State v. Goldsmith

Amicus brief addressing the standard required for stopping a person on the street, based largely on the character of a neighborhood.

Police stopped a pedestrian in Camden simply because he was in a high crime neighborhood, had come from an alley near a vacant home, and was nervous when pressed by officers with accusatory questions. Later they said they would retrieve his identification from his jacket. He then asked them not to frisk him; they did and found a gun. The defendant filed a motion to suppress.

The ACLU-NJ brief argues that police lacked the reasonable suspicion needed for a stop and that, even if the stop was justified, the frisk was not. Our brief contends that neither the refusal to provide consent to search nor a generalized suspicion that the suspect was dealing drugs are sufficient to allow an invasive frisk.