State v. Smith

I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals and affirm the judgment of the trial court. Officer White’s actions were reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the encounter with Petitioner in the first place, and, therefore, his pat-down of Smith was reasonable.

I agree with the conclusion of Judge Garrity in his dissenting opinion that “[i]f a suspect, while fleeing from a police officer responding to the report of a discharge of weapons in a high crime area, is seen to place an object that the officer believes to be a handgun into his waistband, the…