Although reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause, neither inarticulate hunches nor an arresting officer’s subjective good faith suffices. Determining whether reasonable and articulable suspicion exists for an investigatory stop is a highly fact-intensive inquiry that demands evaluation of the totality of circumstances surrounding the police-citizen encounter. In many cases, the reasonable suspicion inquiry begins with the description police obtained regarding a person involved in criminal activity and whether that information was sufficient to initiate an investigatory detention.
In State v. Shaw, 213 N.J. 398 (2012), and State v. Caldwell, 158 N.J. 452 (1999), the Court determined that police lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct an evidentiary stop based on descriptions limited to the race and sex of the suspect. The Court reviews those cases in detail and notes that even inquiries or investigative techniques that do not qualify as searches and seizures must still comport with the Equal Protection Clause. And New Jersey jurisprudence is well-settled that seemingly furtive movements, without more, are insufficient to constitute reasonable and articulable suspicion. The totality of the circumstances of the encounter must be considered in a factsensitive analysis to determine whether officers objectively possessed reasonable and articulable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop.
With race being as sensitive an issue as ever in modern society, it may have influenced the Court’s objective analysis. The fact that the defendants all entered guilty pleas would usually be enough to encourage our appellate courts to affirm the police conduct and convictions.