United States v. Robert Earl Sanders

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the search of \the immediate area\ surrounding a defendant who was handcuffed and already in custody was proper for purposes of officer safety
• holding that an officer was justified in drawing his weapon and handcuffing suspect as part of a Terry stop when responding to a call about a suspicious person carrying a gun
• holding that, where an officer has reasonable grounds to believe an individual is armed, the officer may conduct a limited search of the individual to discover weapons that might be used to assault the officer
• holding that “[o]nce [defendant] saw the squad car pulling up . . . and started to walk away,” the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop him and “did not act unreasonably in immediately drawing his weapon when he confronted” him
• noting that “[i]f a suspect complies with a police order to lie face down on the ground, his ability to fight or flee is significantly reduced, thereby helping to preserve the status quo”
• rejecting the argument “that, by handcuffing a suspect, the police instantly and completely eliminate all risks that the suspect will . . . do them harm”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).