United States V Devin Travis

On February 13, 2024, a security guard in East Orange, New Jersey called police to report a man 'trying to get inside the building' after being 'kicked out already,' describing him as 'circling the parking lot' and 'peering into vehicles.' Officers found Devin Travis outside a back door with an unidentified woman. After being allowed to enter, officers questioned Travis about his presence; he claimed to visit someone and had no ID. When officers instructed him to remove his hands from his pockets, he complied but returned them twice. Officers frisked Travis after he returned his hands to his pockets for the second time and discovered a loaded revolver in his pants. The District Court granted Travis' motion to suppress the evidence, but the Third Circuit reversed, finding reasonable suspicion justified the stop and frisk.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's grant of Devin Travis' motion to suppress evidence of a loaded revolver found during a frisk. The court held that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop Travis based on a security guard's tip describing suspicious behavior, and that the frisk was justified by reasonable belief that Travis may have been armed given his behavior of returning hands to pockets after being instructed to remove them. The stop and frisk were thus both justified under the Fourth Amendment.

The appellate court reversed the District Court's grant of the motion to suppress and remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigatory stops (Terry stops) when an officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Reasonable suspicion requires at least a minimal level of objective justification—more than a hunch but less than probable cause. The court evaluates this standard using the totality of circumstances and considers the whole picture. A seizure occurs when a suspect submits to a show of authority, and for a seizure to comply with the Fourth Amendment, facts known to officers at the moment of seizure must support a particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal activity. Tips can themselves provide reasonable suspicion if reliable, and the absence of corroborating evidence does not negate reasonable suspicion when the tip has inherent reliability.