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Pennsylvania V Mimms ...

Bottom line - LEO's, based on a SCOTUS opinion, can lawfully remove people from a vehicle once the vehicle has been legally stopped for officer safety.

SCOTUS wrote ...

"The order to get out of the car, issued after Mimms was lawfully detained, was reasonable and thus permissible under the Fourth Amendment. The state's proffered justification for such order - the officer's safety - is both legitimate and

weighty and the intrusion into Mimms' personal liberty occasioned by the order, being at most a mere inconvenience, cannot prevail when balanced against legitimate concerns for the officer's safety."

And, finally, on the second point, "... the answer is controlled by Terry v. Ohio. In that case we thought the officer justified in conducting a limited search for weapons once he had reasonably concluded that the person whom he had

legitimately stopped might be armed and presently dangerous ... The bulge in the jacket permitted the officer to conclude that Mimms was armed and thus posed a

serious and present danger to the safety of the officer ... any man of reasonable caution would likely have conducted the pat down."

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13y ago

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