Terry v. Ohio

Terry v. Ohio (1968) revolutionized Fourth Amendment search and seizure law. It is one of the most significant cases that examined the constitutional underpinnings of the officer-citizen dynamic. Terry explored the permissible bounds of a seizure and provided a lasting framework to scrutinize the constitutionality of police-citizen encounters. The “Terry stop,” a by-product of the Supreme Court's decision, represents an exception to the Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement, which allows for a limited police detention. The Terry decision was culturally salient because of ...