Writing Scripts for Silent Movies: How Officer Experience and High-Crime Areas Turn Innocuous Behavior into Criminal Conduct

This Note will begin by examining the historical background of the constitutional standards for search and seizure analysis. Next, it will address the gradual erosion of the particularized-suspicion requirement, illustrating the modern trend of courts to allow categorical judgments to serve as the basis for suspicion, as well as the move away from strict standards towards general reasonableness inquiries. The Note will then focus on officer training and experience, first addressing the seemingly inconsistent use of an officer’s subjective experiences in what is supposed to be a purely objective analysis of the basis of suspicion, then discussing the differing treatments of officer training and experience, as well as the “expert” nature of officer testimony. Then it turns to the high-crime area factor, highlighting the social, racial, and practical concerns implicated by the high-crime designation.  This portion of the Note concludes by providing an example of one court’s framework for determining whether a neighborhood merits the high-crime designation, requiring objective, quantifiable support. . .