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Arizona v. Johnson
The Passenger Pat-Down
The facts
Officers with a gang task force in Tucson, Arizona stopped a car after learning its registration was suspended for an insurance lapse. The car held a driver, a front-seat passenger, and the Defendant, seated in back. As the officers approached, the Defendant kept turning to watch them, wore blue clothing and a blue bandana the officer associated with the Crips gang, and had a police scanner in his jacket pocket — an item she considered unusual for someone with no security or law-enforcement job. Wanting to question him apart from the others and gather gang intelligence, she asked him to step out of the car. He told her he was from a town with a known Crips presence and had recently finished a prison term for burglary. His answers and demeanor left her thinking he might be armed, so she patted him down and felt a gun near his waistband. He was later charged with weapon and marijuana possession. At issue: whether an officer can frisk a passenger in a stopped car who shows no independent sign of crime beyond the traffic violation that prompted the stop.
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