Release Date:  December 8, 2008
Contact:  Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345

On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court will hear the Arizona Attorney General’s appeal of a lower court ruling which held that it was illegal for a police officer to frisk a suspicious passenger during a traffic stop.  At issue in Arizona v. Johnson is a state appeals court ruling which announced that unless an officer had “reasonable cause” to believe that a crime was occurring, the passenger of a lawfully stopped vehicle could not be searched for weapons. 

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined the case to encourage a decision to overturn the Arizona court’s ruling.

“This case is important because it involves a police officer’s ability to determine whether a person confronted in the line of duty is armed and possibly dangerous,” said CJLF Attorney Lauren Altdoerffer, who authored the Foundation’s brief.

The case involves the April 2002 traffic stop of an uninsured vehicle at 9:00 p.m. in a Tucson neighborhood noted for gang activity.  While one officer talked to the driver, Officer Maria Trevizo noticed a backseat passenger wearing the colors of a local street gang.  After the suspect told Trevizo he had recently been released from prison and she noticed a police scanner in his jacket pocket, she asked him to exit the vehicle. Trevizo then conducted a patdown search for weapons and found a handgun and marijuana. The defendant, Lemon Montrea Johnson, was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and marijuana.  Taking his two prior felony convictions into account, he was sentenced to eight years.

In 2007, the Arizona Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, ruling that because Johnson was not the subject of the traffic stop and had voluntarily stepped out of the vehicle, the officer did not have the necessary reasonable cause to search him.  After the Arizona Supreme Court declined to review that holding, the Attorney General asked the nation’s highest court to hear the state’s appeal.  Earlier this year the Supreme Court agreed. 

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has filed a scholarly amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief which argues that the Arizona court’s ruling misinterprets precedent governing the legality of an officer’s frisk of a person confronted in the line of duty.  The CJLF brief cites an FBI study of police officers killed in the line of duty to emphasize the dangerous circumstances officers face during traffic stops.  The officer in this case had a “reasonable suspicion” that the passenger might be armed, making the facts that he was not driving the car and had volunteered to step out upon request irrelevant.

“Officer Trevizo made a reasonable decision to pat down this suspect in order to assure her safety and that of her partner,” said Altdoerffer.  “The Arizona Court’s decision, if allowed to stand, will set national precedent that restricts the ability of police to protect themselves and the public,” she added.