, in this case, when I
looked over, they didn't look right to me at the time."
His interest aroused, Officer McFadden took up a post of
observation in the entrance to a store 300 to 400 feet

[6]

away from the two men. "I get more purpose to watch them
when I seen their movements," he testified. He saw one of the
men leave the other one and walk southwest on Huron Road,
past some stores. The man paused for a moment and looked in
a store window, then walked on a short distance, turned around
and walked back toward the corner, pausing once again to look
in the same store window. He rejoined his companion at the
corner, and the two conferred briefly. Then the second man
went through the same series of motions, strolling down Huron
Road, looking in the same window, walking on a short distance,
turning back, peering in the store window again, and returning
to confer with the first man at the corner. The two men repeated
this ritual alternately between five and six times apiece -- in all,
roughly a dozen trips. At one point, while the two were standing
together on the corner, a third man approached them and
engaged them briefly in conversation. This man then left the two
others and walked west on Euclid Avenue. Chilton and Terry
resumed their measured pacing, peering, and conferring. After
this had gone on for 10 to 12 minutes, the two men walked off
together, heading west on Euclid Avenue, following the path
taken earlier by the third man.

By this time, Officer McFadden had become thoroughly

suspicious. He testified that, after observing their elaborately
casual and oft-repeated reconnaissance of the store window on
Huron Road, he suspected the two men of "casing a job, a
stick-up," and that he considered it his duty as a police officer to
investigate further. He added that he feared "they may have a
gun." Thus, Officer McFadden followed Chilton and Terry and
saw them stop in front of Zucker's store to talk to the same man
who had conferred with them earlier on the street corner.
Deciding that the situation was ripe for direct action, Officer
McFadden approached the three men, identified

[7]

himself as a police officer and asked for their names. At this

point, his knowledge was confined to what he had observed.
He was not acquainted with any of the three men by name or by
sight, and he had received no information concerning them from
any other source. When the men "mumbled something" in
response to his inquiries, Officer McFadden grabbed petitioner
Terry, spun him around so that they were facing the other two,
with Terry between McFadden and the others, and patted down
the outside of his clothing. In the left breast pocket of Terry's
overcoat, Officer McFadden felt a pistol. He reached inside the
overcoat pocket, but was unable to remove the gun. At this
point, keeping Terry between himself and the others, the officer
ordered all three men to enter Zucker's store. As they went in,
he removed Terry's overcoat completely, removed a .38 caliber
revolver from the pocket and ordered all three men to face the
wall with their hands raised. Officer McFadden proceeded to pat
down the outer clothing of Chilton and the third man, Katz. He
discovered another revolver in the outer pocket of Chilton's
overcoat, but no weapons were found on Katz. The officer
testified that he only patted the men down to see whether they
had weapons, and that he did not put his hands beneath the
outer garments of either Terry or Chilton until he felt their guns.
So far as appears from the record, he never placed his hands
beneath Katz' outer garments. Officer McFadden seized
Chilton's gun, asked the proprietor of the store to call a police
wagon, and took all three men to the station, where Chilton and
Terry were formally charged with carrying concealed weapons.

On the motion to suppress the guns, the prosecution took the

position that they had been seized following a search incident
to a lawful arrest. The trial court rejected this theory, stating that
it "would be stretching the facts beyond reasonable
comprehension" to find that Officer

[8]

McFadden had had probable cause to arrest the men before he

patted them down for weapons. However, the court denied the
defendants' motion on the ground that Officer McFadden, on the
basis of his experience, "had reasonable cause to believe . . .
that the defendants were conducting themselves suspiciously,
and some interrogation should be made of their action." Purely
for his own protection, the court held, the officer had the right to
pat down the outer clothing of these men, who he had
reasonable cause to believe might be armed. The court
distinguished between an investigatory "stop" and an arrest,
and between a "frisk" of the outer clothing for weapons and a
full-blown search for evidence of crime. The frisk, it held, was
essential to the proper performance of the officer's investigatory
duties, for, without it, "the answer to the police officer may be a
bullet, and a loaded pistol discovered during the frisk is
admissible."

After the court denied their motion to suppress, Chilton and

Terry waived jury trial and pleaded not guilty. The court
adjudged them guilty, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Judicial District, Cuyahoga County, affirmed. State v. Terry, 5
Ohio App.2d 122, 214 N.E.2d 114 (1966). The Supreme Court
of Ohio dismissed their appeal on the ground that no
"substantial constitutional question" was involved. We granted
certiorari, 387 U.S. 929 (1967), to determine whether the
admission of the revolvers in evidence violated petitioner's
rights under the Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the
States by the Fourteenth. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961).
We affirm the conviction.

The Fourth Amendment provides that "the right of the people to

be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . ."
This inestimable right of

[9]

personal security belongs as much to the citizen on the streets

of our cities as to the homeowner closeted in his study to
dispose of his secret affairs. For as this Court has always
recognized,

"No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by

the common law than the right of every individual to the
possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint
or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable
authority of law."Union Pac. R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250,
251 (1891).

We have recently held that "the Fourth Amendment protects

people, not places," Katz v. United States,389 U. S. 347, 351
(1967), and wherever an individual may harbor a reasonable
"expectation of privacy," id. at 361 (MR. JUSTICE HARLAN,
concurring), he is entitled to be free from unreasonable
governmental intrusion. Of course, the specific content and
incidents of this right must be shaped by the context in which it
is asserted. For "what the Constitution forbids is not all
searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and
seizures." Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 222 (1960).
Unquestionably petitioner was entitled to the protection of the
Fourth Amendment as he walked down the street in Cleveland.
Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89 (1964); Rios v. United States, 364 U.
S. 253(1960); Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98 (1959);
United States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581 (1948); Carroll v. United
States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925). The question is whether, in all the
circumstances of this on-the-street encounter, his right to
personal security was violated by an unreasonable search and
seizure.

We would be less than candid if we did not acknowledge that

this question thrusts to the fore difficult and troublesome issues
regarding a sensitive area of police activity -- issues which have
never before been squarely

[10]

presented to this Court. Reflective of the tensions involved are

the practical and constitutional arguments pressed with great
vigor on both sides of the public debate over the power of the
police to "stop and frisk" -- as it is sometimes euphemistically
termed -- suspicious persons.

On the one hand, it is frequently argued that, in dealing with the

rapidly unfolding and often dangerous situations on city streets,
the police are in need of an escalating set of flexible responses,
graduated in relation to the amount of information they possess.
For this purpose, it is urged that distinctions should be made
between a "stop" and an "arrest" (or a "seizure" of a person),
and between a "frisk" and a "search." [Footnote 3] Thus, it is
argued, the police should be allowed to "stop" a person and
detain him briefly for questioning upon suspicion that he may be
connected with criminal activity. Upon suspicion that the person
may be armed, the police should have the power to "frisk" him
for weapons. If the "stop" and the "frisk" give rise to probable
cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime, then
the police should be empowered to make a formal "arrest," and
a full incident "search" of the person. This scheme is justified in
part upon the notion that a "stop" and a "frisk" amount to a mere
"minor inconvenience and petty indignity," [Footnote 4] which
can properly be imposed upon the

[11]

citizen in the interest of effective law enforcement on the basis

of a police officer's suspicion. [Footnote 5]

On the other side, the argument is made that the authority of the
police must be strictly circumscribed by the law of arrest and
search as it has developed to date in the traditional
jurisprudence of the Fourth Amendment. [Footnote 6] It is
contended with some force that there is not -- and cannot be -- a
variety of police activity which does not depend solely upon the
voluntary cooperation of the citizen, and yet which stops short of
an arrest based upon probable cause to make such an arrest.
The heart of the Fourth Amendment, the argument runs, is a
severe requirement of specific justification for any intrusion
upon protected personal security, coupled with a highly
developed system of judicial controls to enforce upon the
agents of the State the commands of the Constitution.
Acquiescence by the courts in the compulsion inherent

[12]

in the field interrogation practices at issue here, it is urged,

would constitute an abdication of judicial control over, and
indeed an encouragement of, substantial interference with
liberty and personal security by police officers whose judgment
is necessarily colored by their primary involvement in "the often
competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." Johnson v. United
States, 333 U. S. 10, 14 (1948). This, it is argued, can only
serve to exacerbate police-community tensions in the crowded
centers of our Nation's cities. [Footnote 7]

In this context, we approach the issues in this case mindful of

the limitations of the judicial function in controlling the myriad
daily situations in which policemen and citizens confront each
other on the street. The State has characterized the issue here
as "the right of a police officer . . . to make an on-the-street stop,
interrogate and pat down for weapons (known in street
vernacular as 'stop and frisk'). [Footnote 8]" But this is only
partly accurate. For the issue is not the abstract propriety of the
police conduct, but the admissibility against petitioner of the
evidence uncovered by the search and seizure. Ever since its
inception, the rule excluding evidence seized in violation of the
Fourth Amendment has been recognized as a principal mode of
discouraging lawless police conduct. See Weeks v. United
States,232 U. S. 383, 391-393 (1914). Thus, its major thrust is a
deterrent one, see Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 629-635
(1965), and experience has taught that it is the only effective
deterrent to police misconduct in the criminal context, and that,
without it, the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable
searches and seizures would be a mere "form of words." Mapp
v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 655 (1961). The rule also serves another
vital function -- "the imperative of judicial integrity." Elkins

[13]

v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 222 (1960). Courts which sit

under our Constitution cannot and will not be made party to
lawless invasions of the constitutional rights of citizens by
permitting unhindered governmental use of the fruits of such
invasions. Thus, in our system, evidentiary rulings provide the
context in which the judicial process of inclusion and exclusion
approves some conduct as comporting with constitutional
guarantees and disapproves other actions by state agents. A
ruling admitting evidence in a criminal trial, we recognize, has
the necessary effect of legitimizing the conduct which produced
the evidence, while an application of the exclusionary rule
withholds the constitutional imprimatur.

The exclusionary rule has its limitations, however, as a tool of

judicial control. It cannot properly be invoked to exclude the
products of legitimate police investigative techniques on the
ground that much conduct which is closely similar involves
unwarranted intrusions upon constitutional protections.
Moreover, in some contexts, the rule is ineffective as a
deterrent. Street encounters between citizens and police
officers are incredibly rich in diversity. They range from wholly
friendly exchanges of pleasantries or mutually useful
information to hostile confrontations of armed men involving
arrests, or injuries, or loss of life. Moreover, hostile
confrontations are not all of a piece. Some of them begin in a
friendly enough manner, only to take a different turn upon the
injection of some unexpected element into the conversation.
Encounters are initiated by the police for a wide variety of
purposes, some of which are wholly unrelated to a desire to
prosecute for crime. [Footnote 9] Doubtless some

[14]

police "field interrogation" conduct violates the Fourth

Amendment. But a stern refusal by this Court to condone such
activity does not necessarily render it responsive to the
exclusionary rule. Regardless of how effective the rule may be
where obtaining convictions is an important objective of the
police, [Footnote 10] it is powerless to deter invasions of
constitutionally guaranteed rights where the police either have
no interest in prosecuting or are willing to forgo successful
prosecution in the interest of serving some other goal.

Proper adjudication of cases in which the exclusionary rule is

invoked demands a constant awareness of these limitations.
The wholesale harassment by certain elements of the police
community, of which minority groups, particularly Negroes,
frequently complain, [Footnote 11] will not be

[15]

stopped by the exclusion of any evidence from any criminal

trial. Yet a rigid and unthinking application of the exclusionary
rule, in futile protest against practices which it can never be
used effectively to control, may exact a high toll in human injury
and frustration of efforts to prevent crime. No judicial opinion
can comprehend the protean variety of the street encounter, and
we can only judge the facts of the case before us. Nothing we
say today is to be taken as indicating approval of police conduct
outside the legitimate investigative sphere. Under our decision,
courts still retain their traditional responsibility to guard against
police conduct which is overbearing or harassing, or which
trenches upon personal security without the objective
evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires. When
such conduct is identified, it must be condemned by the
judiciary, and its fruits must be excluded from evidence in
criminal trials. And, of course, our approval of legitimate and
restrained investigative conduct undertaken on the basis of
ample factual justification should in no way discourage the
employment of other remedies than the exclusionary rule to
curtail abuses for which that sanction may prove inappropriate.

Having thus roughly sketched the perimeters of the

constitutional debate over the limits on police investigative
conduct in general and the background against which this case
presents itself, we turn our attention to the quite narrow question
posed by the facts before us: whether it is always unreasonable
for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited
search for weapons unless there is probable cause for an
arrest.

[16]

Given the narrowness of this question, we have no occasion to

canvass in detail the constitutional limitations upon the scope of
a policeman's power when he confronts a citizen without
probable cause to arrest him.

II

Our first task is to establish at what point in this encounter the

Fourth Amendment becomes relevant. That is, we must decide
whether and when Officer McFadden "seized" Terry, and
whether and when he conducted a "search." There is some
suggestion in the use of such terms as "stop" and "frisk" that
such police conduct is outside the purview of the Fourth
Amendment because neither action rises to the level of a
"search" or "seizure" within the meaning of the Constitution.
[Footnote 12] We emphatically reject this notion. It is quite plain
that the Fourth Amendment governs "seizures" of the person
which do not eventuate in a trip to the stationhouse and
prosecution for crime -- "arrests" in traditional terminology. It
must be recognized that, whenever a police officer accosts an
individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has
"seized" that person. And it is nothing less than sheer torture of
the English language to suggest that a careful exploration of the
outer surfaces of a person's clothing all over his or her body in
an attempt to find weapons is not a "search." Moreover, it is
simply fantastic to urge that such a procedure

[17]

performed in public by a policeman while the citizen stands

helpless, perhaps facing a wall with his hands raised, is a "petty
indignity." [Footnote 13] It is a serious intrusion upon the
sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and
arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly.
[Footnote 14]

The danger in the logic which proceeds upon distinctions

between a "stop" and an "arrest," or "seizure" of the person, and
between a "frisk" and a "search," is twofold. It seeks to isolate
from constitutional scrutiny the initial stages of the contact
between the policeman and the citizen. And, by suggesting a
rigid all-or-nothing model of justification and regulation under
the Amendment, it obscures the utility of limitations upon the
scope, as well as the initiation, of police action as a means of
constitutional regulation. [Footnote 15] This Court has held, in

[18]

the past that a search which is reasonable at its inception may

violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable
intensity and scope. Kremen v. United States, 353 U. S. 346
(1957); Go-Bart Importing Co. v.

[19]

United States, 282 U. S. 344, 356-358 (1931); see United

States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581, 586-587 (1948). The scope of
the search must be "strictly tied to and justified by" the
circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible. Warden
v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 310 (1967) (MR. JUSTICE FORTAS,
concurring);see, e.g., Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364,
367-368 (1964); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 30-31
(1925).

The distinctions of classical "stop-and-frisk" theory thus serve to

divert attention from the central inquiry under the Fourth
Amendment -- the reasonableness in all the circumstances of
the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal
security. "Search" and "seizure" are not talismans. We therefore
reject the notions that the Fourth Amendment does not come
into play at all as a limitation upon police conduct if the officers
stop short of something called a "technical arrest" or a "full-
blown search."

In this case, there can be no question, then, that Officer

McFadden "seized" petitioner and subjected him to a "search"
when he took hold of him and patted down the outer surfaces of
his clothing. We must decide whether, at that point, it was
reasonable for Officer McFadden to have interfered with
petitioner's personal security as he did. [Footnote 16] And, in
determining whether the seizure and search were
"unreasonable," our inquiry

[20]

is a dual one -- whether the officer's action was justified at its

inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the
circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.

III

If this case involved police conduct subject to the Warrant

Clause of the Fourth Amendment, we would have to ascertain
whether "probable cause" existed to justify the search and
seizure which took place. However, that is not the case. We do
not retreat from our holdings that the police must, whenever
practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and
seizures through the warrant procedure,see, e.g., Katz v. United
States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96
(1964); Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610 (1961), or
that, in most instances, failure to comply with the warrant
requirement can only be excused by exigent circumstances,
see, e.g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294(1967) (hot pursuit);
cf. Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367-368 (1964). But
we deal here with an entire rubric of police conduct --
necessarily swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot
observations of the officer on the beat -- which historically has
not been, and, as a practical matter, could not be, subjected to
the warrant procedure. Instead, the conduct involved in this
case must be tested by the Fourth Amendment's general
proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.
[Footnote 17]

Nonetheless, the notions which underlie both the warrant

procedure and the requirement of probable cause remain fully
relevant in this context. In order to assess the reasonableness
of Officer McFadden's conduct as a general proposition, it is
necessary "first to focus upon

[21]

the governmental interest which allegedly justifies official

intrusion upon the constitutionally protected interests of the
private citizen," for there is "no ready test for determining
reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search [or
seize] against the invasion which the search [or seizure]
entails." Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 534-535,
536-537 (1967). And, in justifying the particular intrusion, the
police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable
facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those
facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. [Footnote 18] The
scheme of the Fourth Amendment becomes meaningful only
when it is assured that, at some point, the conduct of those
charged with enforcing the laws can be subjected to the more
detached, neutral scrutiny of a judge who must evaluate the
reasonableness of a particular search or seizure in light of the
particular circumstances. [Footnote 19] And, in making that
assessment, it is imperative that the facts be judged against an
objective standard: would the facts

[22]

available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the

search "warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief" that
the action taken was appropriate? Cf. Carroll v. United States,
267 U. S. 132(1925); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96-97 (1964).
[Footnote 20] Anything less would invite intrusions upon
constitutionally guaranteed rights based on nothing more
substantial than inarticulate hunches, a result this Court has
consistently refused to sanction. See, e.g., Beck v. Ohio, supra;
Rios v. United States, 364 U. S. 253 (1960); Henry v. United
States, 361 U. S. 98 (1959). And simple "'good faith on the part
of the arresting officer is not enough.' . . . If subjective good faith
alone were the test, the protections of the Fourth Amendment
would evaporate, and the people would be 'secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects,' only in the discretion of
the police." Beck v. Ohio, supra, at 97.

Applying these principles to this case, we consider first the

nature and extent of the governmental interests involved. One
general interest is, of course, that of effective crime prevention
and detection; it is this interest which underlies the recognition
that a police officer may, in appropriate circumstances and in an
appropriate manner, approach a person for purposes of
investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no
probable cause to make an arrest. It was this legitimate
investigative function Officer McFadden was discharging when
he decided to approach petitioner and his companions. He had
observed Terry, Chilton, and Katz go through a series of acts,
each of them perhaps innocent in itself, but which, taken
together, warranted further investigation. There is nothing
unusual in two men standing together on a street corner,
perhaps waiting for someone. Nor is there anything suspicious
about people

[23]

in such circumstances strolling up and down the street, singly or

in pairs. Store windows, moreover, are made to be looked in.
But the story is quite different where, as here, two men hover
about a street corner for an extended period of time, at the end
of which it becomes apparent that they are not waiting for
anyone or anything; where these men pace alternately along an
identical route, pausing to stare in the same store window
roughly 24 times; where each completion of this route is
followed immediately by a conference between the two men on
the corner; where they are joined in one of these conferences
by a third man who leaves swiftly, and where the two men
finally follow the third and rejoin him a couple of blocks away. It
would have been poor police work indeed for an officer of 30
years' experience in the detection of thievery from stores in this
same neighborhood to have failed to investigate this behavior
further.

The crux of this case, however, is not the propriety of Officer

McFadden's taking steps to investigate petitioner's suspicious
behavior, but, rather, whether there was justification for
McFadden's invasion of Terry's personal security by searching
him for weapons in the course of that investigation. We are now
concerned with more than the governmental interest in
investigating crime; in addition, there is the more immediate
interest of the police officer in taking steps to assure himself that
the person with whom he is dealing is not armed with a weapon
that could unexpectedly and fatally be used against him.
Certainly it would be unreasonable to require that police officers
take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties.
American criminals have a long tradition of armed violence, and
every year in this country many law enforcement officers are
killed in the line of duty, and thousands more are wounded.

[24]

Virtually all of these deaths and a substantial portion of the

injuries are inflicted with guns and knives. [Footnote 21]

In view of these facts, we cannot blind ourselves to the need for

law enforcement officers to protect themselves and other
prospective victims of violence in situations where they may
lack probable cause for an arrest. When an officer is justified in
believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is
investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous
to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly
unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary
measures to determine whether the person is, in fact, carrying a
weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.

We must still consider, however, the nature and quality of the

intrusion on individual rights which must be accepted if police
officers are to be conceded the right to search for weapons in
situations where probable cause to arrest for crime is lacking.
Even a limited search of the outer clothing for weapons
constitutes a severe,

[25]

though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security, and it

must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps
humiliating experience. Petitioner contends that such an
intrusion is permissible only incident to a lawful arrest, either for
a crime involving the possession of weapons or for a crime the
commission of which led the officer to investigate in the first
place. However, this argument must be closely examined.

Petitioner does not argue that a police officer should refrain

from making any investigation of suspicious circumstances until
such time as he has probable cause to make an arrest; nor
does he deny that police officers, in properly discharging their
investigative function, may find themselves confronting persons
who might well be armed and dangerous. Moreover, he does
not say that an officer is always unjustified in searching a
suspect to discover weapons. Rather, he says it is
unreasonable for the policeman to take that step until such time
as the situation evolves to a point where there is probable
cause to make an arrest. When that point has been reached,
petitioner would concede the officer's right to conduct a search
of the suspect for weapons, fruits or instrumentalities of the
crime, or "mere" evidence, incident to the arrest.

There are two weaknesses in this line of reasoning, however.

First, it fails to take account of traditional limitations upon the
scope of searches, and thus recognizes no distinction in
purpose, character, and extent between a search incident to an
arrest and a limited search for weapons. The former, although
justified in part by the acknowledged necessity to protect the
arresting officer from assault with a concealed weapon, Preston
v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367 (1964), is also justified on
other grounds,ibid., and can therefore involve a relatively
extensive exploration of the person. A search for weapons in
the absence of probable cause to

[26]

arrest, however, must, like any other search, be strictly

circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.
Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 310 (1967) (MR. JUSTICE
FORTAS, concurring). Thus, it must be limited to that which is
necessary for the discovery of weapons which might be used to
harm the officer or others nearby, and may realistically be
characterized as something less than a "full" search, even
though it remains a serious intrusion.

A second, and related, objection to petitioner's argument is that

it assumes that the law of arrest has already worked out the
balance between the particular interests involved here -- the
neutralization of danger to the policeman in the investigative
circumstance and the sanctity of the individual. But this is not
so. An arrest is a wholly different kind of intrusion upon
individual freedom from a limited search for weapons, and the
interests each is designed to serve are likewise quite different.
An arrest is the initial stage of a criminal prosecution. It is
intended to vindicate society's interest in having its laws
obeyed, and it is inevitably accompanied by future interference
with the individual's freedom of movement, whether or not trial
or conviction ultimately follows. [Footnote 22] The protective
search for weapons, on the other hand, constitutes a brief,
though far from inconsiderable, intrusion upon the sanctity of
the person. It does not follow that, because an officer may
lawfully arrest a person only when he is apprised of facts
sufficient to warrant a belief that the person has committed or is
committing a crime, the officer is equally unjustified, absent that
kind of evidence, in making any intrusions short of an arrest.
Moreover, a perfectly reasonable apprehension of danger may
arise long before the officer is possessed of adequate
information to justify taking a person into custody for

[27]

the purpose of prosecuting him for a crime. Petitioner's reliance

on cases which have worked out standards of reasonableness
with regard to "seizures" constituting arrests and searches
incident thereto is thus misplaced. It assumes that the interests
sought to be vindicated and the invasions of personal security
may be equated in the two cases, and thereby ignores a vital
aspect of the analysis of the reasonableness of particular types
of conduct under the Fourth Amendment. See Camara v.
Municipal Court, supra.

Our evaluation of the proper balance that has to be struck in this

type of case leads us to conclude that there must be a narrowly
drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for
the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to
believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous
individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to
arrest the individual for a crime. The officer need not be
absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is
whether a reasonably prudent man, in the circumstances, would
be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in
danger. Cf. Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 91 (1964); Brinegar v.
United States, 338 U. S. 160, 174-176 (1949); Stacey v. Emery,
97 U. S. 642, 645 (1878). [Footnote 23] And in determining
whether the officer acted reasonably in such circumstances,
due weight must be given not to his inchoate and
unparticularized suspicion or "hunch," but to the specific
reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the
facts in light of his experience. Cf. Brinegar v. United States
supra.

IV

We must now examine the conduct of Officer McFadden in this

case to determine whether his search and seizure of petitioner
were reasonable, both at their inception

[28]

and as conducted. He had observed Terry, together with

Chilton and another man, acting in a manner he took to be
preface to a "stick-up." We think, on the facts and circumstances
Officer McFadden detailed before the trial judge, a reasonably
prudent man would have been warranted in believing petitioner
was armed, and thus presented a threat to the officer's safety
while he was investigating his suspicious behavior. The actions
of Terry and Chilton were consistent with McFadden's
hypothesis that these men were contemplating a daylight
robbery -- which, it is reasonable to assume, would be likely to
involve the use of weapons -- and nothing in their conduct from
the time he first noticed them until the time he confronted them
and identified himself as a police officer gave him sufficient
reason to negate that hypothesis. Although the trio had
departed the original scene, there was nothing to indicate
abandonment of an intent to commit a robbery at some point.
Thus, when Officer McFadden approached the three men
gathered before the display window at Zucker's store, he had
observed enough to make it quite reasonable to fear that they
were armed, and nothing in their response to his hailing them,
identifying himself as a police officer, and asking their names
served to dispel that reasonable belief. We cannot say his
decision at that point to seize Terry and pat his clothing for
weapons was the product of a volatile or inventive imagination,
or was undertaken simply as an act of harassment; the record
evidences the tempered act of a policeman who, in the course
of an investigation, had to make a quick decision as to how to
protect himself and others from possible danger, and took
limited steps to do so.
The manner in which the seizure and search were conducted
is, of course, as vital a part of the inquiry as whether they were
warranted at all. The Fourth Amendment proceeds as much by
limitations upon the

[29]

scope of governmental action as by imposing preconditions

upon its initiation. Compare Katz v. United States, 389 U. S.
347, 354-356 (1967). The entire deterrent purpose of the rule
excluding evidence seized in violation of the Fourth
Amendment rests on the assumption that "limitations upon the
fruit to be gathered tend to limit the quest itself." United States v.
Poller, 43 F.2d 911, 914 (C.A.2d Cir.1930);see, e.g., Linkletter
v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 629-635 (1965); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.
S. 643 (1961); Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 216-221
(1960). Thus, evidence may not be introduced if it was
discovered by means of a seizure and search which were not
reasonably related in scope to the justification for their initiation.
Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 310 (1967) (MR. JUSTICE
FORTAS, concurring).

We need not develop at length in this case, however, the

limitations which the Fourth Amendment places upon a
protective seizure and search for weapons. These limitations
will have to be developed in the concrete factual circumstances
of individual cases. See Sibron v. New York, post, p. 40,
decided today. Suffice it to note that such a search, unlike a
search without a warrant incident to a lawful arrest, is not
justified by any need to prevent the disappearance or
destruction of evidence of crime.See Preston v. United States,
376 U. S. 364, 367 (1964). The sole justification of the search in
the present situation is the protection of the police officer and
others nearby, and it must therefore be confined in scope to an
intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs,
or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.

The scope of the search in this case presents no serious

problem in light of these standards. Officer McFadden patted
down the outer clothing of petitioner and his two companions.
He did not place his hands in their pockets or under the outer
surface of their garments until he had

[30]

felt weapons, and then he merely reached for and removed the
guns. He never did invade Katz' person beyond the outer
surfaces of his clothes, since he discovered nothing in his pat-
down which might have been a weapon. Officer McFadden
confined his search strictly to what was minimally necessary to
learn whether the men were armed and to disarm them once he
discovered the weapons. He did not conduct a general
exploratory search for whatever evidence of criminal activity he
might find.
V

We conclude that the revolver seized from Terry was properly

admitted in evidence against him. At the time he seized
petitioner and searched him for weapons, Officer McFadden
had reasonable grounds to believe that petitioner was armed
and dangerous, and it was necessary for the protection of
himself and others to take swift measures to discover the true
facts and neutralize the threat of harm if it materialized. The
policeman carefully restricted his search to what was
appropriate to the discovery of the particular items which he
sought. Each case of this sort will, of course, have to be
decided on its own facts. We merely hold today that, where a
police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him
reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal
activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is
dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where, in the
course of investigating this behavior, he identifies himself as a
policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing
in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his
reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for
the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a
carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in
an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault
him.
[31]

Such a search is a reasonable search under the Fourth

Amendment, and any weapons seized may properly be
introduced in evidence against the person from whom they
were taken.

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in the judgment and the opinion

except where the opinion quotes from and relies upon this
Court's opinion in Katz v. United States and the concurring
opinion in Warden v. Hayden.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring.

While I unreservedly agree with the Court's ultimate holding in

this case, I am constrained to fill in a few gaps, as I see them, in
its opinion. I do this because what is said by this Court today
will serve as initial guidelines for law enforcement authorities
and courts throughout the land as this important new field of law
develops.

A police officer's right to make an on-the-street "stop" and an

accompanying "frisk" for weapons is, of course, bounded by the
protections afforded by the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments. The Court holds, and I agree, that, while the right
does not depend upon possession by the officer of a valid
warrant, nor upon the existence of probable cause, such
activities must be reasonable under the circumstances as the
officer credibly relates them in court. Since the question in this
and most cases is whether evidence produced by a frisk is
admissible, the problem is to determine what makes a frisk
reasonable.

If the State of Ohio were to provide that police officers could, on

articulable suspicion less than probable cause, forcibly frisk
and disarm persons thought to be carrying concealed weapons,
I would have little doubt that action taken pursuant to such
authority could be constitutionally reasonable. Concealed
weapons create an immediate

[32]

and severe danger to the public, and though that danger might
not warrant routine general weapons checks, it could well
warrant action on less than a "probability." I mention this line of
analysis because I think it vital to point out that it cannot be
applied in this case. On the record before us, Ohio has not
clothed its policemen with routine authority to frisk and disarm
on suspicion; in the absence of state authority, policemen have
no more right to "pat down" the outer clothing of passers-by, or
of persons to whom they address casual questions, than does
any other citizen. Consequently, the Ohio courts did not rest the
constitutionality of this frisk upon any general authority in Officer
McFadden to take reasonable steps to protect the citizenry,
including himself, from dangerous weapons.

The state courts held, instead, that, when an officer is lawfully

confronting a possibly hostile person in the line of duty, he has
a right, springing only from the necessity of the situation, and
not from any broader right to disarm, to frisk for his own
protection. This holding, with which I agree and with which I
think the Court agrees, offers the only satisfactory basis I can
think of for affirming this conviction. The holding has, however,
two logical corollaries that I do not think the Court has fully
expressed.

In the first place, if the frisk is justified in order to protect the

officer during an encounter with a citizen, the officer must first
have constitutional grounds to insist on an encounter, to make a
forcible stop. Any person, including a policeman, is at liberty to
avoid a person he considers dangerous. If and when a
policeman has a right instead to disarm such a person for his
own protection, he must first have a right not to avoid him, but to
be in his presence. That right must be more than the liberty
(again, possessed by every citizen) to address questions to
other persons, for ordinarily the person

[33]

addressed has an equal right to ignore his interrogator and walk

away; he certainly need not submit to a frisk for the questioner's
protection. I would make it perfectly clear that the right to frisk in
this case depends upon the reasonableness of a forcible stop to
investigate a suspected crime.

Where such a stop is reasonable, however, the right to frisk

must be immediate and automatic if the reason for the stop is,
as here, an articulable suspicion of a crime of violence. Just as
a full search incident to a lawful arrest requires no additional
justification, a limited frisk incident to a lawful stop must often be
rapid and routine. There is no reason why an officer, rightfully
but forcibly confronting a person suspected of a serious crime,
should have to ask one question and take the risk that the
answer might be a bullet.

The facts of this case are illustrative of a proper stop and an

incident frisk. Officer McFadden had no probable cause to
arrest Terry for anything, but he had observed circumstances
that would reasonably lead an experienced, prudent policeman
to suspect that Terry was about to engage in burglary or
robbery. His justifiable suspicion afforded a proper
constitutional basis for accosting Terry, restraining his liberty of
movement briefly, and addressing questions to him, and Officer
McFadden did so. When he did, he had no reason whatever to
suppose that Terry might be armed, apart from the fact that he
suspected him of planning a violent crime. McFadden asked
Terry his name, to which Terry "mumbled something."
Whereupon McFadden, without asking Terry to speak louder
and without giving him any chance to explain his presence or
his actions, forcibly frisked him.

I would affirm this conviction for what I believe to be the same

reasons the Court relies on. I would, however, make explicit
what I think is implicit in affirmance on

[34]

the present facts. Officer McFadden's right to interrupt Terry's

freedom of movement and invade his privacy arose only
because circumstances warranted forcing an encounter with
Terry in an effort to prevent or investigate a crime. Once that
forced encounter was justified, however, the officer's right to
take suitable measures for his own safety followed
automatically.

Upon the foregoing premises, I join the opinion of the Court.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court, reserving judgment, however, on

some of the Court's general remarks about the scope and
purpose of the exclusionary rule which the Court has fashioned
in the process of enforcing the Fourth Amendment.

Also, although the Court puts the matter aside in the context of
this case, I think an additional word is in order concerning the
matter of interrogation during an investigative stop. There is
nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from
addressing questions to anyone on the streets. Absent special
circumstances, the person approached may not be detained or
frisked, but may refuse to cooperate and go on his way.
However, given the proper circumstances, such as those in this
case, it seems to me the person may be briefly detained against
his will while pertinent questions are directed to him. Of course,
the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not
be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an
arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued
observation. In my view, it is temporary detention, warranted by
the circumstances, which chiefly justifies the protective frisk for
weapons. Perhaps the frisk itself, where proper, will have
beneficial results whether questions are asked or not. If
weapons are found, an arrest will follow.

[35]

If none is found, the frisk may nevertheless serve preventive

ends because of its unmistakable message that suspicion has
been aroused. But if the investigative stop is sustainable at all,
constitutional rights are not necessarily violated if pertinent
questions are asked and the person is restrained briefly in the
process.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.

I agree that petitioner was "seized" within the meaning of the

Fourth Amendment. I also agree that frisking petitioner and his
companions for guns was a "search." But it is a mystery how
that "search" and that "seizure" can be constitutional by Fourth
Amendment standards unless there was "probable
cause" [Footnote 1] to believe that (1) a crime had been
committed or (2) a crime was in the process of being committed
or (3) a crime was about to be committed.

The opinion of the Court disclaims the existence of "probable

cause." If loitering were in issue and that

[36]

was the offense charged, there would be "probable cause"

shown. But the crime here is carrying concealed weapons;
[Footnote 2] and there is no basis for concluding that the officer
had "probable cause" for believing that that crime was being
committed. Had a warrant been sought, a magistrate would,
therefore, have been unauthorized to issue one, for he can act
only if there is a showing of "probable cause." We hold today
that the police have greater authority to make a "seizure" and
conduct a "search" than a judge has to authorize such action.
We have said precisely the opposite over and over again.
[Footnote 3]

[37]

In other words, police officers up to today have been permitted

to effect arrests or searches without warrants only when the
facts within their personal knowledge would satisfy the
constitutional standard of probable cause. At the time of their
"seizure" without a warrant, they must possess facts concerning
the person arrested that would have satisfied a magistrate that
"probable cause" was indeed present. The term "probable
cause" rings a bell of certainty that is not sounded by phrases
such as "reasonable suspicion." Moreover, the meaning of
"probable cause" is deeply imbedded in our constitutional
history. As we stated in Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98,
100-102:

"The requirement of probable cause has roots that are deep in

our history. The general warrant, in which the name of the
person to be arrested was left blank, and the writs of assistance,
against which James Otis inveighed, both perpetuated the
oppressive practice of allowing the police to arrest and search
on suspicion. Police control took the place of judicial control,
since no showing of 'probable cause' before a magistrate was
required."

"* * * *"

"That philosophy [rebelling against these practices] later was

reflected in the Fourth Amendment. And as the early American
decisions both before and immediately after its adoption show,
common rumor or report, suspicion, or even 'strong reason to
suspect' was not adequate to support a warrant
[38]

for arrest. And that principle has survived to this day. . . ."

". . . It is important, we think, that this requirement [of probable

cause] be strictly enforced, for the standard set by the
Constitution protects both the officer and the citizen. If the officer
acts with probable cause, he is protected even though it turns
out that the citizen is innocent. . . . And while a search without a
warrant is, within limits, permissible if incident to a lawful arrest,
if an arrest without a warrant is to support an incidental search,
it must be made with probable cause. . . . This immunity of
officers cannot fairly be enlarged without jeopardizing the
privacy or security of the citizen."

The infringement on personal liberty of any "seizure" of a

person can only be "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment
if we require the police to possess "probable cause" before they
seize him. Only that line draws a meaningful distinction
between an officer's mere inkling and the presence of facts
within the officer's personal knowledge which would convince a
reasonable man that the person seized has committed, is
committing, or is about to commit a particular crime. "In dealing
with probable cause, . . . as the very name implies, we deal with
probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and
practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable
and prudent men, not legal technicians, act." Brinegar v. United
States, 338 U. S. 160, 175.

To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a

long step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is
desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness. But if it is
taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a
constitutional amendment.

[39]

Until the Fourth Amendment, which is closely allied with the

Fifth, [Footnote 4] is rewritten, the person and the effects of the
individual are beyond the reach of all government agencies
until there are reasonable grounds to believe (probable cause)
that a criminal venture has been launched or is about to be
launched.

There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our

history that bear heavily on the Court to water down
constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand.
That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it
is today.

Yet if the individual is no longer to be sovereign, if the police

can pick him up whenever they do not like the cut of his jib, if
they can "seize" and "search" him in their discretion, we enter a
new regime. The decision to enter it should be made only after
a full debate by the people of this country.
Footnotes

[Footnote 1]

Ohio Rev.Code § 2923.01 (1953) provides in part that "[n]o

person shall carry a pistol, bowie knife, dirk, or other dangerous
weapon concealed on or about his person." An exception is
made for properly authorized law enforcement officers.

[Footnote 2]

Terry and Chilton were arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted

together. They were represented by the same attorney, and they
made a joint motion to suppress the guns. After the motion was
denied, evidence was taken in the case against Chilton. This
evidence consisted of the testimony of the arresting officer and
of Chilton. It was then stipulated that this testimony would be
applied to the case against Terry, and no further evidence was
introduced in that case. The trial judge considered the two
cases together, rendered the decisions at the same time, and
sentenced the two men at the same time. They prosecuted their
state court appeals together through the same attorney, and
they petitioned this Court for certiorari together. Following the
grant of the writ upon this joint petition, Chilton died. Thus, only
Terry's conviction is here for review.

[Footnote 3]

Both the trial court and the Ohio Court of Appeals in this case
relied upon such a distinction. State v. Terry, 5 Ohio App.2d
122, 125-130, 214 N.E.2d 114, 117-120 (1966). See also, e.g.,
People v. Rivera, 14 N.Y.2d 441, 201 N.E.2d 32, 252 N.Y.S.2d
458 (1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 978 (1965); Aspen, Arrest
and Arrest Alternatives: Recent Trends, 1966 U.Ill.L.F. 241,
249-254; Warner, The Uniform Arrest Act, 28 Va.L.Rev. 315
(1942); Note, Stop and Frisk in California, 18 Hastings L.J. 623,
629-632 (1967).

[Footnote 4]

People v. Rivera, supra, n 3, at 447, 201 N.E.2d at 36, 252

N.Y.S.2d at 464.

[Footnote 5]

The theory is well laid out in the Rivera opinion:

"[T]he evidence needed to make the inquiry is not of the same

degree of conclusiveness as that required for an arrest. The
stopping of the individual to inquire is not an arrest and the
ground upon which the police may make the inquiry may be
less incriminating than the ground for an arrest for a crime
known to have been committed. . . ."

"* * * *"

"And as the right to stop and inquire is to be justified for a cause

less conclusive than that which would sustain an arrest, so the
right to frisk may be justified as an incident to inquiry upon
grounds of elemental safety and precaution which might not
initially sustain a search. Ultimately, the validity of the frisk
narrows down to whether there is or is not a right by the police
to touch the person questioned. The sense of exterior touch
here involved is not very far different from the sense of sight or
hearing -- senses upon which police customarily act." People v.
Rivera, 14 N.Y.2d 441, 445, 447, 201 N.E.2d 32, 34, 35, 252
N.Y.S.2d 458, 461, 463 (1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 978
(1965).

[Footnote 6]

See, e.g., Foote, The Fourth Amendment: Obstacle or

Necessity in the Law of Arrest?, 51 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 402
(1960).

[Footnote 7]

See n 11, infra.

[Footnote 8]

Brief for Respondent 2.

[Footnote 9]

See L. Tiffany, D. McIntyre D. Rotenberg, Detection of Crime:

Stopping and Questioning, Search and Seizure,
Encouragement and Entrapment 186 (1967). This sort of police
conduct may, for example, be designed simply to help an
intoxicated person find his way home, with no intention of
arresting him unless he becomes obstreperous. Or the police
may be seeking to mediate a domestic quarrel which threatens
to erupt into violence. They may accost a woman in an area
known for prostitution as part of a harassment campaign
designed to drive prostitutes away without the considerable
difficulty involved in prosecuting them. Or they may be
conducting a dragnet search of all teenagers in a particular
section of the city for weapons because they have heard rumors
of an impending gang fight.

[Footnote 10]

See Tiffany, McIntyre & Rotenberg, supra, n 9, at 100-101;

Comment, 47 Nw.U.L.Rev. 493, 497-499 (1952).

[Footnote 11]

The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and

Administration of Justice found that, "[i]n many communities,
field interrogations are a major source of friction between the
police and minority groups." President's Commission on Law
Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report:
The Police 183 (1967). It was reported that the friction caused
by "[m]isuse of field interrogations" increases "as more police
departments adopt 'aggressive patrol,' in which officers are
encouraged routinely to stop and question persons on the street
who are unknown to them, who are suspicious, or whose
purpose for being abroad is not readily evident." Id. at 184.
While the frequency with which "frisking" forms a part of field
interrogation practice varies tremendously with the locale, the
objective of the interrogation, and the particular officer, see
Tiffany, McIntyre & Rotenberg, supra,n 9, at 47-48, it cannot
help but be a severely exacerbating factor in police-community
tensions. This is particularly true in situations where the "stop
and frisk" of youths or minority group members is "motivated by
the officers' perceived need to maintain the power image of the
beat officer, an aim sometimes accomplished by humiliating
anyone who attempts to undermine police control of the
streets." Ibid.

[Footnote 12]

In this case, for example, the Ohio Court of Appeals stated that
"we must be careful to distinguish that the 'frisk' authorized
herein includes only a 'frisk' for a dangerous weapon. It by no
means authorizes a search for contraband, evidentiary material,
or anything else in the absence of reasonable grounds to arrest.
Such a search is controlled by the requirements of the Fourth
Amendment, and probable cause is essential." State v. Terry, 5
Ohio App.2d 122, 130, 214 N.E.2d 114, 120 (1966). See also,
e.g., Ellis v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 86, 88, 264 F.2d
372, 374 (1959); Comment, 65 Col.L.Rev. 848, 860, and n. 81
(1965).

[Footnote 13]

Consider the following apt description:

"[T]he officer must feel with sensitive fingers every portion of the
prisoner's body. A thorough search must be made of the
prisoner's arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and
area about the testicles, and entire surface of the legs down to
the feet." Priar & Martin, Searching and Disarming Criminals, 45
J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 481 (1954).

[Footnote 14]

See n 11, supra, and accompanying text.

We have noted that the abusive practices which play a major,

though by no means exclusive, role in creating this friction are
not susceptible of control by means of the exclusionary rule,
and cannot properly dictate our decision with respect to the
powers of the police in genuine investigative and preventive
situations. However, the degree of community resentment
aroused by particular practices is clearly relevant to an
assessment of the quality of the intrusion upon reasonable
expectations of personal security caused by those practices.

[Footnote 15]
These dangers are illustrated in part by the course of
adjudication in the Court of Appeals of New York. Although its
first decision in this area, People v. Rivera, 14 N.Y.2d 441, 201
N.E.2d 32, 252 N.Y.S.2d 458 (1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 978
(1965), rested squarely on the notion that a "frisk" was not a
"search," see nn. 3-5 supra, it was compelled to recognize, in
People v. Taggart, 20 N.Y.2d 335, 342, 229 N.E.2d 581, 586,
283 N.Y.S.2d 1, 8 (1967), that what it had actually authorized in
Rivera and subsequent decisions, see, e.g., People v. Pugach,
15 N.Y.2d 65, 204 N.E.2d 176, 255 N.Y.S.2d 833 (1964), cert.
denied, 380 U.S. 936 (1965), was a "search" upon less than
probable cause. However, in acknowledging that no valid
distinction could be maintained on the basis of its cases, the
Court of Appeals continued to distinguish between the two in
theory. It still defined "search" as it had in Rivera -- as an
essentially unlimited examination of the person for any and all
seizable items -- and merely noted that the cases had upheld
police intrusions which went far beyond the original limited
conception of a "frisk." Thus, principally because it failed to
consider limitations upon the scope of searches in individual
cases as a potential mode of regulation, the Court of Appeals in
three short years arrived at the position that the Constitution
must, in the name of necessity, be held to permit unrestrained
rummaging about a person and his effects upon mere
suspicion. It did apparently limit its holding to "cases involving
serious personal injury or grave irreparable property damage,"
thus excluding those involving "the enforcement of sumptuary
laws, such as gambling, and laws of limited public
consequence, such as narcotics violations, prostitution,
larcenies of the ordinary kind, and the like." People v. Taggart,
supra, at 340, 214 N.E.2d at 584, 283 N.Y.S.2d at 6.

In our view, the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth

Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon
personal security, and to make the scope of the particular
intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central
element in the analysis of reasonableness. Cf. Brinegar v.
United States, 338 U. S. 160, 183 (1949) (Mr. Justice Jackson,
dissenting). Compare Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S.
523, 537 (1967). This seems preferable to an approach which
attributes too much significance to an overly technical definition
of "search," and which turns in part upon a judge-made
hierarchy of legislative enactments in the criminal sphere.
Focusing the inquiry squarely on the dangers and demands of
the particular situation also seems more likely to produce rules
which are intelligible to the police and the public alike than
requiring the officer in the heat of an unfolding encounter on the
street to make a judgment as to which laws are "of limited
public consequence."

[Footnote 16]

We thus decide nothing today concerning the constitutional

propriety of an investigative "seizure" upon less than probable
cause for purposes of "detention" and/or interrogation.
Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and
citizens involves "seizures" of persons. Only when the officer,
by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some
way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a
"seizure" has occurred. We cannot tell with any certainty upon
this record whether any such "seizure" took place here prior to
Officer McFadden's initiation of physical contact for purposes of
searching Terry for weapons, and we thus may assume that, up
to that point, no intrusion upon constitutionally protected rights
had occurred.

[Footnote 17]

See generally Leagre, The Fourth Amendment and the Law of

Arrest, 54 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 393, 396 403 (1963).

[Footnote 18]

This demand for specificity in the information upon which police

action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court's Fourth
Amendment jurisprudence. See Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89,
96-97 (1964);Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 34-37 (1963);
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 479-484 (1963);
Rios v. United States, 364 U. S. 253, 261-262 (1960); Henry v.
United States, 361 U. S. 98, 100-102 (1959);Draper v. United
States, 358 U. S. 307, 312-314 (1959); Brinegar v. United
States, 338 U. S. 160, 175-178 (1949); Johnson v. United
States, 333 U. S. 10, 15-17 (1948); United States v. Di Re, 332
U. S. 581, 593-595 (1948); Husty v. United States, 282 U. S.
694, 700-701 (1931); Dumbra v. United States, 268 U. S. 435,
441 (1925); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 159-162
(1925); Stacey v. Emery, 97 U. S. 642,6 45 (1878).

[Footnote 19]

See, e.g., Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 354-357 (1967);

Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41, 54-60 (1967); Johnson v.
United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-15 (1948); cf. Wong Sun v.
United States, 371 U. S. 471, 479-480 (1963). See also Aguilar
v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108, 110-115 (1964).

[Footnote 20]

See also cases cited in n 18, supra.

[Footnote 21]

Fifty-seven law enforcement officers were killed in the line of

duty in this country in 1966, bringing the total to 335 for the
seven-year period beginning with 1960. Also in 1966, there
were 23,851 assaults on police officers, 9,113 of which resulted
in injuries to the policemen. Fifty-five of the 57 officers killed in
1966 died from gunshot wounds, 41 of them inflicted by
handguns easily secreted about the person. The remaining two
murders were perpetrated by knives. See Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports for the United States --
1966, at 45-48, 152 and Table 51.

The easy availability of firearms to potential criminals in this

country is well known, and has provoked much debate. See,
e.g., President's Commission on Law Enforcement and
Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free
Society 239-243 (1967). Whatever the merits of gun control
proposals, this fact is relevant to an assessment of the need for
some form of self-protective search power.

[Footnote 22]

See generally W. LaFave, Arrest -- The Decision to Take a

Suspect into Custody 1-13 (1965).

[Footnote 23]

See also cases cited in n. 18, supra.

[Footnote 1]

The meaning of "probable cause" has been developed in cases

where an officer has reasonable grounds to believe that a crime
has been or is being committed. See, e.g., 70 U. S. 3 Wall. 155;
Stacey v. Emery, 97 U. S. 642; Director General v. Kastenbaum,
263 U. S. 25; Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132;United
States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581; Brinegar v. United States, 338
U. S. 160; Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307; Henry v.
United States, 361 U. S. 98. In such cases, of course, the officer
may make an "arrest" which results in charging the individual
with commission of a crime. But while arresting persons who
have already committed crimes is an important task of law
enforcement, an equally if not more important function is crime
prevention and deterrence of would-be criminals. "[T]here is no
war between the Constitution and common sense," Mapp v.
Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 657. Police officers need not wait until they
see a person actually commit a crime before they are able to
"seize" that person. Respect for our constitutional system and
personal liberty demands in return, however, that such a
"seizure" be made only upon "probable cause."

[Footnote 2]

Ohio Rev.Code § 2923.01.

[Footnote 3]

This Court has always used the language of "probable cause"

in determining the constitutionality of an arrest without a
warrant. See, e.g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 156,
161-162; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-15;
McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 455-456; Henry v.
United States, 361 U. S. 98; Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.
S. 471, 479-484. To give power to the police to seize a person
on some grounds different from or less than "probable cause"
would be handing them more authority than could be exercised
by a magistrate in issuing a warrant to seize a person. As we
stated in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, with
respect to requirements for arrests without warrants:

"Whether or not the requirements of reliability and particularity

of the information on which an officer may act are more stringent
where an arrest warrant is absent, they surely cannot be less
stringent than where an arrest warrant is obtained."

Id. at 479. And we said in Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S.

160, 176:

"These long-prevailing standards [for probable cause] seek to

safeguard citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences
with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime. They also
seek to give fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community's
protection. Because many situations which confront officers in
the course of executing their duties are more or less
ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their
part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting
on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability. The
rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception
affording the best compromise that has been found for
accommodating these often opposing interests. Requiring more
would unduly hamper law enforcement. To allow less would be
to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers' whim
or caprice."

And see Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14-15;

Wrightson v. United States, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 390, 393-394, 222
F.2d 556, 559-560 (1955).