Redefining Fourth Amendment Reasonableness: A Crime-Severity Model for Terry Stops

Abstract

This Note joins a growing chorus of scholarship criticizing the lack of proportionality analysis in the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Rather than simply bemoan the current state of legal doctrine, we offer a practical test that state and federal courts could use to determine the permissible scope of pedestrian stop-and-frisks. Specifically, we propose that courts adopt an offense-severity model that distinguishes minor offenses (like jaywalking, public alcohol consumption, and simple trespass) from more serious misdemeanors and felonies. Two state supreme courts — Massachusetts’ and Washington’s — have already adopted a similar approach. As a result, police in those states may not engage in intrusive stop-and-frisks based on mere suspicion of noncriminal infractions. Our Note takes these decisions as a starting point to engage in a broader debate about crime-severity’s usefulness as a rubric for assessing police conduct under the Fourth Amendment and its state law equivalents.