Terry V. Martinez's Case

The facts in this case are as follows: on November 1 at 10 pm a murder of a boy was taken place in front of his apartment on 12th Street. Three suspects pulled the trigger on a nearby man who was standing, but the man was not harm. However, a boy was hit in the head by a stray bullet from a 9mm pistol died before he was able to get to the hospital. Community members blamed the murder on police. They commanded that the police should be more responsible on the issue of gun violence in the neighborhood and find the 3 suspects who murdered the boy. Witnesses reported that the 3 suspects was two males and one female, African American or Latino, and between the ages of 16 and 25. The 3 suspects was reported to be wearing dark colored hooded sweatshirts

The legal questions in this case are: Did the stop and frisk of Christina 's violate her 4th Amendment rights? Did the search of Christina violate her 4th Amendment rights? Should the evidence taken be suppressed? These questions will be answered by applying to the facts of Martinez’s case to the precedent of Terry v. Ohio. According to the Terry v. Ohio precedent a police may perform a frisk without probable cause under the following circumstances. The Supreme Court ruled, “... the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safely or that of others was in danger. And in determining whether the officer acted reasonably in such circumstances, due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch…” In other words, a police officer would be able to frisk an individual if they are concern with the safely of themselves or others. There must be reasonable suspicion. If we apply this legal test to the facts of Martinez case, we see that Officer Colon’s actions did not meet the test for a legal frisk because she did not have reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime, is in the process of committing, or is about to commit a crime to begin with. Even though Christina and her friends stop to talk to Marco, a well known drug dealer, she does not have reasonable suspicion because she did not see the drugs being passed. Them talking does not necessarily mean that they are doing

Since both the frisk and search was not reasonable or lawful, under the Fourth Amendment, this would be considered a violation and such evidence seized from Christina should be suppressed. The danger that would result if the court decided against my arguments is that there would be more police brutality. Although the concern that correlates with public safety is that there would be high crime rates, we need to find a way to balance public safety and an individual’s freedom. More often than not in today’s society, police officers are over using their power and often get away with it. As a result, people of color or Latinos are often the ones who suffer, since they are the targets. Two well known real life cases where this have been an issue is in the case of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. These two young African American young teens were killed after the shooting of white police officers, which raised an issue of police brutality. An we need to end police brutality in order to create a safe environment for everyone regardless of race or who