California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Jonathan A. (In re Jonathan A.), A137898 (Cal. App. 2013):
"A detention is constitutionally reasonable if the circumstances known or apparent to the detaining officer include 'specific and articulable facts causing him to suspect that (1) some activity relating to crime has taken place or is occurring or about to occur, and (2) the person he intends to stop or detain is involved in that activity. Not only must he subjectively entertain such a suspicion, but it must be objectively reasonable for him to do so: the facts must be such as would cause any reasonable police officer in a like position, drawing when appropriate on his training and experience [citation], to suspect the same criminal activity and same involvement by the person in question.' " (People v. Daugherty (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 275, 285.) " 'Courts have used a variety of terms to capture the elusive concept of what cause is sufficient to authorize police to stop a person. Terms like "articulable reasons" and "founded suspicion" are not self-defining; they fall short of providing clear guidance dispositive of the myriad factual situations that arise. But the essence of all that has been written is that the totality of the circumstancesthe whole picturemust be taken into account. Based upon that whole picture the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.' " (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 230, quoting United States v. Cortez (1981) 449 U.S. 411, 417-418.)
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