{"ID":51734,"name":"Pennsylvania v. Mimms","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/cases\/1977\/76-1830","view_count":0,"docket_number":"76-1830","additional_docket_numbers":null,"manner_of_jurisdiction":"Writ of \u003Ci\u003Ecertiorari\u003C\/i\u003E","first_party":"Commonwealth of Pennsylvania","second_party":"Harry Mimms","timeline":[{"event":"Decided","dates":[250149600],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/32649"}],"lower_court":{"ID":60,"name":"Supreme Court of Pennsylvania","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/taxonomy\/term\/60"},"facts_of_the_case":"\u003Cp\u003EThis case arose when two Philadelphia police officers pulled over the defendant, Harry Mimms, for driving with an expired license plate. After asking Mimms to exit the car, the officers noticed an unusual bulge underneath his jacket. One of the officers searched Mimms and discovered a loaded .38-caliber revolver. Mimms was charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon and unlawfully carrying a firearm without a license. He was convicted on both counts at trial after his motion to suppress the revolver was denied.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOn appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that the officers\u0027 request for Mimms to exit the vehicle was an unlawful \u0022seizure\u0022 in violation of the Fourth Amendment. According to the court, the officer could not point to any \u0022objective observable facts to support a suspicion that criminal activity was afoot or that the occupants of the vehicle posed a threat to police safety\u0022 sufficient to warrant ordering Mimms to step out of the car. Therefore, the officers should never have noticed the bulge and the search should never have taken place.\u003C\/p\u003E\n","question":"\u003Cp\u003EDo police officers violate the Fourth Amendment\u0027s prohibition against unlawful searches and seizures when, during a routine traffic stop, they obtain evidence through a search conducted after asking the suspect to exit the vehicle without a justifiable reason to do so?\u003C\/p\u003E\n","conclusion":"\u003Cp\u003ENo. In a 6-3 per curiam decision, the Court held that the search did not violate Mimms\u0027 rights under the Fourth Amendment. The Court noted that the officers had already detained Mimms in order to issue him a traffic summons and felt that asking him to exit the vehicle was a minimal and reasonable intrusion of his freedom. Whether the search occurred inside or outside the car was irrelevant to the Court: the officers had stopped Mimms for a legitimate reason and, upon observing the bulge in his jacket, any person of reasonable caution would have conducted the search.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Thurgood Marshall wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that such searches, in order to conform to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, must relate to the reason for the stop. Because the officers had detained Mimms for an expired license plate, searching him for concealed weapons was not within the scope of the stop and therefore made it an unlawful search. 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