Reasonable Suspicion Probable cause and the Community Care Taking
Since we are focusing on search and seizure law, I thought I would start with the basis for the police stopping you in your car or while you are outside of your home. Generally, the police need either probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or can use the community care taking function to stop you.
Probable cause is generally when the police believe it is more likely than not that a crime has been committed. This could be a traffic law violation defined in the texas transportation code, a municipal ordinance, or any other crime in the texas penal code. If they observe a criminal offense, that gives them the right to stop the individual.
Reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause. Reasonable suspicion requires “that there is something out of the ordinary occurring and some indication that the unusual activity is related to crime.” Viveros v. State, 828 S.W.2d 2, 4 (Tex.Crim.App.1992) (citing Garza v. State, 771 S.W.2d 549, 558 (Tex.Crim.App.1989)). Courts will generally look all of the circumstances to determine whether there was reasonable suspicion.
Under the community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, police officers can stop and help a person whom they reasonably believe needs help. The police officer has to be motivated primarily by the persons need for help and not by the desire to obtain evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.
The community care taking function is an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. In evaluating the reasonableness of the officer’s belief that an individual needs help, courts considers four non-exclusive factors: (1) the nature and level of the distress exhibited by the individual; (2) the location of the individual; (3) whether the individual was alone and/or had access to assistance other than that offered by the officer; and (4) to what extent the individual, if not assisted, presented a danger to himself or others
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on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:39 am and is filed under 4th Amendment.
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