– March 23, 2018   

I had the chance to sit down with Samuel Partida who is the driving force and sole proprietor behind the Criminal Nuggets podcast on his website Illinois CaseLaw. We discussed constitutional law from the perspective of a police officer and from the eyes of a criminal defense attorney, fortunately I am uniquely qualified to offer that perspective.

Sam let me talk about Terry v. Ohio (1968) as it established the stop and frisk procedure and gave us the notion of reasonable suspicion as the support for investigative stops. We also discussed how Terry applies today and what it has meant for law enforcement and the courts. Finally, we discussed a recent Illinois Supreme Court case, People v. Smith, 2016 IL App (3d) 140648.

Smith presented the Illinois court with the need to resolve the question whether an officer asking (or telling) a subject to roll up his sleeves constitutes a search that requires probable cause. The court’s review considered the encounter between the police officer and the occupants of a vehicle as it progressed from a consensual encounter to a Terry stop to an arrest. The link to the Criminal Nuggets podcast is included here: Criminal Nuggets podcast episode 459.

The podcast runs about 54 minutes and the Terry review covers about the first 14 minutes, so you can skip around at your leisure. Enjoy.