Also known as: lawful custodial arrests · custodial arrest · lawful arrest
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutionally valid arrest that places the suspect in full custody rather than releasing the person with a citation. The arrest supplies the legal predicate for a warrantless search of the arrestee's person and the area within immediate control. It also triggers related rules governing resistance, attenuation, and justification defenses.
Officer Ramirez arrested Lola Langley at her kitchen table on an outstanding warrant for forgery. While Langley remained seated and handcuffed, Ramirez opened a drawer two feet away and found a forged check. The search is upheld because the drawer lay within Langley's immediate control at the moment of arrest.
Campus officer Lewis ordered Professor Kim to help detain Leah Lamb after Lamb overturned furniture in a classroom. Kim grabbed Lamb's backpack and pinned her to the floor. Lamb's later claim of self-defense fails because Kim was lawfully assisting in a custodial arrest.
Officers arrested Lucy Liu for possession of drug paraphernalia and immediately searched her pockets and purse. They found additional contraband even though they had no particularized fear for safety. The search is valid solely because it followed a lawful custodial arrest.
An officer stopped Luna Lang without reasonable suspicion and learned of an unrelated outstanding warrant. After arresting Lang on the warrant, the officer found methamphetamine in her car. The drugs are admissible because the valid warrant created an intervening circumstance that attenuated the unlawful stop.
Logan Lane killed a witness to prevent the witness from reporting Lane's fraud to police. The jury found that the murder was committed to avoid a lawful custodial arrest. That aggravating circumstance supports imposition of the death penalty.
On November 21, 1973, Troy Gregg and Floyd Allen were hitchhiking north in Florida when they were picked up by Fred Simmons and Bob Moore in their car. Their car broke down. Simmons purchased another vehicle with some of the cash he was carrying. While still in Florida, the group picked up Dennis Weaver, who rode with them to Atlanta, where he was let out about 11 p.m. A short time later the four men stopped for a rest along the highway in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The next morning the bodies of Simmons and Moore were discovered in a nearby ditch. On November 23, after reading about the shootings in an Atlanta newspaper, Weaver communicated with the Gwinnett County police and related information concerning the journey with the victims, including a description of the car. The next afternoon, Gregg and Allen, while in Simmons' car, were arrested in Asheville, North Carolina. In the search incident to the arrest a .25-caliber pistol, later shown to be that used to kill Simmons and Moore, was found in Gregg's pocket. After receiving Miranda warnings and signing a written waiver, Gregg signed a statement admitting he shot Simmons and Moore but claiming self-defense. At the guilt stage of the bifurcated trial, a medical examiner testified that Simmons died from a bullet wound in the eye and that Moore died from bullet wounds in the cheek and in the back of the head. The examiner further testified that both men had several bruises and abrasions about the face and head. Gregg testified claiming self-defense after Simmons and Moore allegedly attacked with a pipe and knife, but the jury convicted him of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. At the penalty stage before the same jury, neither side presented additional evidence. The trial judge instructed the jury that it could recommend either a death sentence or a life prison sentence on each count. The judge further charged the jury that in determining the sentence it was free to consider mitigating or aggravating circumstances. The judge instructed that death could not be imposed unless the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt one of the aggravating circumstances. The jury found the first and second aggravating circumstances and returned verdicts of death on each count. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the convictions and the death sentences for murder after reviewing the record and comparing the sentences to similar cases, but it vacated the death sentences for armed robbery. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the challenge to the death sentences under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
View caseAn officer frisked Lamar Lewis during a brief investigative stop and found nothing. Later, with probable cause, the officer returned and placed Lewis under full custodial arrest. The subsequent search of Lewis's person is governed by the custodial-arrest rule rather than the limited Terry frisk.
On October 31, 1963, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden, a 39-year veteran assigned to downtown Cleveland for 30 years, observed John W. Terry and Richard Chilton standing on the corner of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue. McFadden took up a post of observation 300 to 400 feet away. He watched as the two men walked back and forth along Huron Road, pausing repeatedly to look in the window of a store before conferring with each other. This pattern repeated roughly a dozen times over ten to twelve minutes. A third man, Katz, joined them briefly before departing, after which Terry and Chilton followed the same path. By this time McFadden had become thoroughly suspicious that the men were casing the store for a robbery and feared they might be armed. McFadden approached the three men in front of Zucker's store, identified himself as a police officer, and asked their names. When they mumbled responses, he grabbed Terry, spun him around, patted down the outer clothing of his overcoat, and felt a pistol in the left breast pocket. He removed a .38-caliber revolver from Terry's pocket and ordered the men into the store, where he similarly frisked Chilton and discovered another revolver while finding no weapons on Katz. Terry and Chilton were arrested and charged with carrying concealed weapons. Prior to trial they moved to suppress the revolvers as the product of an unlawful search. The trial court denied the motion after hearing McFadden's testimony, finding that the officer had reasonable cause to believe the defendants were acting suspiciously and that the frisk was necessary for his protection. After the denial, Terry and Chilton waived jury trial, were convicted, and sentenced to one to three years in the penitentiary. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed the appeal, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseYes. Once officers effect a constitutionally valid custodial arrest, they may conduct a complete search of the arrestee's person without needing to show case-specific concern for safety or evidence preservation.
No. Under the Model Penal Code, force is not justifiable when used to resist a public officer performing official duties or a person lawfully assisting the officer in making an arrest.
Yes. The valid warrant constitutes an intervening circumstance that, together with minimal police misconduct, attenuates the taint of the initial stop and renders the arrest and ensuing search lawful.
A custodial arrest places the suspect in full custody and authorizes a complete search of the person. A Terry stop permits only a limited pat-down for weapons when the officer reasonably suspects criminal activity and danger.