Following an armed robbery in the Cincinnati suburb of St.
Bernard, Ohio, a St. Bernard police officer, on the basis of
information obtained from an informant that respondent had driven
the getaway car during the robbery, issued a "wanted flyer" to
other police departments in the area. The flyer stated that
respondent was wanted for investigation of the robbery, described
him and the date and location of the robbery, and asked the other
departments to pick up and hold him for the St. Bernard police.
Subsequently, on the basis of the flyer and after inquiring without
success as to whether a warrant was outstanding for respondent's
arrest, police officers from Covington, Ky., another Cincinnati
suburb, stopped an automobile that respondent was seen driving. One
of the officers recognized a passenger in the car as a convicted
felon and, upon observing a revolver butt protruding from
underneath the passenger's seat, arrested the passenger. After a
search of the car uncovered other handguns, respondent was also
arrested. Respondent was then indicted on the federal charge of
being a convicted felon in possession of firearms. Respondent moved
to suppress the handguns from evidence on the grounds that the
Covington police had stopped him in violation of the Fourth
Amendment and the principles announced in
Terry v. Ohio,
392 U. S. 1. The
Federal District Court denied respondent's motion, and he was
convicted. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the stop of
respondent's car was improper because the crime being investigated
was not imminent or ongoing, but rather was already completed, that
the "wanted flyer" was insufficient to create a reasonable
suspicion that respondent had committed a crime, and that therefore
his conviction rested on evidence obtained through an illegal
arrest.
Held:
1. Where police have been unable to locate a person suspected of
involvement in a past crime, the ability to briefly stop that
person, ask questions, or check identification in the absence of
probable cause promotes the strong government interest in solving
crimes and bringing offenders to justice. Restraining police action
until after probable cause is obtained would not only hinder the
investigation but might also enable the suspect to flee and remain
at large. The law enforcement interests at stake in these
circumstances outweigh the individual's interest to be
Page 469 U. S. 222
free of a stop and detention that is no more extensive than
permissible in the investigation of imminent or ongoing crimes.
When police have a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and
articulable facts, that a person they encounter was involved in or
is wanted in connection with a completed felony, then a
Terry stop may be made to investigate that suspicion. Pp.
469 U. S.
227-229.
2. If a "wanted flyer" has been issued on the basis of
articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that the person
wanted has committed an offense, then reliance on that flyer
justifies a stop to check identification, to pose questions, or to
detain the person briefly while attempting to obtain further
information. It is the objective reading of the flyer that
determines whether police officers from a department other than the
one that issued the flyer can defensibly act in reliance on it.
Assuming that the police make a
Terry stop in objective
reliance on a flyer, the evidence uncovered in the course of the
stop is admissible if the police who
issued the flyer
possessed a reasonable suspicion justifying the stop, and if the
stop that occurred was not significantly more intrusive than would
have been permitted the issuing department. Pp.
469 U. S.
229-233.
3. Under the above principles, the investigatory stop of
respondent was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and therefore
the evidence discovered during the stop was admissible. The
justification for a stop did not evaporate when the armed robbery
was completed. Respondent was reasonably suspected of involvement
in a felony and was at large from the time the suspicion arose
until the stop by the Covington police. A brief stop and detention
at the earliest opportunity after the suspicion arose was fully
consistent with Fourth Amendment principles. The flyer issued by
the St. Bernard police, objectively read and supported by a
reasonable suspicion on the part of the issuing department,
justified the length and intrusiveness of the stop and detention
that occurred. And it is irrelevant whether the Covington police
intended to detain respondent only long enough to confirm the
existence of a warrant, or for a longer period. Pp.
469 U. S.
233-236.
713 F.2d 220, reversed and remanded.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
BRENNAN, J., filed a concurring opinion,
post, p.
469 U. S.
236.
Page 469 U. S. 223
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case, 467 U.S. 1203 (1984), to
determine whether police officers may stop and briefly detain a
person who is the subject of a "wanted flyer" while they attempt to
find out whether an arrest warrant has been issued. We conclude
that such stops are consistent with the Fourth Amendment under
appropriate circumstances.
I
On December 4, 1981, two armed men robbed a tavern in the
Cincinnati suburb of St. Bernard, Ohio. Six days later, a St.
Bernard police officer, Kenneth Davis, interviewed an informant who
passed along information that respondent Thomas Hensley had driven
the getaway car during the armed robbery. Officer Davis obtained a
written statement from the informant and immediately issued a
"wanted flyer" to other police departments in the Cincinnati
metropolitan area.
The flyer twice stated that Hensley was wanted for investigation
of an aggravated robbery. It described both Hensley and the date
and location of the alleged robbery, and asked other departments to
pick up and hold Hensley for the St. Bernard police in the event he
were located. The flyer also warned other departments to use
caution and to consider Hensley armed and dangerous.
The St. Bernard Police Department's "wanted flyer" was received
by teletype in the headquarters of the Covington Police Department
on December 10, 1981. Covington is a Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati
that is approximately five miles from St. Bernard. The flyer was
read aloud at each change of shift in the Covington Police
Department between December 10 and December 16, 1981. Some of the
Covington officers were acquainted with Hensley, and after December
10 they periodically looked for him at places in Covington he was
known to frequent.
On December 16, 1981, Covington Officer Terence Eger saw a white
Cadillac convertible stopped in the middle of a
Page 469 U. S. 224
Covington street. Officer Eger saw Hensley in the driver's seat
and asked him to move on. As Hensley drove away, Eger inquired by
radio whether there was a warrant outstanding for Hensley's arrest.
Before the dispatcher could answer, two other Covington officers
who were in separate cars on patrol interrupted to say that there
might be an Ohio robbery warrant outstanding on Hensley. The
officers, Daniel Cope and David Rassache, subsequently testified
that they had heard or read the St. Bernard flyer on several
occasions, that they recalled that the flyer sought a stop for
investigation only, and that in their experience the issuance of
such a flyer was usually followed by the issuance of an arrest
warrant. While the dispatcher checked to see whether a warrant had
been issued, Officer Cope drove to a Holman Street address where
Hensley occasionally stayed, and Officer Rassache went to check a
second location.
The dispatcher had difficulty in confirming whether a warrant
had been issued. Unable to locate the flyer, she called the
Cincinnati Police Department on the mistaken belief that the flyer
had originated in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Police Department
transferred the call to its records department, which placed the
dispatcher on hold. In the meantime, Officer Cope reported that he
had sighted a white Cadillac approaching him on Holman Street. Cope
turned on his flashing lights and Hensley pulled over to the curb.
Before Cope left his patrol car, the dispatcher advised him that
she had "Cincinnati hunting for the warrant," App. 49, but that she
had not yet confirmed it. Cope approached Hensley's car with his
service revolver drawn and pointed into the air. He had Hensley and
a passenger seated next to him step out of the car.
Moments later, Officer Rassache arrived in his separate car. He
recognized the passenger, Albert Green, a convicted felon. Rassache
stepped up to the open passenger door of Hensley's car and observed
the butt of a revolver protruding from underneath the passenger's
seat. Green
Page 469 U. S. 225
was then arrested. A search of the car uncovered a second
handgun wrapped in a jacket in the middle of the front seat and a
third handgun in a bag in the back seat. After the discovery of
these weapons, Hensley was also arrested.
After state handgun possession charges against Hensley were
dismissed, Hensley was indicted by a federal grand jury in the
Eastern District of Kentucky for being a convicted felon in
possession of firearms in violation of 18 U.S.C.App. ยง 1202(a)(1).
Hensley moved to suppress the handguns from evidence on the grounds
that the Covington police had impermissibly stopped him in
violation of the Fourth Amendment and the principles announced in
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968).
The District Judge held the stop to be proper and denied the
motion. Respondent was convicted after a bench trial and sentenced
to two years in federal prison.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
reversed the conviction. 713 F.2d 220 (1983). The panel noted that
the Covington police could not justifiably conclude from the St.
Bernard flyer that a warrant had been issued for Hensley's arrest;
nor could the Covington police stop the respondent while they
attempted to find out whether a warrant had in fact been issued.
Reviewing this Court's decisions applying
Terry, the Sixth
Circuit concluded that investigative stops remain a narrow
exception to the probable cause requirement, and that this Court
has manifested a "clear intention to restrict investigative stops
to settings involving the investigation of ongoing crimes." 713
F.2d at 225. Since Covington police encountered Hensley almost two
weeks after the armed robbery in St. Bernard, they had no reason to
believe they were investigating an ongoing crime. Because the
Covington police were familiar only with the St. Bernard flyer, and
not with the specific information which led the St. Bernard police
to issue the flyer, the Court of Appeals held they lacked a
reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify an investigative stop.
The Court of Appeals concluded that Hensley's conviction rested on
evidence obtained
Page 469 U. S. 226
through an illegal arrest, and therefore had to be reversed. We
disagree, and now reverse.
II
The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against
unreasonable searches and seizures. In
Terry, supra, and
subsequent cases, this Court has held that, consistent with the
Fourth Amendment, police may stop persons in the absence of
probable cause under limited circumstances.
See Dunaway v. New
York, 442 U. S. 200,
442 U. S.
207-211 (1979). In particular, the Court has noted that
law enforcement agents may briefly stop a moving automobile to
investigate a reasonable suspicion that its occupants are involved
in criminal activity.
See United States v. Brignoni-Ponce,
422 U. S. 873,
422 U. S. 881
(1975) (within United States borders, Government interest in
preventing illegal entry of aliens permits a
Terry stop on
reasonable suspicion that particular vehicle contains aliens).
Although stopping a car and detaining its occupants constitute a
seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, the
governmental interest in investigating an officer's reasonable
suspicion, based on specific and articulable facts, may outweigh
the Fourth Amendment interest of the driver and passengers in
remaining secure from the intrusion.
See Delaware v.
Prouse, 440 U. S. 648,
440 U. S.
653-655 (1979).
In this case, the Sixth Circuit announced two prerequisites to
such an investigatory stop and held that they were lacking: first,
the crime being investigated was not imminent or ongoing, but
rather was already completed; second, the "wanted flyer" was
insufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that respondent had
engaged in criminal activity. If either part of this analysis is
correct, then it was indeed improper to stop respondent, and his
conviction cannot stand. We accordingly turn to the separate but
related issues of
Terry stops to investigate completed
crimes and
Terry stops in reliance on another police
department's "wanted flyer."
Page 469 U. S. 227
A
This is the first case we have addressed in which police stopped
a person because they suspected he was involved in a completed
crime. In our previous decisions involving investigatory stops on
less than probable cause, police stopped or seized a person because
they suspected he was about to commit a crime,
e.g., Terry,
supra, or was committing a crime at the moment of the stop,
e.g., Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143
(1972). Noting that
Florida v. Royer, 460 U.
S. 491 (1983), struck down a particularly intrusive
detention of a person suspected of committing an ongoing crime, the
Court of Appeals in this case concluded that we clearly intended to
restrict investigative stops to the context of ongoing crimes.
We do not agree with the Court of Appeals that our prior
opinions contemplate an inflexible rule that precludes police from
stopping persons they suspect of past criminal activity unless they
have probable cause for arrest. To the extent previous opinions
have addressed the issue at all, they have suggested that some
investigative stops based on a reasonable suspicion of past
criminal activity could withstand Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Thus,
United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411,
449 U. S. 417,
n. 2 (1981), indicates in a footnote that "[o]f course, an officer
may stop and question a person if there are reasonable grounds to
believe that person is wanted for past criminal conduct." And in
United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696
(1983), decided barely a month before the Sixth Circuit's opinion,
this Court stated that its prior opinions acknowledged police
authority to stop a person "when the officer has reasonable,
articulable suspicion that the person
has been, is, or is
about to be engaged in criminal activity."
Id. at
462 U. S. 702
(emphasis added).
See also Michigan v. Summers,
452 U. S. 692,
452 U. S. 699,
and n. 7 (1981). Indeed,
Florida v. Royer itself suggests
that certain seizures are justifiable under the Fourth Amendment
even in the absence of probable cause "if there is articulable
suspicion that a person
has committed or is about to
commit a crime." 460 U.S. at
460 U. S. 498
(plurality opinion) (emphasis added).
Page 469 U. S. 228
At the least, these dicta suggest that the police are not
automatically shorn of authority to stop a suspect in the absence
of probable cause merely because the criminal has completed his
crime and escaped from the scene. The precise limits on
investigatory stops to investigate past criminal activity are more
difficult to define. The proper way to identify the limits is to
apply the same test already used to identify the proper bounds of
intrusions that further investigations of imminent or ongoing
crimes. That test, which is grounded in the standard of
reasonableness embodied in the Fourth Amendment, balances the
nature and quality of the intrusion on personal security against
the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the
intrusion.
United States v. Place, supra, at
462 U. S. 703;
Michigan v. Summers, supra, at
452 U. S.
698-701. When this balancing test is applied to stops to
investigate past crimes, we think that probable cause to arrest
need not always be required.
The factors in the balance may be somewhat different when a stop
to investigate past criminal activity is involved rather than a
stop to investigate ongoing criminal conduct. This is because the
governmental interests and the nature of the intrusions involved in
the two situations may differ. As we noted in
Terry, one
general interest present in the context of ongoing or imminent
criminal activity is "that of effective crime prevention and
detection."
Terry, 392 U.S. at
392 U. S. 22. A
stop to investigate an already completed crime does not necessarily
promote the interest of crime prevention as directly as a stop to
investigate suspected ongoing criminal activity. Similarly, the
exigent circumstances which require a police officer to step in
before a crime is committed or completed are not necessarily as
pressing long afterwards. Public safety may be less threatened by a
suspect in a past crime who now appears to be going about his
lawful business than it is by a suspect who is currently in the
process of violating the law. Finally, officers making a stop to
investigate past crimes may have a wider range of opportunity
to
Page 469 U. S. 229
choose the time and circumstances of the stop.
See Brown v.
Texas, 443 U. S. 47,
443 U. S. 51
(1979); ALI Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure 12 (Prop. Off.
Draft No. 1, 1972).
Despite these differences, where police have been unable to
locate a person suspected of involvement in a past crime, the
ability to briefly stop that person, ask questions, or check
identification in the absence of probable cause promotes the strong
government interest in solving crimes and bringing offenders to
justice. Restraining police action until after probable cause is
obtained would not only hinder the investigation, but might also
enable the suspect to flee in the interim and to remain at large.
Particularly in the context of felonies or crimes involving a
threat to public safety, it is in the public interest that the
crime be solved and the suspect detained as promptly as possible.
The law enforcement interests at stake in these circumstances
outweigh the individual's interest to be free of a stop and
detention that is no more extensive than permissible in the
investigation of imminent or ongoing crimes.
We need not and do not decide today whether
Terry stops
to investigate all past crimes, however serious, are permitted. It
is enough to say that, if police have a reasonable suspicion,
grounded in specific and articulable facts, that a person they
encounter was involved in or is wanted in connection with a
completed felony, then a
Terry stop may be made to
investigate that suspicion. The automatic barrier to such stops
erected by the Court of Appeals accordingly cannot stand.
B
At issue in this case is a stop of a person by officers of one
police department in reliance on a flyer issued by another
department indicating that the person is wanted for investigation
of a felony. The Court of Appeals concluded that
"the Fourth Amendment does not permit police officers in one
department to seize a person simply because a neighboring
Page 469 U. S. 230
police department has circulated a flyer reflecting the desire
to question that individual about some criminal investigation that
does not involve the arresting officers or their department."
713 F.2d at 225. This holding apparently rests on the omission
from the flyer of the specific and articulable facts which led the
first department to suspect respondent's involvement in a completed
crime.
Ibid.
This Court discussed a related issue in
Whiteley v.
Warden, 401 U. S. 560
(1971). In
Whiteley, a county sheriff in Wyoming obtained
an arrest warrant for a person suspected of burglary. The sheriff
then issued a message through a statewide law enforcement radio
network describing the suspect, his car, and the property taken. At
least one version of the message also indicated that a warrant had
been issued.
Id. at
401 U. S. 564,
and n. 5. The message did not specify the evidence that gave the
sheriff probable cause to believe the suspect had committed the
breaking and entering. In reliance on the radio message, police in
Laramie stopped the suspect and searched his car. The Supreme
Court, in an opinion by Justice Harlan, ultimately concluded that
the sheriff had lacked probable cause to obtain the warrant and
that the evidence obtained during the search by the police in
Laramie had to be excluded. In so ruling, however, the Court
noted:
"We do not, of course, question that the Laramie police were
entitled to act on the strength of the radio bulletin. Certainly
police officers called upon to aid other officers in executing
arrest warrants are entitled to assume that the officers requesting
aid offered the magistrate the information requisite to support an
independent judicial assessment of probable cause. Where, however,
the contrary turns out to be true, an otherwise illegal arrest
cannot be insulated from challenge by the decision of the
instigating officer to rely on fellow officers to make the
arrest."
Id. at
401 U. S.
568
This language in
Whiteley suggests that. had the
sheriff who issued the radio bulletin possessed probable cause
for
Page 469 U. S. 231
arrest, then the Laramie police could have properly arrested the
defendant even though they were unaware of the specific facts that
established probable cause.
See United States v. Maryland,
479 F.2d 566, 569 (CA5 1973). Thus
Whiteley supports the
proposition that, when evidence is uncovered during a search
incident to an arrest in reliance merely on a flyer or bulletin,
its admissibility turns on whether the officers who
issued
the flyer possessed probable cause to make the arrest. It does not
turn on whether those relying on the flyer were themselves aware of
the specific facts which led their colleagues to seek their
assistance. In an era when criminal suspects are increasingly
mobile and increasingly likely to flee across jurisdictional
boundaries, this rule is a matter of common sense: it minimizes the
volume of information concerning suspects that must be transmitted
to other jurisdictions and enables police in one jurisdiction to
act promptly in reliance on information from another
jurisdiction.
Neither respondent nor the Court of Appeals suggests any reason
why a police department should be able to act on the basis of a
flyer indicating that another department has a warrant, but should
not be able to act on the basis of a flyer indicating that another
department has a reasonable suspicion of involvement with a crime.
Faced with this precise issue, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit applied
Whiteley and concluded that, although the
officer who issues a wanted bulletin must have a reasonable
suspicion sufficient to justify a stop, the officer who acts in
reliance on the bulletin is not required to have personal knowledge
of the evidence creating a reasonable suspicion.
United States
v. Robinson, 536 F.2d 1298, 1300 (1976). The Ninth Circuit
there noted
"that effective law enforcement cannot be conducted unless
police officers can act on directions and information transmitted
by one officer to another and that officials, who must often act
swiftly, cannot be expected to cross-examine their fellow officers
about the foundation for the transmitted information."
Id. at 1299.
Page 469 U. S. 232
It could be argued that police can more justifiably rely on a
report that a magistrate has issued a warrant than on a report that
another law enforcement agency has simply concluded that it has a
reasonable suspicion sufficient to authorize an investigatory stop.
We do not find this distinction significant. The law enforcement
interests promoted by allowing one department to make investigatory
stops based upon another department's bulletins or flyers are
considerable, while the intrusion on personal security is minimal.
The same interests that weigh in favor of permitting police to make
a
Terry stop to investigate a past crime,
supra,
at
469 U. S. 229,
support permitting police in other jurisdictions to rely on flyers
or bulletins in making stops to investigate past crimes. We
conclude that, if a flyer or bulletin has been issued on the basis
of articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that the
wanted person has committed an offense, then reliance on that flyer
or bulletin justifies a stop to check identification,
see
United States ex rel. Kirby v. Sturges, 510 F.2d 397, 400-401
(CA7) (Stevens, J.),
cert. denied, 421 U.S. 1016 (1975),
to pose questions to the person, or to detain the person briefly
while attempting to obtain further information.
See Adams v.
Williams, 407 U. S. 143,
407 U. S. 146
(1972) ("A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to
determine his identity or to maintain the
status quo
momentarily while obtaining more information, may be the most
reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the
time"). If the flyer has been issued in the absence of a reasonable
suspicion, then a stop in the objective reliance upon it violates
the Fourth Amendment. In such a situation, of course, the officers
making the stop may have a good-faith defense to any civil suit.
See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232
(1974);
Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547
(1967);
Turner v. Raynes, 611 F.2d 92, 93 (CA5) (officer
relying in good faith on an invalid arrest warrant has defense to
civil suit),
cert. denied, 449 U.S. 900 (1980). It is the
objective reading of the flyer or bulletin that determines whether
other
Page 469 U. S. 233
police officers can defensibly act in reliance on it.
Cf.
Terry, 392 U.S. at
392 U. S. 21-22
("it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective
standard: would the facts 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?"). Assuming
the police make a Terry stop in objective reliance on a
flyer or bulletin, we hold that the evidence uncovered in the
course of the stop is admissible if the police who issued
the flyer or bulletin possessed a reasonable suspicion justifying a
stop, United States v. Robinson, supra, and if the stop
that in fact occurred was not significantly more intrusive than
would have been permitted the issuing department.
III
It remains to apply the two sets of principles described above
to the stop and subsequent arrest of respondent Hensley.
At the outset, we assume,
arguendo, that the St.
Bernard police who issued the "wanted flyer" on Hensley lacked
probable cause for his arrest. The District Court implied that the
St. Bernard police had probable cause for arrest, but held only
that the St. Bernard officers had reasonable suspicion sufficient
to justify a stop. App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a. The Court of Appeals
implied that probable cause might be lacking, 713 F.2d at 223, but
ultimately concluded that the question was irrelevant because the
Covington police would not be entitled to make an arrest or a stop
regardless of whether the St. Bernard police possessed probable
cause or a reasonable suspicion. In this Court, no party contends
that the St. Bernard police had probable cause to arrest
Hensley.
We agree with the District Court that the St. Bernard police
possessed a reasonable suspicion, based on specific and articulable
facts, that Hensley was involved in an armed robbery. The District
Judge heard testimony from the St. Bernard officer who interviewed
the informant. On the strength of the evidence, the District Court
concluded
Page 469 U. S. 234
that the wealth of detail concerning the robbery revealed by the
informant, coupled with her admission of tangential participation
in the robbery, established that the informant was sufficiently
reliable and credible
"to arouse a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity by
[Hensley] and to constitute the specific and articulable facts
needed to underly a stop."
App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a. Under the circumstances, "the
information carried enough indicia of reliability,"
Adams v.
Williams, supra, at
407 U. S. 147,
to justify an investigatory stop of Hensley.
The justification for a stop did not evaporate when the armed
robbery was completed. Hensley was reasonably suspected of
involvement in a felony and was at large from the time the
suspicion arose until the stop by the Covington police. A brief
stop and detention at the earliest opportunity after the suspicion
arose is fully consistent with the principles of the Fourth
Amendment.
Turning to the flyer issued by the St. Bernard police, we
believe it satisfies the objective test announced today. An
objective reading of the entire flyer would lead an experienced
officer to conclude that Thomas Hensley was at least wanted for
questioning and investigation in St. Bernard. Since the flyer was
issued on the basis of articulable facts supporting a reasonable
suspicion, this objective reading would justify a brief stop to
check Hensley's identification, pose questions, and inform the
suspect that the St. Bernard police wished to question him. As an
experienced officer could well assume that a warrant might have
been obtained in the period after the flyer was issued, we think
the flyer would further justify a brief detention at the scene of
the stop while officers checked whether a warrant had in fact been
issued. It is irrelevant whether the Covington officers intended to
detain Hensley only long enough to confirm the existence of a
warrant, or for some longer period; what matters is that the stop
and detention that occurred were
Page 469 U. S. 235
in fact no more intrusive than would have been permitted an
experienced officer on an objective reading of the flyer.
To be sure, the St. Bernard flyer at issue did not request that
other police departments briefly detain Hensley merely to check his
identification or confirm the existence of a warrant. Instead, it
asked other departments to pick up and hold Hensley for St.
Bernard. Our decision today does not suggest that such a detention,
whether at the scene or at the Covington police headquarters, would
have been justified. Given the distance involved and the time
required to identify and communicate with the department that
issued the flyer, such a detention might well be so lengthy or
intrusive as to exceed the permissible limits of a
Terry
stop.
See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. at
462 U. S. 709.
Nor do we mean to endorse St. Bernard's request in its flyer for
actions that could forseeably violate the Fourth Amendment. We hold
only that this flyer, objectively read and supported by a
reasonable suspicion on the part of the issuing department,
justified the length and intrusiveness of the stop and detention
that actually occurred.
When the Covington officers stopped Hensley, they were
authorized to take such steps as were reasonably necessary to
protect their personal safety and to maintain the
status
quo during the course of the stop. The Covington officers'
conduct was well within the permissible range in the context of
suspects who are reported to be armed and dangerous.
See
Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032,
463 U. S.
1049-1050 (1983);
Pennsylvania v. Mimms,
434 U. S. 106,
434 U. S.
110-111 (1977) (per curiam). Having stopped Hensley, the
Covington police were entitled to seize evidence revealed in plain
view in the course of the lawful stop, to arrest Hensley's
passenger when evidence discovered in plain view gave probable
cause to believe the passenger had committed a crime,
Texas v.
Brown, 460 U. S. 730
(1983) (plurality opinion), and subsequently to search the
passenger compartment of the car because it was within the
passenger's immediate control.
New York
Page 469 U. S. 236
v. Belton, 453 U.
S. 454 (1981). Finally, having discovered additional
weapons in Hensley's car during the course of a lawful search, the
Covington officers had probable cause to arrest Hensley himself for
possession of firearms.
The length of Hensley's detention from his stop to his arrest on
probable cause was brief. A reasonable suspicion on the part of the
St. Bernard police underlies and supports their issuance of the
flyer. Finally, the stop that occurred was reasonable in objective
reliance on the flyer and was not significantly more intrusive than
would have been permitted the St. Bernard police. Under these
circumstances, the investigatory stop was reasonable under the
Fourth Amendment, and the evidence discovered during the stop was
admissible.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case
is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court. With respect to its effect on
respondent's "right . . . to be secure . . . in [his] perso[n]"
guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, the stop in this case although
it no doubt seriously infringed upon respondent's privacy -- lasted
a mere matter of moments,
see ante at
469 U. S.
224-225, before the discovery of the gun ripened what
had been merely reasonable suspicion into the full-scale probable
cause necessary for an arrest. For circumstances like these,
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1
(1968),
"defined a special category of Fourth Amendment 'seizures' so
substantially less intrusive than arrests that the general rule
requiring probable cause to make Fourth Amendment 'seizures'
reasonable could be replaced by a balancing test."
Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200,
442 U. S. 210
(1979).
See ante at
469 U. S. 228.
Such a balancing test is appropriate as long as it is conducted
with full
Page 469 U. S. 237
regard for the serious privacy interests implicated even by such
a relatively non-intrusive stop.
See Terry v. Ohio, supra.
Of course, in the case of intrusions properly classifiable as
full-scale arrests for Fourth Amendment purposes, no such balancing
test is needed. Such arrests are governed by the probable cause
standard provided by the text of the Fourth Amendment itself.