Ransome v. State

¶1The State of Maryland contends that it is permissible for a police officer who observes a man doing nothing more than standing on a sidewalk on a summer night talking with a friend, to stop and frisk that person because (1) they were in a high-crime area, (2) the man had a bulge in his front pants pocket, (3) the man gazed at the unmarked police car containing three plain-clothed officers as it drove by and slowed to a stop, and (4) when the three officers got out of the car, approached the man, identified themselves as police officers, and one began to ask him questions, the man appeared nervous and avoided eye contact with the officer. The State is wrong. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) does not go quite that far.

¶2BACKGROUND

¶3The relevant facts, taken from testimony presented at a suppression hearing, are essentially undisputed. At around 11:20 p.m. on July 28, 2000, Officer Javier Moro and two other officers were cruising in an unmarked police car along the 100 block of North Decker Street in Baltimore City — an area that *101had produced numerous complaints of narcotics activity, discharging of weapons, and loitering. They were looking for “loitering activity, congregation on vacant steps, [and] loud groups of people hanging around the corners.” As they proceeded down the street, Moro noticed petitioner, Deshawn Ransome, with another man, either standing or walking on the sidewalk. Moro did not know petitioner or the other man and did not see them do anything unusual — petitioner did not reach into his pocket or exchange anything with the other man. They were not loitering or congregating on steps, and there is no evidence that they were loud or boisterous or hanging around a corner. They were simply there.

¶4As the car approached the pair, it slowed to a stop and petitioner turned to look at the car. Officer Moro, for some reason, regarded that as suspicious. He also noted that petitioner had a large bulge in his left front pants pocket, which Moro took as an indication that petitioner might have a gun. The three officers promptly exited the car, and Moro approached petitioner. A second officer engaged the other man while the third remained close by observing both encounters. Moro said that “based upon the bulge, I was going to conduct a stop and frisk,” but he decided to ask petitioner some questions first, “to buy me time to feel him out.” (Emphasis added). He asked petitioner first whether Moro could talk to him, to which petitioner gave no response. He then asked petitioner’s name and address, which petitioner gave. The address was about six or seven blocks away. Both answers were truthful.

¶5At that point, pursuant to his admitted intention, Moro directed petitioner to place his hands on top of his head and proceeded to pat down his waist area — not the pocket area where he had noticed the bulge. That was the moment, according to Officer Moro, that petitioner was no longer free to leave. Moro detected a small bulge, which he suspected was a controlled dangerous substance, and that led him to search further. When he discovered a bag of marijuana in the waist area, he placed petitioner under formal arrest and continued his search incident to that arrest. The extended *102search revealed that the bulge in petitioner’s pants pocket consisted of a roll of money — $946. In other parts of his clothing, Moro found 72 ziplock bags and some cocaine.

¶6Petitioner was charged with simple possession and possession with intent to distribute marijuana and cocaine. Upon the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence taken from him, petitioner proceeded to trial on an agreed statement of facts, was convicted, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed that judgment, and we granted certiorari to consider whether Officer Moro had reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop and frisk that led to the discovery of the challenged evidence. Believing that he did not, we shall hold that the evidence was inadmissible and shall therefore reverse the judgment of the intermediate appellate court.

¶7DISCUSSION

¶8The State does not even suggest, much less argue, that Officer Moro had probable cause to seize and search petitioner. The issue is whether, under the rules of engagement announced in Terry v. Ohio, supra,he had reasonable suspicion to frisk petitioner for possible weapons.

¶9Although hundreds — perhaps thousands — of stop and frisk cases have been decided since Terrywas filed in 1968, the pronouncements in that case still provide both the Constitutional rationale and the basic Constitutional boundaries of the street-encounter stop and frisk, and it is therefore helpful to start by looking at what the Court said there. The stop and frisk in Terrytook place after a seasoned police officer had observed two men, occasionally joined by a third, pacing back and forth along a short stretch of the street, pausing each time to look into a particular store window. This occurred about a dozen times over a twelve minute period. Suspicious that the men were “casing” the store in preparation for a robbery and concerned that they may therefore be armed, the officer confronted them and patted down their outer clothing, finding *103that each was in fact armed. The issue, as here, was the admissibility of the fruits of the pat-down search.

¶10The Court began its analysis by confirming that, although a mere accosting and engagement of a person in conversation may not invoke Fourth Amendment protections, a stop and frisk does — that when the officer grabbed Mr. Terry, there was a Fourth Amendment “seizure,” and that when he conducted his pat-down frisk, there was a search. Terry, supra,,392 U.S. at 19, 88 S.Ct. at 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d at 904-05. Noting that the Fourth Amendment proscribes “unreasonable” searches and seizures, the Court viewed the question as whether those actions, judged against an objective standard, were reasonable: “would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search ‘warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate?” Id. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 906 (quoting, in part, Carroll, v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162, 45 S.Ct. 280, 288, 69 L.Ed. 543, 555 (1925)). In that regard, the Court concluded that:

“When an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is in fact carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.”

¶11Id. at 24, 88 S.Ct. at 1881, 20 L.Ed.2d at 908. It iterated that point and restated its conclusion thusly:

“[T]here must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime. The officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent [person] in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his [or her] safety or that of others was in *104danger [citations omitted]. And in determining whether the officer acted reasonably in such circumstances, due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’ but to the specific reasonable inferences which [the officer] is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his experience.”

¶12Id. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d at 909. Earlier in the opinion, the Court made clear that, “in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion,” noting in a footnote that “[t]his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d at 906.

¶13The case law since Terryhas refined, in a myriad of contexts, the circumstances under which a seizure actually occurs, when a search exceeds the proper bounds of a Terryfrisk, and how the factual circumstances known to and articulated by the officer are to be viewed in determining whether they suffice to engender a reasonable suspicion, but the fundamental contours of Terryremain in place. See United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273-74, 122 S.Ct. 744, 750-51, 151 L.Ed.2d 740, 749-50 (2002); Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123-24, 120 S.Ct. 673, 675-76, 145 L.Ed.2d 570, 575-76 (2000); Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 695-96, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1661, 134 L.Ed.2d 911, 918-19 (1996); Nathan v. State, 370 Md. 648, 659-60, 805 A.2d 1086, 1093 (2002); Cartnail v. State, 359 Md. 272, 285-86, 753 A.2d 519, 526-27 (2000).

¶14One of the clarifications made by the Supreme Court is that, in determining whether an officer possessed a reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a stop and frisk, the court must look at the “totality of the circumstances” and not parse out each individual circumstance for separate consideration, Arvizu, supra,534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. at 751, 151 L.Ed.2d at 750; United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 8, 109 S.Ct. 1581,1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1, 10 (1989), and that it must allow the police officers “to draw on their own experience and special*105ized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that ‘might well elude an untrained person.’ ” Arvizu, supra,534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. at 750-51, 151 L.Ed.2d at 750-51 (quoting, in part, United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 629 (1981)). A factor that, by itself, may be entirely neutral and innocent, can, when viewed in combination with other circumstances, raise a legitimate suspicion in the mind of an experienced officer.

¶15Seizing upon that, the State urges that we take into account not only Officer Moro’s observation and concern about the bulge in petitioner’s left front pocket, but also the fact that this was a high-crime area from which complaints about drug activity, loitering, and shootings had come, that it was late at night and the lighting was poor, that petitioner gazed upon the police car as it approached the pair but then declined to keep eye contact when confronted by Officer Moro, and that petitioner appeared nervous when the officer briefly questioned him. Viewing all of those circumstances together, it argues that Officer Moro had reasonable suspicion to believe that petitioner was armed and dangerous and that the pat-down for weapons was therefore justified.

¶16It is true that, in his testimony at the suppression hearing, Officer Moro noted that the area was a high-crime one, which is why he and his fellow officers were assigned to patrol it. He also recounted that petitioner stopped and looked at the car as it approached, and that, as Moro questioned petitioner, he ceased making eye contact and “his voice was getting real nervous.” At one point, he stated that his decision to conduct the frisk was “based upon what I’m seeing with the bulge in his pocket and the way the defendant’s mannerism, the way he’s talking to me.” Although, for purposes of this appeal, we shall assume that all of those circumstances went into the mix, we do pause to note that the extent to which they, or indeed any of them, were truly a factor in the decision to stop and frisk petitioner is not at all clear. In response to questions from the court, Officer Moro stated that his decision to stop *106and frisk petitioner was based solely on his observation of the bulge in petitioner’s pocket and his immediate conclusion from that bulge that petitioner may be armed. He said first that “based upon just observing the bulge alone of being possibly a hard object or weapon that that would give me enough reasonable suspicion as well as becoming [fearful] of my safety and my other officers, that I had enough to go do a stop and frisk on this gentleman.” A moment later, he confirmed that “[b]ased upon the bulge, I was going to conduct a stop and frisk. The reason I asked these questions was just to buy me time to feel him out, but I was — at that point, I was going to do a stop and frisk.”1

¶17Perhaps in recognition of the central role that the pocket bulge played in Officer Moro’s decision to conduct the stop and frisk, the State asks us to look at “the plethora of cases” in which courts have sustained such conduct “in factually similar circumstances.” It turns our attention first to Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977), which, in its view, stands for the proposition that “a bulge alone may justify a frisk.” We think that the State gives Mimmstoo expansive a reading.

¶18In Mimms, the police observed the defendant driving on an expired tag. They pulled him over and ordered him out of the *107car. As he alighted, they noticed a large bulge under his sport coat, apparently in his waist area, and, fearful that the bulge might be a weapon, patted down that area and discovered a loaded revolver. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed Mimms’s conviction for carrying a concealed weapon on the ground that the police had no authority to order Mimms out of the car and that their doing so constituted an impermissible seizure. In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court reversed that decision, holding that the hazards facing officers when engaged in traffic stops justified the minor intrusion of removing the driver from the car. The Court further concluded that the bulge in the waist area of the jacket permitted the officer to conclude that Mimms was armed and dangerous and that it was therefore reasonable for the officer, in that circumstance, to conduct the pat-down. It is that part of Mimmsupon which the State relies.

¶19The Court recognized in Terrythat encounters between the police and citizens “are incredibly rich in diversity,” that “[n]o judicial opinion can comprehend the protean variety of the street encounter,” and that “we can only judge the facts of the case before us.” Terry, supra,392 U.S. at 13, 15, 88 S.Ct. at 1875, 1876, 20 L.Ed.2d at 901, 902; see also Ornelas, supra, 517 U.S. at 696, 116 S.Ct. at 1661-62, 134 L.Ed.2d at 919; Cortez, supra,449 U.S. at 417, 101 S.Ct. at 695, 66 L.Ed.2d at 628-29. Gertrude Stein’s characterization of the rose does not fit: when judging the facts under the Fourth Amendment Terryrubric, we reject the notion that a bulge is a bulge is a bulge is a bulge, no matter where it is, what it looks like, or the circumstances surrounding its observation. We accept, as Mimmsand our own knowledge of what occurs with alarming frequency on our streets require us to do, that a noticeable bulge in a man’s waist area may well reasonably indicate that the man is armed. Ordinarily, men do not stuff bulky objects into the waist areas of their trousers and then walk, stand, or drive around in that condition; regrettably, the cases that we see tell us that those who go aimed do often carry handguns in that fashion. We can take judicial notice of the fact, however, that, as most men do not carry purses, they, of *108necessity, carry innocent personal objects in their pants pockets — wallets, money clips, keys, change, credit cards, cell phones, cigarettes, and the like — objects that, given the immutable law of physics that matter occupies space, will create some sort of bulge. To apply Mimms, which involved a large bulge in the waist area observed upon the stop of a man who had been driving on an expired tag, uncritically to any large bulge in any man’s pocket, would allow the police to stop and frisk virtually every man they encounter. We do not believe that Mimms, or any other Supreme Court decision, was intended to authorize that kind of intrusion.

¶20There have been, to be sure, many cases in which a bulge in a man’s clothing, along with other circumstances, has justified a frisk, and those cases are entirely consistent with Terry. See, for example, United States v. Hassan El, 5 F.3d 726 (4th Cir.1993) (after traffic stop in high-crime area, police observed defendant, a passenger in the car, moving his hands toward a bulge in the center of his waistband); United States v. Baker, 78 F.3d 135 (4th Cir.1996) (police stopped car after it ran red light and, together with other cars apparently driving in tandem, took evasive action, observed triangular shaped bulge under front of driver’s shirt near waistband of pants, ordered driver to raise shirt and saw gun when he did so); United States v. $84,000 U.S. Currency, 717 F.2d 1090 (7th Cir.1983) (defendant, meeting drug courier profile, questioned at airport and admitted his luggage contained some marijuana and cocaine; officer noticed bulge in pants legs near top of boots; patted down for safety); People v. DeBour, 40 N.Y.2d 210, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562 (1976) (defendant encountered on deserted street after midnight in mid-October; said he had no identification; police noted waist-high bulge in defendant’s jacket; when, at officer’s request, defendant unzippered jacket, police saw handgun); State v. Sleep, 590 N.W.2d 235 (S.D.1999) (defendant stopped for erratic driving; while he accompanied officer to patrol car, officer noticed bulge in right front pocket and asked if he had a weapon; defendant admitted having a knife and gave it to officer; officer then noticed two bulges in left pocket and when defendant refused to say *109what they were, officer patted the area); Woody v. State, 765 A.2d 1257 (Del.2001) (defendant spotted with two other men behind residence in high-crime area at 9:30 on January night, ran away when he noticed uniformed officers and was seen clutching bulge in left front coat pocket; when apprehended, police patted area); State v. Schneider, 389 N.W.2d 604 (N.D. 1986) (as defendant sat in patrol car awaiting issuance of traffic ticket, officer noticed bulge under defendant’s coat that appeared to be a revolver in a shoulder holster and patted the area); Commonwealth v. Graham, 554 Pa. 472, 721 A.2d 1075 (1998) (at 1:45 a.m., officer noticed three men on porch of day care center, recognized the men and knew that warrant was outstanding for one of them; as men walked away, officer stopped them, noticed bulge in left front pocket of second man and conducted pat-down); United States v. Trullo, 809 F.2d 108, 113-14 (1st Cir.1987) (after observing appellant engage in what officer believed was drug transaction in high-crime area, officer stopped defendant’s car and had him get out, in the process noticed bulge in his right front pocket and patted it; court stressed that generalized suspicions about those engaged in drug trade being armed became particularized upon observation of bulge); United States v. Roggeman, 279 F.3d 573 (8th Cir.2002) (as defendant was alighting from truck following traffic stop, officer noticed bulge in right fi-ont pocket of a size consistent with small caliber handgun).

¶21Each of those cases presents a combination of circumstances justifying a reasonable belief that the bulge noticed by the officer may be a weapon or that criminal activity may be afoot, a combination lacking here. Officer Moro never explained why he thought that petitioner’s stopping to look at his unmarked car as it slowed down was suspicious or why petitioner’s later nervousness or loss of eye . contact, as two police officers accosted him on the street, was suspicious. As noted, Terryrequires the officer to point to “specific and articulable facts” justifying his conduct. Unlike the defendants in the cited cases, or indeed in Terry, petitioner had done nothing to attract police attention other than being on the street with a bulge in his pocket at the same time Officer *110Moro drove by. He had not committed any obvious offense, he was not lurking behind a residence or found on a day care center porch late at night, was not without identification, was not a known criminal or in company with one, was not reaching for the bulge in his pocket or engaging in any other threatening conduct, did not take evasive action or attempt to flee, and the officer was not alone to face him.

¶22The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals made the point quite well in United States v. Wilson, 953 F.2d 116 (4th Cir.1991). There, the district court found that an officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop and frisk, based .in part upon the observation of a bulge in the defendant’s coat pocket. Id. at 120. In reversing the district court’s refusal to suppress evidence obtained from the frisk, the Court of Appeals stated:

“The bulge is not the sort of observation that has any significance. A coat pocket is a quite usual location for a bulky object, and there is no indication that Wilson attempted to obscure the agents’ view of the bulge. See United States v. Millan, 912 F.2d 1014, 1017 (8th Cir.1990) (observation of two bulges in suspect’s inner coat pockets not of a suspicious nature). Our decisions that mention bulges as a factor in the reasonable suspicion analysis all involve attempts by a suspect to hide the bulge and/or the observation of a bulge in an unusual location.”

¶23Id. at 125; see also United States v. Cooper, 43 F.3d 140 (5th Cir.1995) (“[w]hile the district court rejected the position that the ‘suspicious bulge’ was an articulable fact contributing to the officer’s reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot, we disagree. A large bulge located in such an unusual place on a suspect may be a factor warranting reasonable suspicion.”); United States v. Powell, 886 F.2d 81 (4th Cir. 1989); United States v. Aguiar, 825 F.2d 39 (4th Cir.1987); United States v. Lehmann, 798 F.2d 692 (4th Cir.1986); United States v. Harrison, 667 F.2d 1158 (4th Cir.1982).

¶24The command that we generally respect the inferences and conclusions drawn by experienced police officers does not require that we abandon our responsibility to make the ulti*111mate determination of whether the police have acted in a lawful manner or that we “rubber stamp” conduct simply because the officer believed he had a right to engage in it. We understand that conduct that would seem innocent to an average layperson may properly be regarded as suspicious by a trained or experienced officer, but if the officer seeks to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion based on that conduct, the officer ordinarily must offer some explanation of why he or she regarded the conduct as suspicious; otherwise, there is no ability to review the officer’s action. See United States v. Gooding, 695 F.2d 78, 82 (4th Cir.1982) (although the court should consider the officer’s subjective perceptions that may escape an untrained observer, “any such special meaning must be articulated to the courts and its reasonableness as a basis for seizure assessed independently of the police officers’ subjective assertions, if the courts rather than the police are to be the ultimate enforcers of the principle.”) (citing Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 61 L.Ed.2d 357, 362 (1979)).

¶25We are fully cognizant of dangers constantly lurking on our streets and of the plight of conscientious police officers who have to make split-second decisions in balancing their duties, on the one hand, to detect and prevent crime and assure their own safety while, on the other, respecting the dignity and Constitutional rights of persons they confront. The conduct here, on the record before us, crossed the line. If the police can stop and frisk any man found on the street at night in a high-crime area merely because he has a bulge in his pocket, stops to look at an unmarked car containing three un-uniformed men, and then, when those men alight suddenly from the car and approach the citizen, acts nervously, there would, indeed, be little Fourth Amendment protection left for those men who live in or have occasion to visit high-crime areas. We hold that Officer Moro did not have a reasonable basis for frisking petitioner and that the evidence recovered by him as a result of the frisk and subsequent extended search was inadmissible.

¶26*112JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO .REVERSE JUDGMENT OF CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY AND REMAND THE CASE TO THAT COURT FOR NEW TRIAL; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.

¶28Today the Court holds that Officer Moro did not have a reasonable basis for frisking petitioner and that the evidence recovered by him as a result of the frisk and subsequent extended search was inadmissible. I agree. While I join in the Court’s opinion, I write separately for two reasons.

¶29First, it is important to note that while the circumstances do not support a Terry frisk, neither do the facts or circumstances support a Terry stop. See Carmouche v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323, 329 (Tex.Crim.App.2000) (noting that by stating that defendant’s pat-down search was justified because he had “ ‘reasonable suspicion to believe that [defendant] was involved in criminal activity,’ ” the intermediate appellate court improperly conflated the legal standard justifying the initial stop with the legal authority to conduct the frisk. “Terry and its progeny have carefully distinguished the two and emphasized the different justifications for each.”).

¶30Second, I disagree with the majority’s dicta that “if the officer seeks to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion based on that conduct, the officer ordinarily must offer some explanation of why he or she regarded the conduct as suspicious; otherwise, there is no ability to review the officer’s action.” Maj. op. at. 111, 816 A.2d at 908. The reasonable, articulable suspicion standard is an objective standard, not a subjective one, and does not hinge upon the subjective belief of an officer. There may be a reasonable, articulable basis for a stop or frisk even though that basis was not articulated at the suppression hearing.

¶31*113I. The Terry Stop

¶32In the instant case, the State’s sole basis for the encounter between petitioner and the police is that “[w]hen the officer saw the suspicious activity that led him to believe Ransome might have a handgun, the officer was entitled under Terry to stop him to investigate his suspicions and to frisk him to secure the officer’s safety.” 1 Sufficient and articulable facts to justify the limited intrusion of a Terry investigative stop are lacking. In order to have a valid Terry frisk, there must first be a valid Terry stop. Once a valid Terry stop has been made, police may conduct a frisk of the suspect if they have a reasonable, particularized, articulable suspicion that the suspect is armed. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

¶33To justify a Terrystop, an officer must have reasonable, articulable grounds to believe that a particular person is committing, is about to commit, or has committed a crime. A Terrystop is a commonly used investigative tool of law enforcement, often necessary to permit an officer to investigate criminal activity effectively and safely. The reasonable suspicion required for a Terrystop is more than a hunch, requiring at least “some minimal level of objective justification” based on the totality of the circumstances. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7-8, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989).

¶34In my view, sufficient grounds for a Terrystop are lacking in this case. The United States Supreme Court has stated *114repeatedly that it is not possible to articulate precisely the meaning of “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause.” See Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 695, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1661, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). The concepts are “commonsense, nontechnical conceptions that deal with ‘the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.’ ” Id.,517 U.S. at 695, 116 S.Ct. at 1661, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2328, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983)). If Ransome’s actions were sufficient to warrant a Terrystop, then anyone standing on a corner, talking with a friend in the late evening, in a high-crime area, with an unidentified “bulge” in a pocket, may be stopped. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Ransome was about to commit a crime or that he was committing a crime. The frisk or pat-down of Ransome cannot be justified as a protective Terryfrisk flowing from a valid Terrystop. Moreover, a Terryfrisk may not be used to see if a person is hiding something that may be evidence of illegal activity. In essence, a Terryfrisk is a limited pat-down for the protection and safety of the officer during an investigative detention. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93-94, 100 S.Ct. 338, 343, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979). “The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972).

¶35II. Reasonable, Articulable Suspicion

¶36In order to justify a stop or a frisk under the strictures of Terry, the police officer must “be able to point to specific and articulable facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. The standard to determine the reasonableness of a particular search or seizure is an objective one. The question is whether “the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that *115the action taken was appropriate.” Id. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. An investigatory Terrystop is permissible if the officer has specific and articulable cause to believe that criminal activity is afoot; a Terryfrisk is permissible if the officer has specific and articulable cause to believe that the individual stopped is armed and therefore poses a danger to himself or others.

¶37“Articulable” does not mean articulated. See Dennis v. State, 345 Md. 649, 660-62, 693 A.2d 1150, 1155-56 (1997) (Raker, J., dissenting). Reasonable suspicion is measured by an objective test, not a subjective one. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 1774, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996).2 Therefore, the validity of the stop or the frisk is not determined by the subjective or articulated reasons of the officer; rather, the validity of the stop or frisk is determined by whether the record discloses articulable objective facts to support the stop or frisk. See, e.g., United States v. McKie, 951 F.2d 399, 402 (D.C.Cir.1991) (noting that the standard under Terryis one of objective reasonableness, and thus “we are not limited to what the stopping officer says or to evidence of his subjective rationale; rather, we look to the record as a whole to determine what facts were known to the officer and then consider whether a reasonable officer in those circum*116stances would have been suspicious”); United States v. Hawkins, 811 F.2d 210, 212-15, 215 n. 5 (3d Cir.) (holding that Terrystop may be justified when circumstances presented a reasonable objective basis for a stop even though the officer’s stated reasons for the stop were pretextual), cert denied, 484 U.S. 833, 108 S.Ct. 110, 98 L.Ed.2d 69 (1987); State v. Heminover, 619 N.W.2d 353, 356-62 (Iowa 2000) (holding that the State is not limited to reasons stated by investigating officer as grounds to justify a stop because reasonable suspicion is an objective standard, and an officer’s subjective reasons for making a Terry stop are not controlling); City of Fargo v. Sivertson, 571 N.W.2d 137, 139, 141 (N.D.1997) (noting that subjective intent of arresting officer is not a factor in establishing reasonable suspicion for a Terrystop); State v. Hawley, 540 N.W.2d 390, 392-93 (N.D.1995) (holding that arresting officer had reasonable suspicion justifying a Terrystop despite the fact that he did not form any suspicion of criminal activity because reasonable suspicion is an objective, not subjective, standard); 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.4(a), at 138-40 (3d ed. 1996 & Supp.2003) (stating that the reasonable suspicion test under Terryis “purely objective and thus there is no requirement that an actual suspicion by the officer be shown;” “the objective grounds as to one offense are not defeated because the officer either thought or stated he was acting with regard to some other offense”). In this regard, I agree with the dissent of Judge Battaglia and Judge Cathell. See Diss. op. at 123, 816 A.2d at 915.

¶38The appropriate test is not what the investigating officer articulates, but whether, looking at the record as a whole, a reasonable officer in those circumstances would have reasonably believed petitioner was engaged in criminal activity or about to do so. This is not to say that an officer’s expertise gained from special training and experience can never be helpful. When an investigating officer has specialized training and testifies to inferences and deductions that may appear innocent to the untrained observer, the court may take that testimony into consideration in determining whether reasonable suspicion exists. The court is not bound by such testimo*117ny, nor is such testimony required. The officer’s perceptions, deductions or inferences do not necessarily amount to objective facts.

¶39The majority’s view that “if the officer seeks to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion based on that conduct, the officer ordinarily must offer some explanation of why he or she regarded the conduct as suspicious; otherwise, there is no ability to review the officer’s action” is based on United States v. Gooding, 695 F.2d 78 (4th Cir.1982), a case that pre-dated Whren. This notion does not reflect the view of the majority of courts, and I have serious doubts that it is still viable in light of Whren.

¶40I join in the judgment of the Court because I believe that, on this record as a whole, the officer did not have reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop or frisk petitioner.