The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution protect citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. An investigatory stop, also known as a “Terry” stop or a “stop and frisk,” can be made by police without a search warrant if there are articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably justify an intrusion to search for a concealed weapon. Terry is narrowly drawn to permit only a reasonable search for weapons not for the purpose of discovering evidence of a crime but for the purpose of protecting the police officer where the officer has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous person. The search must be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of a police officer.

A reviewing court must evaluate the totality of the circumstances surrounding the Terry stop, balancing the State’s interest in effective law enforcement against the individual’s right to be protected from unwarranted and/or overbearing police intrusions. Thus, in an attempt to uncover weapons which might be used to assault him, a police officer may conduct a carefully limited search or pat down of the outer clothing of a person the officer has an objectively reasonable suspicion may be armed and dangerous. Where an anonymous tip is involved, additional factors must be considered to generate the requisite level of reasonable and articulable suspicion, including: the tipster’s veracity, reliability and basis of knowledge. The police must verify that the tip is reliable by some independent corroborative effort.

The investigative methods employed in a Terry stop should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer’s suspicion in a short period of time. In addition, the frisk must be sufficiently limited in scope and duration.