Justice Douglas’ Dissenting Opinion
In the Terry v. Ohio case, Justice Douglas’ dissenting opinion became an exemplary display of how the Fourth Amendment could be abused by the US Supreme Court. Even though Justice Douglas consented to his agreement with the need for certain standards, he disproved unnecessary stops and actions that could be taken by law enforcement officers when there were no tangible threats present (FindLaw, n.d.). He also pointed out the imperfect nature of the probable cause statements and expressed his doubts regarding the notions of search and seizure. The idea behind Justice Douglas’ dissent was that the constitutional standards of probable cause were unbelievably low, giving police officers more potential authority over civilians and their constitutional rights (FindLaw, n.d.). The thin line between a crime being committed and an officer believing that a crime is about to happen is the reason why Justice Douglas opposed the majority. He also pointed out how no constitutional guarantees could be given to civilians due to the exceptional Supreme Court’s suzerainty over law enforcement officers.
A Personal Outlook on Justice Douglas’ Dissenting Opinion
First of all, it should be noted that the Terry v. Ohio case was one of the most controversial in the history of the US Supreme Court. It happened because of the huge differences between how the state viewed the law enforcement agent’s actions and how the defense tried to protect the plaintiff. The notion of reasonable suspicion was linked to the possibility of defendants being armed and dangerous. From what I could see based on the information available from FindLaw (n.d.), the only evidence available to Officer McFadden was the primary suspicion that eventually caused him to perform the search and consider the three men wandering around as a potential crime. Therefore, another question that has to be answered is to what extent the Fourth Amendment could actually protect American citizens when they are walking down the street. The absence of a significant difference between an arrest and a stop is not disclosed constitutionally. The same issue goes for the advent of reasonable suspicion and the need to differentiate between a full-fledged search and a frisk.
It is crucial to look at the dissenting opinion as an opportunity to update the existing laws. This should be done in order to provide clearer definitions of probable cause and reasonable suspicion in order to validate the admissibility of detained weapons in court in the form of legalized evidence (Bandes et al., 2019). With Justice Douglas’ expression of dissent, it is crucial to look at the Terry v. Ohio case as an inflexible response to the recurring cases of police officers violating their range of permissible authority. Despite the majority decision taken by the Supreme Court, it was evident that there was a definite discrepancy associated with how the arguments were presented and interpreted by the Justices. The right to escalate the situation could be seen as quite arguable, especially when reflecting on the cases similar to Terry v. Ohio. Therefore, I generally side with the dissenting opinion because the concept of a dangerous situation should be outlined with more specifics to it.
The intrusion that was performed by Officer McFadden jeopardized other citizens’ personal security. Therefore, fewer cases of stop and frisk should occur in the future in order to bring more flexibility to the decision-making processes employed by law enforcement officers (Bandes et al., 2019). This hypothesis also stems from the idea that the so-called Terry law began evolving under the impact of societal and legal outbursts across the United States. Justice Douglas’ dissent can be considered fully rational because it was a shortcut to reducing the growing level of resentment. The level of authority that is given to law enforcement agents should be regulated by a court in order to ensure that no violations are undertaken lightly.
The application of the Fourth Amendment to Terry v. Ohio has to be accompanied by the need to address constitutional scrutiny and bring more well-defined constitutional terms to the table. To put it otherwise, the contact between a law enforcement officer and a civilian should not be escalated without any specific secondary factors that might validate the need to apply force or perform a search (Bandes et al., 2019). The dissenting opinion can be perceived as an essential contributor to the process of evolution of Terry law since shortly after the decision, law enforcement officers were granted non-warrant access to escalation capability. This shows how Justice Douglas’ opinion eventually reflected the Fourth Amendment’s inherent meaning. The presence of unreasonable seizures and searches could be considered a result of the Terry v. Ohio case as well. This particular distinction allowed many law enforcement officers to take a different approach to recognizing threats to their safety.
On a long-term scale, this decision can be considered prudent to a limited extent only, especially with the lack of justification on law enforcement’s side. Indirectly, the Supreme Court could have contributed to a bigger number of unlawful stops and pat-downs that were unnecessary at best. The balance between the scope of the intrusion and the justification provided by police officers became too unstable because of the increasingly high level of authority granted to law enforcement. When the weapons were considered admissible in court, it became evident that the dissenting opinion would not survive the rivalry due to the Supreme Court not having a specific issue with validating searches, pat-downs, and frisks (Bandes et al., 2019). Even though there were no negative implications mentioned at first, Judge Douglas’ dissent should have been the warning call. The presence of just one opposing opinion was ignored by the Supreme Court representatives because it was intended to help the American community reach the greater good.
Overall, I believe that the Terry v. Ohio case could be considered an unachievable compromise between excessive aggression displayed by police officers and the inability of law enforcement to ensure proper protection for civilians. This lack of balance became the decisive factor that led the Supreme Court Justices to indirectly abuse the Fourth Amendment and protect Officer McFadden. The fragile situation grew out of control and caused even more abuses in the future, exposing racial minorities to police brutality and unauthorized use of force. Without a constitutionally valid notion of a stop, the Supreme Court is going to contribute indirectly to a larger number of unlawful actions against minority population representatives. This is why it is important to look at cases similar to Terry v. Ohio or Floyd v. City of New York in order to gain a better insight into how unmotivated stops could be ceased or limited at least. My conclusion is that the Fourth Amendment does not provide all the relevant notions and prevents the Supreme Court from achieving perceptible judicial integrity.
References
Bandes, S. A., Pryor, M., Kerrison, E. M., & Goff, P. A. (2019). The mismeasure of Terry stops: Assessing the psychological and emotional harms of stop and frisk to individuals and communities. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 37(2), 176-194. Web.
FindLaw. Terry v. Ohio. FindLaw. Web.