26 Stop, Question, Frisk & The Law: Terry v. Ohio In Cultural and Historical Perspectives
Nora M. Cronin
Nora M. Cronin, JD is a teaching faculty member with the International Criminal Justice Program at John Jay College and developed this syllabus.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES | TRANSFORMING THE JUSTICE CORE PROJECT
Landmark US Supreme Court Cases Course
Classroom and Meeting Times Course Description
This course focused on the landmark Supreme Court case Terry V. Ohio, which confirmed that it is not unconstitutional for police to “stop and frisk” a person they reasonably suspect to be involved in a crime. Using resources that analyze the case from both a historical and sociological perspective, students will be invited to form their own conclusions about whether these police actions represent good public policy, and/or positive use of criminal justice resources. The course will culminate in a Moot Court where students will re-argue the case during class time in order to think through these questions. Along the way, students will refine their legal research and workplace writing skills. This class prepares students, as future criminal justice professionals, to analyze and contextualize struggles for justice through legal studies and critical analysis.
300 Level Justice Core Learning Objectives:
1. Contextualize and analyze struggles for justice.
2. Discover, gather, interpret, and assess information from a variety of sources, intellectual perspectives, and approaches.
3. Analyze and explain a text or work using methods appropriate for the genre, medium, and/or discipline.
4. Organize and synthesize information and ideas into a coherently structured, thesis-driven, evidence-based argument in oral and written form.
Grading
Grade weightsGrading will be based on homework assignments, class participation, and a final project, with the following weights.
| Assignment | Points Possible |
| HW 1 | 5 |
| HW 2 | 5 |
| HW 3 | 5 |
| HW 4 | 5 |
| HW 5 | 5 |
| HW 7 | 5 |
| HW 8 | 5 |
| HW 9 | 5 |
| HW 10 | 5 |
| Final | 50 |
| Participation | 20 |
Grading scaleYou will notice that the HW percentage adds up to more than 30 points! That is intentional! I have built an extra ten points into the grading schematic on purpose, as I understand that life can throw us curveballs and there may be a week where you are unable to complete a homework assignment. However, because I have already built in extra points, I will not offer any “extra credit” or makeups. The final grade will be based on the following scale:
| A: | 93-100 | C: | 73-77.9 |
| A-: | 90-92.9 | C-: | 70-72.9 |
| B+: | 87.5-89.9 | D+: | 67-69.9 |
| B: | 83-87 | D: | 63-66.9 |
| B-: | 80-82.9 | D-: | 60-62.9 |
| C+: | 78-79.9 | F: | 0-59.9 |
Course Schedule
Selected Readings, Activities, and Assignments are identified as helping us achieve specific Learning Outcomes for the course. They will be identified below in square brackets.
Week 1: Introductions
In-Class Activities:
Introductions [DISCOVER], websites, syllabus, course policies.
Assigned Viewing:
“A Nation of Liberties” from the PBS series, The Supreme Court. Available HERE online and also on reserve at JJ’s library. [CONTEXTUALIZE]
Assigned Writing:
HW 1: Short Answer Questions on video, using the transcript as necessary. [ANALYZE]
Week 2: Casuistry & Progeny, Understanding the Odd World of American Legal Reasoning
In-Class Activities:
Discuss the Warren Court in historical context [CONTEXTUALIZE]
Assigned Reading:
“The Practice and Problems of Precedent” (pp.36-57) from Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Harvard, 2012) available on Bb [DISCOVER]
Assigned Viewing:
How to use LexisNexis to find cases citing precedent [DISCOVER]
Assigned Writing:
HW2: (A) Short answer questions on “The Practice and Problems of Precedent” [DISCOVER]; (B) LexisNexis database work using Terry v. Ohio [ANALYZE]
Week 3: Local Connections: Terry and NYC (Part 1)
In-Class Activities:
Discuss progeny [CONTEXTUALIZE]
Assigned Reading:
Segal, Josh. (2012). “’All of the Mysticism of Police Expertise’: Legalizing
Stop-and-Frisk in New York, 1961-1968.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. 2012. (read pp. 573-593) [CONTEXTUALIZE]
Assigned Writing:
HW3: Short answer questions on “Legalizing Stop-and-Frisk in New York” [ORGANIZE]
Week 4: Local Connections: Terry and NYC (Part 2)
Assigned Reading:
“All of the Mysticism of Police Expertise” (see above) (read pp. 593- 616) [DISCOVER]; “How to read a court case primer” (on our WordPress site, not Bb) [CONTEXTUALIZE]
Assigned Writing:
HW4: Short answer questions on “Legalizing Stop-and-Frisk in New York” and how to read a court case primer” [ORGANIZE]
Week 5: The Case Itself: Terry v. Ohio
In-Class Activities:
Readings Discussion [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Assigned Reading:
Case text and annotations on Bb: [DISCOVERY]
Assigned Writing:
HW5: Short answer questions on “Case text and annotations” [DISCOVER/ CONTEXTUALIZE]
Week 6: Understanding Terry & Progeny 1968-1995 and Introduction to Claim/ Evidence/Warrant
In-Class Activities:
Readings Discussion [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Assigned Reading:
Stephen V. Armstrong and Timothy P. Terrell, “Writing Tips; Teaching Law Students Practical Advocacy”, 20 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 140 (2012) on the importance of claim/evidence/warrant in legal education; introduction to claim/evidence/warrant (on our WordPress website); Excerpts from Fortner, Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment (Harvard, 2015).
Assigned Writing:
HW6: Complete Lexis search on contemporary news coverage of Terry; cl/ev/ wa activity using findings and from Fortner. [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Week 7: Terry Beyond Terry: Cops and Legal Impunity
In-Class Activities:
Readings Discussion [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Assigned Reading:
Hoeffe, Janet. “The Warren Court and the Birth of the Reasonably Unreasonable Police Officer.” Stetson Law Review 49, no. 2 (2020): 289–313.
Assigned Writing:
HW7: Short answer Questions on Hoeffe [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Readings Discussion [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Assigned Reading:
Arthur H. Garrison, “NYPD Stop and Frisk, Perceptions of Criminals, Race and the Meaning of Terry v. Ohio: A Content Analysis of Floyd, et al. v City of New York,” Rutgers Race & the Law Review 15 (2014): 65-156
Assigned Writing:
HW8: Questions on Garrison [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Week 9: Floyd: Challenging Terry “as practiced” in NYC (part 2, battle of the statistical “benchmarks”)In-Class Activities:
Introduction to the problem of measuring racial disparities in police (and other) practice.
Assigned Reading:
Smith, M. R., Rojek, J. J., Petrocelli, M., & Withrow, B. (2017). Measuring disparities in police activities: A State of the Art Review. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 40(2), 166–183.; and expert witness reports from Floyd: Report of Dennis C. Smith, Ph.D. and Robert M. Purtell, Ph.D. in Response to the Second Supplemental Report of Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D (2012) and Second Supplemental Report of Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (2012)
Assigned Writing:
HW9: Questions on readings [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Excerpts from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities. National Academies Press, 2018.
Assigned Writing:
HW11: Questions on reading [DISCOVERY & ARGUMENT]
Week 12: no class!
Please meet with your groups to work on oral argument presentations during final classes.
Week 13: Visiting Speakers (D.A.’s office & public defender)
In-Class Activities:
Be prepared to ask questions to our guests!
Week 14: Final Moot Court I
Week 15: Final Moot Court II
Week 16: Conclusions
In-Class Activities:
Wrap-up discussion of the semester.
Assigned Writing:
Submit Self-Reflection from Final Project
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